Nain Singh

Nain Singh (21 October 1830 – 1 February 1882),[lower-alpha 1][1] also known as Nain Singh Rawat, was one of the first of the late 19th century Indian explorers (pundits) who explored the Himalayas for the British. He came from the Johar Valley in Kumaon. He surveyed the trade route through Nepal to Tibet, determined for the first time the location[2] and altitude of Lhasa in Tibet, and surveyed a large section of the Brahmaputra. He walked "1,580 miles, or 3,160,000 paces, each counted."[2]

Nain Singh
Nain Singh on a 2004 stamp of India
Born21 October 1830
Milam Village
Died1 February 1882(1882-02-01) (aged 51)
Moradabad
NationalityIndian
OccupationAsian explorer

He was recruited as pundit by the British raj. In this context, Pandit is not his caste, it means the "learned explorer".

Early life

Rai Bahadur Nain Singh was born to Lata Burha in 1830 in Milam village, a Bhotia village at the foot of the Milam glacier on the India-China border in the present day Uttarakhand state of India. Milam is in the Johar Valley, one of the Bhotia abodes in the Kumaon division, where the river Goriganga originates. The Rawats ruled over the Johar Valley, during the reign of Chand dynasty in Kumaon; this was followed by the Gorkha rule. In 1816 the British defeated the Gorkhas but maintained a policy of non-interference and friendship towards the Johar Bhotias. The famous Bhotia explorers mostly belong to the villages of Johar.

After leaving school, Nain Singh helped his father. He visited different centres in Tibet with him, learned the Tibetan language, customs and manners and became familiar with the Tibetan people. This knowledge of Tibetan language and local customs and protocol came in handy in Nain Singh's work as a "spy explorer". Due to the extreme cold conditions, Milam and other villages of the upper Johar valley are inhabited only for a few months from June to October. During this time the men used to visit Gya'nyima, Gartok and other markets in Western Tibet.

Tibetan expeditions

Context

The East India Company, and later the British Empire, sought to form trade relations with Tibet. Additionally, exploration of Central Asia and Tibet were of particular interest during the Great Trigonometric Survey of India because their geography was largely unknown to the British. However, Qing China closed Tibet's borders after gaining significant control over Tibet's internal politics following the 1791 Sino-Nepalese War. A number of Europeans tried to reach Lhasa from India over the next hundred years; however, few successfully reached it, and most attempts at entry were turned back by local officials.[3]:9-10,12,25 A British attempt to reach Tibet from the east by traveling up the Yangtse River failed in 1861, and Edmund Smyth's attempts to enter Tibet from the west between 1861 and 1863 all failed as well.[3]:30-31 Because of the Great Triginometrical Survey's past success with native surveyors, Thomas Montgomerie (the astronomical assistant of the survey), proposed that native explorers be recruited to explore Central Asia and Tibet. Montgomerie's plan was approved in 1862, and his first recruits were Abdul Hamid for an expedition to Yarkand, followed by Nain Singh and his cousin Mani Singh for an expedition to Lhasa.[3]:29,33,38

Recruitment and training

In an 1861 letter, Smyth recommended Singh as a possible surveyor to Walker. Walker personally travelled to meet with Singh and recruit him and his cousin Mani. The two were sent to Dehradun, the Survey's headquarters, and placed under Montgomerie's command. The two would spend two years training for their expeditions, learning a number of surveying techniques. Because the survey needed to be clandestine, a number of techniques were developed to hide the surveying. Mercury for thermometers was hidden in the bottom of a bowl, notes were stored inside a prayer wheel, and survey gear was hidden inside luggage. A string of prayer beads, which usually had 108 beads, was modified to only have 100 beads; the pundits were trained to move one bead every hundred paces to count their steps. They were also trained to have a precise stride length of 33 inches across varying terrain.[4]

First expedition

Singh's first expedition began in 1865. He and Mani separated during the survey, with Mani traveling through western Tibet and Nain walking to Lhasa. During this expedition, Nain Singh estimated the altitude of Lhasa as 3,420 meters by boiling water; this was close to the actual value of 3,540 meters. He also estimated the position of Lhasa with celestial observations.[5]:195

Second expedition

Singh's second expedition explored western Tibet in 1867.[5]:195-196

Third expedition

Singh's third and final expedition returned to Lhasa via a more northern route than his first expedition and ran from 1873-1875.[5]:196

Surveys

During his secret survey of Tibet, Nain Singh was the first non-Tibetan to visit many legendary areas of Tibet, including the Thok Jalung goldfields on 26 August 1867.[6] He would later say that Thok Jalung was the coldest place he had ever visited.[7]

Nain Singh was a cousin of Kishen Singh, another famous pundit explorer.[8]

Legacy
Map of Nain Singh's exploration of Tibet

In May 1877, Singh was awarded the Royal Geographic Society's Patron's Medal "for his great journeys and Surveys in Tibet and along the Upper Brahmaputra, he has determined the position of Lhasa, and positive knowledge of the map of Asia." Henry Yule received the award on Singh's behalf and in his acceptance speech said that "[Singh's] observations have added a larger amount of important knowledge to the map of Asia than those of any other living man."[9]

On 27 June 2004, an Indian postage stamp featuring Nain Singh[10] was issued commemorating his role in the Great Trigonometric Survey of India. In 2006, Shekhar Pathak and Uma Bhatt brought out a biography of Nain Singh with three of his diaries and the RGS articles about his travels in three volumes titled Asia ki Peeth Par published by Pahar, Naini Tal.

The Nain Singh Range of mountains south of Lake Pangong are named in Nain's honour.[3]:121

On 21 October 2017, Google celebrated Nain Singh Rawat's 187th birthday with a Google Doodle.[1]

See also

Notes
  1. The dates are tentative. The date of birth is based on the Google Doodle issued in 2017. The date of death is based on an obituary letter where Col. Edmund Smyth notes in April 1882 that Nain Singh died of cholera at Moradabad around the "1st of February last". He mentions an obituary in "the Times" dated 15 March.

References
  1. "Nain Singh Rawat's 187th birthday". www.google.com. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
  2. Wade., Davis (2012). Into the Silence : The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest. New York: Vintage Books. p. 49. ISBN 9780375708152. OCLC 773021726. The pundit Nain Singh, the first surveyor to fix the location of the Tibetan capital, traveled on foot from Sikkim to Lhasa and then all over central Tibet, walking 1,580 miles, or 3,160,000 paces, each counted.
  3. Waller, Derek (1990). The Pundits: British Exploration of Tibet and Central Asia. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-4904-2.
  4. Stewart, Jules (2006). Spying for the Raj: The Pundits and the Mapping of the Himalaya. History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-9586-6.
  5. Denny, Mark. The Science of Navigation: From Dead Reckoning to GPS. JHU Press. ISBN 978-1-4214-0511-7. Retrieved 29 September 2020.
  6. "Nain Singh Rawat's 187th birthday". Google. Alphabet. Retrieved 24 April 2019.
  7. Hopkirk, Peter (2006). "Panning for Gold on the Roof of the World". Trespassers on the Roof of the World: The Race for Lhasa. London: John Murray. p. 39. ISBN 0719564492.
  8. BALASUNDARAM, M., DUBE, A. Ramgarh, 1973, "Structure, India", Nature (journal), 242, 40 doi:10.1038/242040a0.
  9. "Presentation of the Royal and Other Awards". Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of London. 21 (5): 397–403. 23 July 1877. JSTOR 1799720.
  10. Trigonometrical Survey. midco.net

Further reading
Secondary sources
Primary sources
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