Studies in Indian Historical Geography: From Ancient Sarasvati to the Railway Age

Historical geography in India, so far, had mainly meant the drawing of boundaries of different states that have emerged and then disappeared over time. This is certainly an important aspect which needs attention, and some of Zahoor Ali Khan’s articles in Studies in Indian Historical Geography: From Ancient Sarasvati to the Railway Age deal directly with issues of this nature. But historical geography has a much wider compass, ranging from alterations in river courses to territorial variations in cultural features such as religion and language use or economic phenomena. The author has used cartographic instruments to test existing hypotheses such as the common belief relating to the river Sarasvati or to find answers to questions relating to regional alterations in prices and wages as a result of the construction of the railways. Zahoor Ali Khan provides answers to such queries through maps prepared after an astonishing amount of labour, which the places shown in the maps may not fully indicate. The results are not only definitive in most cases, but open the doors to enquiry and speculation in new fields. A thoughtful reader should, therefore, find much to reflect on, based on the maps and the succinct texts that accompanies them.