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  • James Houser

Episode #54: "Glory of the Khalsa", Maps and Sources

You can literally find all the locations I mentioned today on Google Maps. Most of them are still major cities in India! But I am a generous and merciful host, am I not?


General map of Punjab, and its location, currently divided between India and Pakistan. Note:

  • Lahore - the main Mughal capital in the region and later capital of the Sikh Empire;

  • Amritsar - site of the Haramandir Sahib, the Golden Temple, Sikhism's holiest site;

  • Multan - site of one of the major sieges of the Second Anglo-Sikh War;

  • and that river valley over in the corner heading up into the mountains. That's the Khyber Pass.



Approximate area of the Sikh Empire at its height, c. 1839. Note the conquest of Jammu-Kashmir (northeast), the Afghan city of Peshawar (northwest), and the Muslim citadel of Multan (southwest), all major conquests of Ranjit Singh. And also note the border with the British to the south, along the Sutlej River.


British expansion in India, including the eventual annexation of Punjab:



Major battles of the First Anglo-Sikh War, all concentrated on the British side of the Sutlej River:



I could not find a good map of the Second Anglo-Sikh War for the life of me. This is the best I could do. Google search will inevitably drive me into making my own maps again.



SOURCES


Atwal, Priya. Royals and Rebels: The Rise and Fall of the Sikh Empire. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.


Bruce, George. Six Battles for India: The Anglo-Sikh Wars, 1845-46 and 1848-49. London: Arthur Barker Ltd., 1969.


Farwell, Byron. Queen Victoria's Little Wars. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1972.


Nesbitt, Eleanor. Sikhism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.


Roy, Kaushik. War, Culture and Society in Early Modern South Asia, 1740–1849. New York: Routledge, 2011.


Singh, Khushwant. The Sikhs. New York: HarperCollins, 2006.


Smith, David. The First Anglo-Sikh War, 1845-1846: The Betrayal of the Khalsa. Oxford: Osprey, 2019.


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