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Pundit (explorer)
The term pundit was used in the second half of the 19th century to denote native Indian surveyors used by the British to secretly explore regions north of British India. The Pundit was the code-name for one of the first native explorers, Nain Singh, who was originally a schoolteacher (or pundit). His accomplishments were so remarkable that the whole group of around twenty native explorers became known as the Pundits. Two of the most famous pundits included the cousins Nain Singh and Kishen Singh (code-named A.K.)Peter Hopkirk, 1982, "Trespassers on the Roof of the World: The Race for Lhasa", Oxford University Press.Derek J. Waller, 2004, "The Pundits: British Exploration of Tibet and Central Asia," University Press of Kentucky.Account of the Pundit's Journey in Great Tibet - Capt. H. Trotter, The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (1877). Great Trigonometric Survey of India One of the greatest projects of 19th century geography was the Great Trigonometrical Survey of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kinthup
Kinthup, a Lepcha man from Sikkim, was an explorer in the area of Tibet in the 1880s. He is best known for his impressive devotion to duty in surveying a previously unknown area of Tibet. Biography In the 1870s, the destination of the Tsangpo River (sometimes spelled "Sanpo") was unknown. Some hypothesized that it was the same river that flowed into the Bay of Bengal under the name of Brahmaputra (also known as "Dihang"). To solve this mystery, the colonial government of India sent a pundit explorer, known only as "G. M. N." to follow the Tsangpo and determine its ultimate destination. G. M. N. was accompanied by his assistant, a Sikkimese lepcha named Kinthup. After surveying a good portion of the river, the pair returned to India. In 1880, a Chinese lama was employed to continue G. M. N.'s work, and Kinthup was again hired to accompany him. In 1880 Kinthup was sent back with the task of testing the Brahmaputra theory by releasing 500 specially marked logs into the river at a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bulletin Of The American Geographical Society
The ''Geographical Review'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Routledge on behalf of the American Geographical Society. It covers all aspects of geography. The editor-in-chief is David H. Kaplan (Kent State University). History In 1852, the American Geographical Society began publishing its first academic journal, the ''Bulletin nd Journalof the American Geographical Society''. This publication continued through 1915, when it was succeeded by the ''Geographical Review'' under the direction of the American Geographical Society's Director Isaiah Bowman. Influential editors include Gladys M. Wrigley, who served as editor from 1920-1949, and Wilma B. Fairchild who edited the journal from 1949-1972. Douglas McManis edited the journal from 1978 until 1995 and was credited with maintaining a legacy of high scholarly standards set by his predecessors. Wrigley-Fairchild Prize The Wrigley-Fairchild Prize was established by the American Geographical Society in 1994 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sarat Chandra Das
Sarat Chandra Dash ( bn, শরৎচন্দ্র দাশ) (18 July 1849 – 5 January 1917) was an Indian scholar of Tibetan language and culture most noted for his two journeys to Tibet in 1879 and in 1881–1882. Biography Born in Chittagong, eastern Bengal to a Bengali Hindu Vaidya-Brahmin family, Sarat Chandra Dash attended Presidency College, as a student of the University of Calcutta. In 1874 he was appointed headmaster of the Bhutia Boarding School at Darjeeling. In 1878, a Tibetan teacher, Lama Ugyen Gyatso arranged a passport for Sarat Chandra to go the monastery at Tashilhunpo. In June 1879, Das and Ugyen-gyatso left Darjeeling for the first of two journeys to Tibet. They remained in Tibet for six months, returning to Darjeeling with a large collection of Tibetan and Sanskrit texts which would become the basis for his later scholarship. Sarat Chandra spent 1880 in Darjeeling poring over the information he had obtained. In November 1881, Sarat Chandra and Ugye ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hari Ram
Hari Ram ( ur, ) is a Hindu politician from Sindh, Pakistan. A five-time legilslator to the Provincial Assembly of Sindh, Ram was the first non-Muslim to win a non-reserved constituency in (West) Pakistan; he served in the Senate from 2012 to 2018. Early life Ram was born on 29 May 1952 in Mirpurkhas. A landlord, he did not study beyond high school. Political career Ram won four consecutive elections to the Provincial Assembly of Sindh in 1988, 1990, 1993, and 1997 as one of the five representatives of the local Hindu community; he did not have any political affiliation.Detailed Results of Elections to the Provincial Assembly of Sindh'. Undated. Election Commission of Pakistan In 2012, he was elected to the Senate of Pakistan from the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) on the sole seat reserved for minorities from Sindh. In 2018, he was elected to the Provincial Assembly from Mirpur Khas-I, becoming the first non-Muslim to win a non-reserved constituency in any provincial assembl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Moorcroft (explorer)
William Moorcroft (176727 August 1825) was an English veterinarian and explorer employed by the East India Company. Moorcroft travelled extensively throughout the Himalayas, Tibet and Central Asia, eventually reaching Bukhara, in present-day Uzbekistan. Early life and education Moorcroft was born in Ormskirk, Lancashire, the illegitimate son of Ann Moorcroft, daughter of a local farmer. He was baptised in 1767 in St Peter & St Paul, the Parish Church of Ormskirk, where there is a commemorative plaque to his life. His family had sufficient means to secure an apprenticeship with a surgeon in Liverpool but during this time an unknown disease decimated cattle herds in Lancashire and young William was recruited to treat stricken animals. His proficiency so impressed the county landowners they offered to underwrite his education if he would abandon surgery to attend a veterinarian college in Lyon, France. He arrived in France in the revolutionary year of 1789 and became the first Eng ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alpine Journal
