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A FOUNDATIONAL MAP OF RAJPOOTANA: DETAILING THE RAJPUT PRINCIPALITIES OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN INDIA

This historically significant map was engraved under the supervision of Lt Col James Tod, the first British political agent to the western Rajput States, and originally issued to accompany his celebrated two-volume work, Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan (published 1829–32). It represents one of the earliest attempts to... A FOUNDATIONAL MAP OF RAJPOOTANA: DETAILING THE RAJPUT PRINCIPALITIES OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN INDIA

This historically significant map was engraved under the supervision of Lt Col James Tod, the first British political agent to the western Rajput States, and originally issued to accompany his celebrated two-volume work, Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan (published 1829–32). It represents one of the earliest attempts to systematically map the complex geopolitical landscape of Rajputana (Rajasthan)—a region then comprising semi-autonomous princely states under the suzerainty of the East India Company.

Based on local Rajput surveys, sketchbooks, oral traditions, and Tod’s own administrative intelligence, the map is both a visual and political artefact—rendering clan boundaries, forts, rivers, and trade routes with careful attention. Key Rajput polities such as Mewar, Marwar, Jaipur, Bundi, Kota, Bikaner, Jaisalmer, and others are delineated, many for the first time in British cartographic print.

This was not a standard East India Company survey map but a hybrid artefact—combining British cartographic techniques with indigenous historical geography. As such, it became a cornerstone of early ethnographic and historical cartography in colonial India, influencing both imperial knowledge systems and the romantic imagination of the Rajput states in the British public sphere.

While later surveyors like Arrowsmith or the Survey of India would refine the topographic detail, Tod’s map retains primacy as the first serious European effort to “read” Rajasthan politically, culturally, and spatially on its own terms.

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