Nain Singh

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Nain Singh

Nain Singh (* approx. 1830 in Milam, Kumaon Division, Uttarakhand , India ; † February 1, 1882 in Moradabad , Uttar Pradesh ) was an Indian pundite in the 19th century who served large parts of Tibet for the British-Indian surveying authority Great Trigonometrical Survey measured. In particular, he became known for accurately determining the location and altitude of Lhasa and for measuring large parts of the Yarlung Tsangpo, the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra .

Life

Nain Singh was born around 1830 in the village of Milam in the high valley of the same name in the east of the Nanda Devi . He came from a family belonging to the Bhotiya . He had been to Tibet many times with his father and had learned to read and understand Tibetan in the process. The Schlagintweit brothers had already hired him and his cousin Mani Singh for their tours in western Tibet. He then worked as an elementary school teacher until his Captain Thomas George Montgomerie in 1863 as local explorers ( native explorer hired) for the Great Trigonometrical Survey. Tibet, Nepal and the other Central Asian countries were closed to the British and other Europeans, while traders and pilgrims from the Himalayas were able to cross the borders largely unhindered. Montgomerie therefore trained locals in simple surveying techniques and trained them to take even steps and count them over long distances. They were supposed to secretly measure the routes covered so that the British could make new maps of Tibet from their records, which they were very interested in as part of the Great Game for supremacy in Central Asia.

to travel

After training in Dehradun , the seat of the Great Trigonometric Survey , Nain Singh crossed Nepal in 1865 and took various caravans to Samzhubzê ( Xigazê ), where he took part in a mass audience in the Trashilhünpo Monastery of the then eleven-year-old Panchen Lama , Panchen Tenpe Wangchug . In January 1866 he came to Lhasa, where he stayed until April 1866, making observations, exploring the area and taking part in a mass audience with the Dalai Lama , Thrinle Gyatsho , then ten . Although his true identity was discovered by two Kashmiri merchants, they did not reveal him to the local authorities for some unexplained reason; Singh was able to continue his stay unmolested. Eventually he returned to India along the Yarlung Tsangpo and across Lake Manasarovar in western Tibet and returned to Dehradun at the end of October 1866.

On his second trip, in 1867, Singh came again to western Tibet, crossed the Satluj , passed Gartok to the eastern headwaters of the Indus and visited the legendary gold mines of Thok Jalung. Singh noticed that the gold diggers only dug for gold in layers close to the earth, believing that it would be a crime against the earth to dig deeper and that digging deeper would rob the earth of its productivity. He returned to Dehradun on another route at the end of November 1867.

From 1873 to 1875 he went from Leh in Kashmir on a much more northerly route than on his last trip across the Changthang to Tengri Nor or Nam Co and from there to Lhasa. Fearing discovery, he immediately had to move on to Yarlung Tsangpo, followed it downstream to Zêtang in the Shannan district , crossed the Himalayas and finally reached British territory again in Udalguri in Assam .

Nain Singh's later life

Nain Singh then ended his service as an explorer. However, he remained in service as a trainer of other native explorers at least until 1879. He received a pension and shortly afterwards also a piece of land with the resulting income. He retired to his native Milam, where he spent the summer, while in the winter he moved to his land on the warmer plains. He died in Moradabad on February 1, 1882 , probably of cholera, in his early or mid fifties.

Honors

The Royal Geographical Society awarded him a gold medal and the French Société de Géographie a gold pocket watch, which was presented to him on January 1, 1878 in Calcutta by Viceroy Lord Lytton .

The Indian Post issued a stamp pad in honor of the Great Trigonometrical Survey on June 27, 2004 with a stamp from Nain Singh.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Singh, Nain
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pundit
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Indian explorer on behalf of the Great Trigonometrical Survey
DATE OF BIRTH around 1830
PLACE OF BIRTH Milam, Kumaon Division, Uttarakhand
DATE OF DEATH February 1, 1882
Place of death Moradabad , Uttar Pradesh