Introduction:
A few months ago, I was trolling through the massive library at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute for research materials. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, just something that would help me better understand the political landscape of India in what was its Early Modern Era – between the 1500s and the 1700s. As I wandered through the labyrinth of towering bookshelves (I highly recommend the BORI library for anyone interested in reading more on Indian history), I came across a bundle. The bundle was wrapped carefully and tied up with a single piece of string. Opening it, I saw inside a collection of well preserved maps.
I flipped through the maps, which all seemed to have come loose from an atlas, and I came across some truly fascinating political maps of the Indian Subcontinent, from 1398 all the way to 1795. I had no idea what I had stumbled across, at the time, but I knew that what I had was something special. Immediately, I had them digitised and emailed them to myself.
Later, while at home, I did a little research into the maps – based off the information I could find on the maps themselves – and found out that the maps came from the Johnston Atlas of India. Written and published by W. & A. K. Johnston in 1894, for dissemination across universities and schools in England, the Johnston Atlas of India is one of the best atlases of historic India. The historical maps in it, alongisde topographical and geological, are some of the most accurate maps that have been produced on the territories and borders of Indian Empires and Kingdoms across centuries. It was also at this moment that I discovered that this is an extremely rare book and an original is often priced at between 400 and 500 pounds (40,000 to 50,000 ruppees) at auctions! That’s the price of a PS5 or an Xbox Series X! I knew then just how special my special little scans were.
Below, you will find all 6 scans in chronological order and will talk about them just a little bit. They are transparent PNGs so feel free to download them.
India in 1398:
The most imposing feature on this map is doubtlessly the “Afghan Empire”. Modern readers, such as yourselves, know it by another name, the Delhi Sultanate. By 1398, gone was the Delhi Sultanate of Alaudin Khilji and Qutb ud-Din Aibak. The once mighty and feared Sultanate was on its last legs. Though it would officially fall in the First Battle of Panipat in 1526 and the death of Ibrahim Lodi, it was very much on its deathbead by the 1390s. Over time, it would only grow smaller and smaller as more and more people began to revolt. Further south, we see the Vijayanagara Empire. In 1398, under its Emperor Harihara II, the Empire would expand further north and chip away at the Bahmani Sultanate, the other great nation on this map. The Bahmanis would become a great nuiscance to the Vijayanagara Empire over the next Century.
India in 1525:
Our next map jumps almost 200 years and, by 1525, the imposing Delhi Sultanate that controlled all of North India in 1398, is fractured and in pieces. They are now only a year away from total destruction at the hands of the invading conqueror, Babur. The Vijaynagara Empire is now seen at its peak. Their mortal enemy, the Bahmani Sultanate, can be seen broken into pieces and the Golconda, Bijapur, Ahmednagar, Berar and Bidar Sultanates – collectively known as the Deccan Sultanates – have replaced it. The Vijayanagara Empire’s most famous Emperor – Krishnadevraya (or Krishna Dev Raya) – eliminated the last traces of the Bahmanis in 1520. Unfortunately, for the Vijayanagara Empire, in about 40 years they would suffer the same fate under the combined armies of the Deccan Sultanates. On the Western Coast, we can see a small exclave that is controlled by none of these great powers- Goa. The Portuguese Admiral Aphonso de Albuquerque had conquered Goa from the Bijapur Sultanate in 1510 with the help of a Hindu Privateer, Timoja, and his fleet. Timoja was a privateer (a private sailor in the employ of an Empire or Kingdom) for the Vijayanagara Empire and the Vijayanagaras saw fit to eliminate the Sultanate’s power where they could.
India in 1605:
In less than a century, the unstoppable Mughal Empire has sprawled across North India. For the first time in centuries, India is beginning to look like one nation, despite the disappearance of the Vijayanagara Empire. The Bijapur, Golconda and Ahmednagar Sulatanates have survived the rapid and incessant wars of the 1500s and have become the dominant power block in Southern India. The British East India Company has begun trading en-masse throughout India and more and more “firangis” (European travellers and merchants) are seen, wandering the roads and cities of India in wonder. The coming century would prove to be a century of rapid change in the Indian Subcontinent.
