Nautical Maps

18 · Nautical Maps JOSEPH E. SCHWARTZBERG Although, as I noted in the introductory chapter on South nubhai Pandhi (resident of Kutch-Mandvi) have such Asian cartography, there is a brief description of what roz nama in their possession. Details of successive appears to be a nautical map in a Sanskrit epic poem voyages are entered, direction rather than speed is composed as early as the fifth century, that description mentioned.... Some roz nama contain shoreline sil does not give any clear idea of how the map might have houettes, directional instructions presented in the form of riddles, and one, at least, has a coastal map looked or of how it was drawn.1 In subsequent centuries, of western India including Ceylon. Various calcula various writers left records that certain scholars have tions may also be found. The sun appears to be used interpreted as suggesting that Indian navigators, among for position-finding during the day.3 others sailing in the Indian Ocean region, may have pro duced some type of maritime charts before the advent The Dushyanta Pandya that Varadaraja mentions had, of the Portuguese. But, in his review of the available in 1980, no fewer than seven roz nama in his possession. literature, summarized above in "The Role of Charts in The oldest, dated not later than A.D. 1664, written in Islamic Navigation in the Indian Ocean" in part 1, Gerald Kutchi and comprising some thirty-five folios, was Tibbetts concludes that there are no firm grounds for acquired by the National Museum in New Delhi in the believing that Arabs, or by implication South Asians, early 1980s. The cartographic portion of that manual made or possessed "practical" navigation charts before (also called pothi) has been the object of a detailed and the sixteenth century.2 Of one fact, however, we are cer exceedingly well informed study by B. Arunachalam.4 I tain: the earliest known nautical maps from South Asia also inspected the original document in New Delhi in date only from 1664. In what follows, we shall examine February 1984.5 Photographs of all five maps contained the few maps that have survived and consider textual in the manual are provided in figures 18.1, 18.2, and 18.3. evidence on others that are no longer extant. Whether Figure 18.4 indicates the area of coverage of each of these we can project this evidence back before 1500 to pos charts. tulate the earlier existence of such charts is still an open 1. See above, p. 321. question and awaits solid evidence. But even without 2. See pp. 256-62, esp. 262. such evidence it will be in order to present some factors 3. Lotika Varadarajan, "Traditions of Indigenous Navigation in bearing on the likelihood that cartographic concepts, and Gujarat," South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, n.s., 3, no. 1 possibly even maps themselves, were diffused before Oune 1980): 28-35; quotation on 29. 1664, the date that can now be firmly established. 4. Professor Arunachalam is head of the Department of Geography at the University of Bombay; see his "The Haven-Finding Art in Indian Based on conversations with informants residing in Navigational Traditions and. Cartography," in The Indian Ocean: some of the port towns of Gujarat that are still visited Explorations in History, Commerce, and Politics, ed. Satish Chandra by small commercial sailing craft (now usually with aux (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1987), 191-221. This essay was originally iliary motors), Varadarajan observes: published under the title "The Haven Finding Art in Indian Navigational Traditions and Its Applications in Indian Navigational Cartography," Those navigating the high seas do possess maps and Annals of the National Association of Geographers, India 5, no. 1 charts. These records do not fall into the category of (1985): 1-23. I will cite the 1987 publication, which differs minimally log books, as skippers were not accountable in the from that of 1985, because of its presumed greater accessibility, the European sense. The records which they maintained greater clarity of its illustrations, and its relative lack of typographical were for their own professional guidance rather than errors. The essay is based not merely on careful inspection of the sur viving nautical charts and on archival research, but also on fieldwork constituting a daily record of the voyage. Such books at many localities along the Indian coast, among communities whose called roz nama were passed on from one mullam to members include individuals who can recall navigational traditions that another, each adding what was considered important are now either moribund or dead. for enlarging the compendium of knowledge rather 5. I found