One of the greatest projects of nineteenth century geography was the Great Trigonometric Survey of India. Bit by bit, the whole subcontinent was mapped with unprecedented precision. The English also wanted geographical information on the lands further north. This was not just out of scientific curiosity: The Russians were expanding their empire into Central Asia, and the English feared that might have set their eyes on India. Thus, the Russians and the English both tried to extend their influence in Asia. Knowledge of geography of the region was of course of utmost importance in this so-called 'Great Game'.
However, in some regions these surveys seemed impossible. Some of the Indian border countries, in particular Tibet, would not allow westerners to enter their country, let alone a British surveying team. In the 1860s, Thomas G. Montgomerie, a captain in the survey, realized that the solution to this problem would be to train natives from Indian border states such as Sikkim to be surveyors, and have them explore the region. These would raise less suspicion than Europeans, and might be able to make observations disguised as a trader or a lama (holy man). These native surveyors are called pundits, after a Hindi word for a man of learning.
A number of tricks were developed to enable the pundits to make their observations without being found out. They were trained to make exactly 2,000 paces to the mile. To count them, they used what looked like a buddhist rosary, but instead of the usual 108 beads had 100, every tenth being slightly larger. Every 100 paces a bead was dropped. A prayer wheel did not hold the usual buddhist prayer om mani padni hom, but maps and notes. Pundit Nain Singh also found that these could be used to ward off curious co-travellers: Each time someone came too near, he would start whirling the wheel around and thus pretend to be in religious contemplation. Usually this would be enough to stop others from addressing him. Another way of keeping their observation was to turn them into a poem, and recite that during their travels.
The pundits were given extensive training in surveying: They learned to use the sextant, determine height by measuring the temperature of boiling water, make astronomical observations. They also got a medical training. Despite the precautions and tricks, some of them were sent back, tortured or even executed. But with their travels they managed to map the Himalayas, Tibet and surrounding areas with remarkable precision. Their exploits are still little known and under-appreciated. They deserve to be counted among the greatest and most daring explorers in history.
The Singhs, the first Pundits
The Singhs had made very substantial contributions to the exploration of Tibet between 1865 and 1872. The journeys of Nain, Mani and Kalian had explored and mapped much of the Southwest of the country, while Nain had mapped southern Tibet along the Tsangpo and north of the river to Lhasa. Kishen had carried a route survey north of Lhasa for over a hundred miles to Tengri Nor and the Bul Lake. But most of Tibet still remained unvisited and unmapped. Between Tengri Nor and the Nganglaring Tso of Kalian Singh stretched over four hundred miles of virgin territory, quite unvisited, as were the further reaches of northern Tibet. In 1874 came the opportunity to penetrate this area, to map fresh territory, and to provide a new link between Lhasa and the surveys already conducted in Southwestern Tibet.
Nain Singh walked twelve hundred miles in the employ of the British Secret Service. Dressed as a pilgrim, he was dispatched to survey the road to Lhasa. Singh was specially trained to walk every pace at exactly 33 inches. His pilgrim’s rosary, on which he counted several million of those paces, was used to click off the distances. The rosary had only one hundred beads on it, instead of the sacred 108, and if any of the numerous guards, police, and customs officials had bothered to count he would have been instantly killed.
Singh’s pilgrim outfit had a few other special modifications. His tea bowl was used to hold mercury to find the horizon. His walking stick held a thermometer, which he would dip into the tea water just as it came to a boil and thus determine the altitude.
The biggest sacrilege, though, was Nain Singh’s prayer wheel. A prayer wheel is a holy object containing the Tibetan mantra “Om! Mane Padme Hum!” written many times on a scroll of paper. The scroll is put inside the wheel, and when it is spun the prayers are sent upwards. In Lhasa, and later in Dharamsala, huge prayer wheels will contain a million prayers, all sent with a spin of the mighty discs.
Inside Singh’s prayer wheel was his route survey, careful notes that showed the altitudes, the landmarks, and the distances that he walked. The route survey was brought back to Dehra Dun where Captain T. G. Montgomerie, the man who hired Nain Singh, was building a map.
The maps of India, indeed the maps of much of the world, were built by such linear route surveys. A man on a horse would be sent out in one direction and told to write down the distances he traveled, any landmarks, and any other significant information.
Back at headquarters, the route surveys would be collated together and slowly, maps of the country would be built. Later, the process became more systematic with the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, a massive undertaking that established well-known points of latitude and longitude and then gradually built triangles between the points until a full map of the coast and interior of India had been built.
The explorers, especially the romantic heroes such as Singh, are the ones that we often remember, but it is the process of collation and coordination that makes the exploration possible and real.
