Map-making in ancient India
Also called: Seven dwipas · Topic: Maps and Map Scale · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 1 "Introduction to Maps"
Meaning
Map-making in ancient India has its roots in Vedic astronomy and cosmology (ideas about the shape and order of the universe). These ideas were written down in the siddhantas (laws) of the astronomers Aryabhata, Varahamihira and Bhaskara. Ancient scholars divided the known world into seven dwipas, or large land regions. The Mahabharata imagined the world as round and surrounded by water. These ideas show that India had an early tradition of thinking about the earth's shape and its parts.
Example
In this tradition, Jambudvipa was the dwipa (land region) that held India. It sat at the centre of the seven dwipas, which were drawn as rings of land and ocean around one another.
Don't confuse with
- Ptolemy's map of the world: Ptolemy's 2nd-century CE map was Greek and was drawn on a grid of latitude and longitude. The seven-dwipa scheme describes the world through cosmology, not through a measured grid.