India in 1700:
The Moghul Empire now reigns supreme. The British, beginning in 1615 in Surat, have established factories all across the coastline of India. The great Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj had fought hard to establish the Maratha Kingdom, but Aurangzeb’s Armies, held off once upon a time by the brave soldiers of Shivaji, have steamrolled through the nascent nation. Now led by Tarabai Bhosale, the Maratha Army has returned to the methods of guerilla warfare and continues the fight against the Mughals. A fight they will eventually (in 1707) win. European nations, listed in the map above, have expanded their influence over the coastline of India. The city that would become the pulsating heart of modern India’s economy, Bombay, can now be seen on the Konkan Coastline. Though they have suffered a long list of defeats and raids at the hands of the Mughals and Marathas, the Europeans still soldier on.
India in 1751:
By 1751, the Mughal Empire had administratively collapsed. Despite Bahadur Shah I’s (Aurangzeb’s successor) adminstrative and religious reforms in which he repealed the religious oppression of Aurangzeb and restructured the Mughal administration and economy from one of war to one of peace, the Mughal Empire was crumbling. By 1748, under the weak leadership of Nasir ud-Din Shah (AKA Mizra Shah and Muhammad Shah), the Mughal Empire broke up entirely. Nader Shah, the Shah of Iran, broke the once mighty Mughal Armies and sacked Delhi in 1739 and even though the Mughal Empire defeated the British in the First Carnatic War (1744-1748), they had comprehensively lost the Second Carnatic War (1749-1754) and were now an insignificant power in India. By contrast, the once conquered Marathas were taking more and more territory that had belonged to the Mughals. The British, under the command of Robert Clive (known famously as Clive of India), are now growing their army (made up almost entirely of ex-Mughal Soldiers) and the stage is set for the explosive rise of the Maratha Empire.
India in 1795:
The Marathas are now at the height of their power. The British East India Company becomes the first private organisation in history to control a nation, following their victory in the Battle of Plassey (1757). Though they fought the occasional skirmish with Tipu Sultan, the Marathas’ main focus was on the British. They had defeated them, fairly soundly, in the First Anglo-Maratha War, but the Marathas knew that the British would come again. With the wealth the EIC had secured after their conquest of Bengal, they quickly began to raise another army and train more troops. Despite the excellent foreign policy of Nana Fadnavis (a high ranking Maratha minister, akin to a Foreign Minister in today’s parlance), there was little the Marathas could do. Perhaps their greatest mistake was to interfere in the Third Anglo-Mysore War on the side of the EIC against Tipu Sultan. The ravaged Mysorean Field Army, a consequence of the Third Anglo-Mysore War, could no longer withstand the pressure put on them by the EIC and finally, Mysore collapsed in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War. With the defeat of the Tiger of Mysore, Nana Fadnavis realised that there was no real way that the fractured leadership of the Maratha Empire could withstand the coming onslaught of the British. The Second Anglo-Maratha War, in which the Maratha Armies were comprehensively defeated, would set up India for the British. With the final and total defeat of the Maratha Empire in the Third Anglo-Maratha War, the East India Company would become the master of all India.
Sources:
W. & A. K. Johnston, Johnston’s Historical Atlass of India (London, 1894)
S. N. Athavle, “A Scrutiny of the Policy of Nana Fadnavis”, in The Indian History Congress, 14 (1951), pp. 238-254
Rory Mur, “The Maratha War (1803)”, in Rory Mur, Wellington: The Path to Victory (1769-1814) (Yale, 2013)
M. S. Anwar, “The Saffavids and the Mughal Relations with the Deccan States”, in The Indian History Congress, 52 (1991), pp. 255-262
Margaret Hunt, “The 1689 Mughal Siege of East India Company Bombay”, in History Workshop Journal of the Oxford University, 84 (2017), pp. 149-169
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