{"id":21994,"date":"2025-07-11T10:30:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T09:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/?p=21994"},"modified":"2025-07-11T10:30:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T09:30:10","slug":"placing-udaipur-the-james-tod-collection-at-the-ras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/placing-udaipur-the-james-tod-collection-at-the-ras\/","title":{"rendered":"Placing Udaipur: the James Tod Collection at the RAS"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]The Society\u2019s library recently received a kind donation from the Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation (MMCF) in Udaipur (Rajasthan, India) of its beautiful exhibition catalogue Picturing Place: Painted and Printed Maps at the Udaipur Court<\/em>. This exhibition charts how visual representations of topography and territory in Udaipur were transformed during the 19th and early 20th centuries under British colonial influence. The introduction of new European map-making practices looms large in this story.<\/p>\n

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The palace and town of Udaipur as seen from the East, by Patrick Waugh. Graphite and sepia wash on European paper, c. 1820. RAS 037.003<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The MMCF\u2019s gift is a reminder of the longstanding connections between the Society and Udaipur. The Society\u2019s first librarian, Lt-Col James Tod (1782\u20131835), was the first British Political Agent (1818\u201322) to the Western Rajput States, which included Udaipur. During this tenure, Tod made Udaipur his administrative headquarters as well as a much loved home. Significantly, earlier in his career (1805\u201316) Tod directed the earliest western-style cartographic survey of Rajasthan which resulted in his now famous map of the region. But Tod did not work alone. Although Tod personally surveyed several of Rajasthan\u2019s districts, the lion\u2019s share of the work was conducted by two Indian survey teams led by Madarri Lal and Sheikh Abul Birkat. Tod paid heartfelt tributes to these two men in his classic Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan<\/em> which, importantly, reproduced the map.<\/p>\n

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Detail of the central portion of Tod\u2019s Map of Rajasthan<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Little is known about Tod\u2019s two cartographic assistants and further research on this topic awaits in the National Archives of India, where most of the correspondence and notebooks relating to Tod\u2019s map making exercise are now located. However, other collaborative endeavours with Indian interlocutors under Tod\u2019s direction are better known. Perhaps the most interesting and productive of these was the artistic collaboration between the Udaipur court artist Ghasi, who was seconded to Tod\u2019s service while he was Political Agent, and Patrick Young Waugh (1788\u20131829), who was Tod\u2019s subaltern.<\/p>\n

When not commanding Tod\u2019s military escort, Waugh was a keen amateur watercolourist who often sketched alongside Ghasi. The Society\u2019s collections are especially rich in the works of these two artists, and it is clear that Waugh greatly valued his association with Ghasi. Waugh\u2019s appreciation is attested by the fact that he frequently inserted vignettes of the two working together in his renderings of the architectural sites they recorded.<\/p>\n

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The so-called palace of Rana Bhim and Padmini at Chitor, by Patrick Waugh. Ink and sepia wash on European paper, c. 1822. RAS 037.004i<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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(Left) Detail of the preceding (RAS 037.004i) showing Waugh, holding his drawing board, with Ghasi, to his right; (Right) Detail of RAS 037.003 showing Waugh and Ghasi working side-by-side<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

For his part, Ghasi was able to adapt his traditional Rajasthani training in the depiction of court and palace scenes at Udaipur to suit Tod\u2019s desire to record the monuments of the region within the European sensibilities of technical drawing and architectural draftsmanship.<\/p>\n

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Exterior view of a fort with temple, attributed to Ghasi. Ink on European paper, c. 1819. RAS 037.147<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, not all of Ghasi\u2019s drawings\u00a0for Tod were dry, academic exercises. For example, he sometimes included subtle, visual jokes within his drawings that poked fun at Tod and, he frequently animated his architectural representations with an organic liveliness that belies what an unschooled, European eye might see as an inert stone structure. Ghasi\u2019s artistic vision that recognised no boundaries between the (super)natural and man-made worlds informed the \u2018sublime\u2019 aesthetic of Waugh\u2019s own artwork that depicted Rajasthan\u2019s monuments alternately emerging out of or receding into the surrounding landscape.<\/p>\n

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The northern elevation of the Samadhishvara Temple (often called the Rana Mokul Temple) at Chitor, by Ghasi. Ink on handmade Indian paper, c. 1822. RAS 037.174<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After Tod left Udaipur for England in 1822, Ghasi returned to the Maharana of Udaipur\u2019s court atelier, where he had a successful career, once again working within a Rajasthani idiom that only subtly betrayed his time under Tod\u2019s patronage. Curiously, after Ghasi returned to the Maharana\u2019s atelier, Waugh appears to have abruptly stopped his artistic endeavours. He died tragically at Shahpura in Rajasthan seven years later after a fall from his horse.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Norbert Peabody<\/p>\n

~~~~~<\/p>\n

Those wishing to purchase catalogue of Picturing Place<\/em> may email the Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation<\/a> at: mmcf@etrernalmewar.in<\/a><\/p>\n

The Society\u2019s fully restored, limited edition re-issue of Tod\u2019s Annals and Antiquities of Rajast\u2019han <\/em>with a Companion Volume<\/em> by Norbert Peabody and a full-size, facsimile reproduction of the map (co-published with Yale University Press) is available for purchase at:<\/p>\n

For the Americas: yalebooks.yale.edu\/book\/9780300270525\/annals-and-antiquities-of-rajasthan<\/a><\/p>\n

For the rest of the world: yalebooks.co.uk\/book\/9780300270525\/annals-and-antiquities-of-rajasthan<\/a>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]The Society\u2019s library recently received a kind donation from the Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation (MMCF) in Udaipur (Rajasthan, India) of its beautiful exhibition catalogue Picturing Place: Painted and Printed Maps at the Udaipur Court. This exhibition charts how visual representations of topography and territory in Udaipur were transformed during the 19th and early…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7635,"featured_media":21995,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[236],"tags":[777,2751,544,1023,2646,2631],"class_list":["post-21994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-library","tag-annals-and-antiquities-of-rajasthan","tag-british-india","tag-james-tod","tag-maps","tag-rajasthan","tag-udaipur"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7635"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21994"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22023,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21994\/revisions\/22023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/royalasiaticsociety.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}