Chronicling city's history

Triangulation and Bangalore

An excerpt from the book, ‘Deccan Traverses’ by Anuradha Mathur and Dilip Cunha says, “Route surveyors found four entrances to the pettah, each leading to a centre that they described as an intersection of main roads or a chowk. Folklore. however, would turn this view round, portraying this centre not as an intersection but a starting point, the site of an auspicious event orchestrated by Kempegowda I to begin the settlement of Bangalore. At this point, he is believed to have let four bullock harnessed to ploughs furrow four ways, east, west, north, and south.” The book also points out, “In 1806, at Bangalore, Lambton began his project to realise a ‘grand meridian line’ for India, reaching Cape Comorin in 1808.

Beginning again in Bangalore that year, he extended this arc north. He died near Nagpur in 1826 and George Everest took on his ambition. The Great Indian Arc of the Meridian - as the line came to be called - would eventually reach across 21 deg 22’ of latitude or 2,250 kilometres.”

“Lambton’s triangulation become a framework for the survey of India".

“Surveyors during the Third Mysore War gave the name Bangalore to the Bound Hedge that surrounded a number of settlements, Bangalore or Bengaluru being most significant perhaps. This hedge marked the limits of the battle for Bangalore in March 1791.”