Page 316 - Eye of the beholder

Maps of India, much distorted in shape, appear in most world atlases from the time of Ptolemy. The earliest maps showed India as a small stump protruding from South Asia, while the island of Ceylon or Sri Lanka was shown disproportionately larger. This trend of showing India much smaller than its actual size continued until the 17th century. The Magni Mogolis Imperium does not show India in its entirety, but there are some fascinating errors in the representation of certain places which make the map interesting. One of these is the representation of “Lake Chiamay” – a nonexistent mythical lake where many of the great rivers of South Asia were thought to have had their origins. The earliest mention of the “Chiamay Lacus” or the “Lake of Chiang Mai” occurs in a Portuguese report dating from the 1540s. Thereafter, the lake finds mention in various reports of varying authenticity. However, by the mid-1500s, the legend of the lake had become quite well established, and this featured in maps till the 18th century when finally in 1837 the McLeod and Richardson mission disproved its existence.
Nevertheless the Magni Mogolis Imperium is quite an accurate map for its time. More than that, it embodies the collective effort and knowledge of numerous explorers, scientists, and adventurers of its time. In addition, the sheer amount of dedication, effort, and attention to detail that went into the colouring and preparation of each copy of the map is phenomenal. As in other maps of the period, Magni Mogolis Imperium also features elaborate cartouches, with the title inscribed in a colour-shaded cartouche at the top left corner, while the bottom left corner has a much more elaborate one containing the seal and the details of the publisher and the printer.
It is interesting to note that many of the conventions used to depict geographical features have remained the same over the 100-odd years while little has changed. For example, while the hills and the forests are still depicted in pretty much the same manner, arable land is depicted by motifs of paddy fields. With the map of the Magni Mogolis Imperium there was increase in knowledge about India in the over 100 years since. The cities represented presumably were either important trading ports, or situated along important inland trading routes. While it is difficult to identify some of them today, many are easily recognizable by virtue of their location and the similarity of their names to extant cities. Thus Kolkata/Calcutta, the most important city in eastern India exists on the map as a small settlement.
Since the map is largely a political map depicting a vast area, smaller details have been omitted. The subject of the map, namely the kingdom of the Mughals, is demarcated from the rest by a uniform shade of light ochre yellow. The sea, as was the norm in those times, is depicted by a wash of plain colour. The trajectory of the rivers is amazingly accurate for the most part, and their size corresponds roughly with the thickness of the lines depicting them. Hills have been depicted as small mounds. The topography of the regions of the Deccan, Kutch, and further north has been depicted as having a preponderance of thick forests which is inaccurate. All the forts along the coast and on the mainland are depicted with great accuracy, presumably because of their geopolitical importance at that time.
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