Page 317 - Eye of the beholder

The presence of animal motifs in this map offers importance and interest. Camels are representatives of the arid regions of Afghanistan, in the vicinity of Kabul. Pictures of elephants indicate the region of the Indo-Gangetic plains in north India. In addition to representing the natural fauna of the land, the presence of these so called ‘exotic animals’ unknown in Europe but integral to tropical lands as India was to enhance the sales of the maps as something novel. The names of regions, rivers, and important landmarks have been Latinized to a large extent in the Magni Mogolis Imperium The region shown in the map, for example is titled “India Intra Gangem Indostan”. The Ganga is Latinized to “Ganges fluvius”; the Yamuna/Jamuna to “Gemini fluvius”. The province of Punjab is written as “Peniab”, while some of the regions can no longer be identified from their names.
It is interesting also to note that many of the major Indian cities do not feature in this map. In eastern India, Calcutta finds no mention, as the city was to be founded more than 100 years later. In the west, Bombay is not mentioned, though the nearby city of Surat finds prominence. It is thus fair to assume that at the time the Magnum Mogolis Imperium was drawn, Bombay was not a settlement deserving special mention. Interestingly, there is a coastal settlement labelled “Bombaira” in the map at almost the same location as modern Mumbai/Bombay, leading one to believe that this village of “Bombaira” grew to become Bombay. Obviously, Delhi finds a prominent mention in the map, as it was then the capital of the Mughal Empire, and had already been an important city for several centuries.
In recent times, antique maps have fetched record prices at auctions, and continue to increase in value. While in the past the demand has been mostly for maps of European countries and some 18th- and 19th-century maps of America at the time of colonization, more recently maps of the Indian subcontinent have fast gained in popularity.
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