The pundit’s route surveys to Lhasa and Thok Jalung

Nain Singh · 1865 CE – 1867 CE · Earth

The pundit’s route surveys to Lhasa and Thok Jalung — Nain Singh · 1865 CE – 1867 CE · Earth — Recorded expedition route · schematic map

Reach Lhasa disguised as a trader, fix its position and survey the great road along the Tsangpo; in 1867, explore the upper Sutlej and Indus and the gold fields east of Gartok.

Historical context

Tibet was closed to Europeans, and the Survey of India could not map what it could not enter, so Captain Montgomerie proposed sending men of the Himalaya trained as surveyors instead. Nain Singh, a Bhotia schoolmaster of Milam in Kumaon whose people had traded across the passes for generations, was the first: a year of drill in pacing, bearings and secrecy, then a journey in disguise on which, by the bond he signed at Kyirong, being found in Lhasa would cost him his life. His route survey of 1865 and 1866 gave the Survey the position and height of Lhasa and the great road along the Tsangpo; in 1867 he went back to western Tibet for the upper Indus and the gold field of Thok Jalung. The reports called him only “the Pundit”.

The voyage, step by step

  1. The drill at Dehra Dun

    1865 CE

    A schoolmaster is drilled to walk two thousand paces to the mile, thirty-one and a half inches each, on any ground.

  2. Across Nepal

    7 March 1865

    Their first attempt from Kumaon having failed, the two men try the long way round, through Nepal to Kathmandu.

  3. The gate at Kyirong

    7 July 1865

    Dressed now as a Ladakhi, with a false pigtail, he talks his way past Kyirong on a bond that will cost his life if he is found in Lhasa.

  4. Pacing the Tsangpo

    22 October 1865

    Bead by bead he measures the great river of Tibet, marching east with a Ladakhi caravan towards Shigatse.

  5. Shigatse

    29 October 1865

    With the Ladakhis he goes to Tashilhunpo and kneels before the boy Panchen Lama, who is believed to read men’s thoughts.

  6. Lhasa fixed

    10 January 1866

    From a room chosen for its view of the stars he takes the latitude of the forbidden city, and its height by boiling water.

  7. The gold field

    26 August 1867

    On a second journey, in August 1867, he reaches the diggings of Thok Jalung, nearly five thousand metres up on the Tibetan plateau.

  8. Home over the Mana pass

    October 1867

    In the autumn of 1867 he comes back over the Mana pass with the upper Indus and Sutlej on his survey.

Outcome

Fixed the latitude of Lhasa, by Montgomerie’s reckoning within half a minute, and its height; surveyed some 1,900 kilometres of road from Kathmandu to Tadum and from Lhasa to Gartok, returning over the Unta Dhura pass in June 1866; in 1867 reached the Thok Jalung gold field and came home over the Mana pass.

Nain Singh

Kumaoni schoolmaster trained by the Survey of India who walked to Lhasa counting his paces and fixed the position of the city and the course of the Tsangpo.

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Sources

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