The ''Alpine Journal'' (''AJ'') is an annual publication by the Alpine Club of London. It is the oldest mountaineering journal in the world. History The magazine was first published on 2 March 1863 by the publishing house of Longman in London, with Hereford Brooke George as its first editor. It was a replacement for ''Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers'', which had been issued in two series: in 1858 (with John Ball as editor), and 1862 (in two volumes, with Edward Shirley Kennedy as editor). The magazine covers all aspects of mountains and mountaineering, including expeditions, adventure, art, literature, geography, history, geology, medicine, ethics and the mountain environment, and the history of mountain exploration, from early ascents in the Alps, exploration of the Himalaya and the succession of attempts on Mount Everest, to present-day exploits. Online access Journal volumes since 1926 (bar the current issue) are freely available online. Digital scans of earlier volumes of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Ward (mountaineer)
Michael Phelps Ward, CBE (26 March 1925 – 7 October 2005) was an English surgeon and an expedition doctor on the 1953 first ascent of Mount Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary. He argued that the conquest of the mountain was a victory for science since doctors had finally figured out how to cope with the physiological effects of high altitude. His discoveries a few years earlier in the Royal Geographical Society archives of the Milne-Hink map and unofficial RAF photos of the Everest area helped to make the summit ascent possible. He had been on the earlier 1951 British Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition which pioneered the route used by the 1953 expedition. He was asked by Eric Shipton to go on the 1952 British Cho Oyu expedition, but was completing his national military service and sitting an surgery examination. He was a pioneer in high altitude medicine, which he researched with Griffith Pugh on the 1960-61 Silver Hut expedition. He wrote numerous books including ''E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sextant
A sextant is a doubly reflecting navigation instrument that measures the angular distance between two visible objects. The primary use of a sextant is to measure the angle between an astronomical object and the horizon for the purposes of celestial navigation. The estimation of this angle, the altitude, is known as ''sighting'' or ''shooting'' the object, or ''taking a sight''. The angle, and the time when it was measured, can be used to calculate a position line on a nautical or aeronautical chart—for example, sighting the Sun at noon or Polaris at night (in the Northern Hemisphere) to estimate latitude (with sight reduction). Sighting the height of a landmark can give a measure of ''distance off'' and, held horizontally, a sextant can measure angles between objects for a position on a chart. A sextant can also be used to measure the lunar distance between the moon and another celestial object (such as a star or planet) in order to determine Greenwich Mean Time and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Surveying
Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is called a land surveyor. These points are usually on the surface of the Earth, and they are often used to establish maps and boundaries for ownership, locations, such as the designed positions of structural components for construction or the surface location of subsurface features, or other purposes required by government or civil law, such as property sales. Surveyors work with elements of geodesy, geometry, trigonometry, regression analysis, physics, engineering, metrology, programming languages, and the law. They use equipment, such as total stations, robotic total stations, theodolites, GNSS receivers, retroreflectors, 3D scanners, LiDAR sensors, radios, inclinometer, handheld tablets, optical and digital levels, subsurface locat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nain Singh Rawat
Nain Singh (21 October 18301 February 1882), also known as Nain Singh Rawat, was one of the first Indian explorers (dubbed "pundits") employed by the British to explore the Himalayas and Central Asia. He came from the Johar Valley in Kumaon. He surveyed the trade route through Ladakh to Tibet, determined the location and altitude of Lhasa in Tibet, and surveyed a large section of Brahmaputra. He walked "1,580 miles, or 3,160,000 paces, each counted." Early life Pundit 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 f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Om Mani Padme Hum
' ( sa, ॐ मणि पद्मे हूँ, ) is the six-syllabled Sanskrit mantra particularly associated with the four-armed Shadakshari form of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. It first appeared in the Mahayana ''Kāraṇḍavyūhasūtra'' where it is also referred to as the ''sadaksara'' (six syllabled) and the ''paramahrdaya'', or “innermost heart” of Avalokiteshvara. In this text the mantra is seen as the condensed form of all Buddhist teachings. The precise meaning and significance of the words remains much discussed by Buddhist scholars. The literal meaning in English has been expressed as "praise to the jewel in the lotus", or as a declarative aspiration possibly meaning "I in the jewel-lotus". ''Padma'' is the Sanskrit for the Indian lotus (''Nelumbo nucifera''), and ''mani'' for "jewel", as in a type of spiritual "jewel" widely referred to in Buddhism. The first word, '' aum/om'', is a sacred syllable in various Indian religions, and ''hum' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prayer Wheel
A prayer wheel is a cylindrical wheel () on a spindle made from metal, wood, stone, leather, or coarse cotton, widely used in Tibet and areas where Tibetan culture is predominant. Traditionally, a mantra is written in Ranjana script or Tibetan script, on the outside of the wheel. The mantra Om mani padme hum is most commonly used, but other mantras may be used as well. Also sometimes depicted are dakinis, Protectors and very often the eight auspicious symbols (''ashtamangala''). At the core of the cylinder is a "life tree" often made of wood or metal with certain mantras written on or wrapped around it. Many thousands (or in the case of larger prayer wheels, millions) of mantras are then wrapped around this life tree. According to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition based on the lineage texts regarding prayer wheels, spinning such a wheel will have much the same meritorious effect as orally reciting the prayers. Nomenclature and etymology Prayer wheel or mani wheel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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