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Click to enlargeSued Mahrata. (South Maratha, India
A detailed map of the South Maratha country from the atlas of the Basel Evangelical Mission Society, compiled by its Inspector from the reports of missionaries in the field. The missionary gaze at close range — a German Protestant society mapping its own corner of the Deccan.
Authorship and object
From the Atlas der Evangelischen Missions-Gesellschaft zu Basel, compiled by Inspector J. Josenhans from the missionaries' own reports, second edition, Basel, 1859. In German, in colour, at the large scale of about 1:750,000 — far closer than any general map of India.
A field mapped from within
The Basel Mission was among the most active Protestant societies in south-western India, and this sheet maps the South Maratha country in which it worked. Drawn from the missionaries' field observations rather than official surveys, it is a map made by and for the mission itself — its scale and detail those of a working field rather than a continent.
The gaze
This is the missionary gaze made local and operational. Where Morse's American atlas surveyed mission fields worldwide, the Basel map zooms to a single district under cultivation for conversion, recording the country as its missionaries knew it on the ground. India is seen here parish by prospective parish.