India intra Gangem – India within the Ganges – was the Latin name used by Europeans for many centuries when they were referring to what we now call the Indian subcontinent or South Asia. This was to distinguish it from many other Indias, the name given for any land beyond the river Indus.
This book deals the maps of India from earliest times until the accurate surveys made in the nineteenth century. Comprising seven chapters, the story of how these maps came to be drawn is related. Also included is a detailed catalogue of maps of India that were printed up to 1800 and three indexes, making it to identify any loose sheet map of India that has become detached from the book it once used to illustrate.
In all sixty-five maps are reproduced, many of them for the first time since they were printed several centuries ago. Details from famous world maps are also shown, giving a fuller picture of how an accurate shape was gradually given to India on the maps. A few maps from ancient manuscripts by Indians have also been included.
Written in a lucid style, the book will charm the general reader as well as students of geography, history and socio¬logy. It is also a mine of information for the serious collector of early maps. |