the work in a serious state of decay. At least two and than accumulating quotidian details. .. Shri Dush probably more folios of the original appear to have been lost. On many yanta Pandya (resident of jamnagar), and Dr. Ma- pages the ink from one side of the folio has bled through on either the 494 Nautical Maps 495 ceived appearance of specific constellations toward which ships were steered, together with the number ofstars used to identify that constellation. In figure 18.6, east (Ta'ir = (l Aquilae = Skt. Sravana nak~atra) is at the top, and Jah-Qutb represents the north-south axis. Each symbol appears twice on the card, at the directions of the rising and setting on the horizon of the constellation repre sented; hence the bilateral symmetry on either side of north. The cards were relatively accurate sailing guides for rhumbs close to north but increasingly inaccurate for sailing farther to the south.8 The compass card was used by providing a pair of symbols to be inscribed at either end of each of the numerous stellar rhumb lines drawn on the chart, so as to indicate sailing directions for specific legs of a voyage. Figure 18.7, adapted from Arunachalam (and correspond ing to the area represented by the right portion of fig. 18.3 and also rectangle E on fig. 18.4) illustrates the sys tem for sailing to the northeast of Kanniyakumari (Cape Comorin) at the southern tip of India and for sailing along any of the coasts of Sri Lanka.9 The lowest rhumb line on the map shows a west-east bearing and has symbols signifying those two directions. Above the eastern ter minus of that line is a rhumb, its symbols signifying a route from southwest to northeast. That it does not actually appear to go to the northeast (as it would on a European portolan chart or a Mercator projection) poses no difficulty, since it is the symbols rather than the appar ent direction of the line that matter to the map user. The next rhumb indicates, according to the symbols, a north FIG. 18.1. FOLIO OF AN INDIAN ROZ NAMA (NAUTICAL south bearing; but the line actually appears to be veering MANUAL). This Gujarati chart is watercolor and ink on paper, Kutchi language in Gujarati script, and dated V.S. 1710 (A.D. slightly farther to the east. Again, the apparent map direc 1644). The short portion of the Indian coast depicted here is tion is without significance. in the vicinity of the port of Coondapoor in Karnataka (area A We may also note in the examples above that the linear on fig. 18.4). distances along the stellar rhumb lines are not propor Size of the original page: approx. 29 x 21 cm (umorn). By tional to the actual distances represented on the earth's permission of the National Museum, New Delhi (MS. 82.263). Photograph by Joseph E. Schwartzberg. surface, which were not particularly well known. Since the coastal sailors had to rely on reaching visible land marks that were depicted on the map (about which I shall say more below), the nautical distances traversed were Essential to the traditional way of navigation by the stars and to the making of the maps under discussion was the use of a compass card; an example, from the overleaf or the facing page. The folios were nor individually numbered. National Museum manuscript, appears as figure 18.5. A 6. Arunachalam, "Haven-Finding Art," 201, fig. 2 (note 4); see also transliteration of the text of a comparable compass card, his figure 1 (p. 197) for various wind and star direction roses in use dated 1780, is provided by figure 18.6.6 Such cards cor along different parts of the Indian coast. respond closely to Arabic star compasses described by 7. James Prinsep, "Note on the Nautical Instruments of the Arabs," Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 5 (1836): 784-94, esp. 788 Prinsep and Tibbetts and probably are derived from Ara 92; Gerald R. Tibbetts, Arab Navigation in the Indian Ocean before bic prototypes that characteristically showed thirty-two the Coming of the Portuguese (London: Royal Asiatic Society of Great rhumbs or sailing directions marked off at even intervals Britain and Ireland, 1971; reprinted 1981), esp. 290-95; and Aruna 1 0 of 11 /4 • Some Indian compass cards, however, were chalam, "Haven-Finding Art," 200 (note 4); also History of Carto much simpler than the two I have illustrated. Chinese graphy, volume 2, book 2, forthcoming, and Mei-ling Hsu, "Chinese Marine Cartography: Sea Charts of Pre-modem China," Imago Mundi compass cards, while showing only twenty-four points, 40 (1988): 96-112, esp. 100, 102, and 103, fig. 4. were in other respects similar to those of the Arabs.? The 8. Arunachalam, "Haven-Finding Art," 200-201 (nore 4). symbols at the periphery of the card represent the per- 9.

Load more