Know Pundit Nain Singh Rawat – The man who walked 42,000 km to map Tibet without modern tools

Babushahi Bureau

Uttarakhand, October 2025: Over 150 years ago, long before satellites, GPS, or modern surveying tools, one man from a small village in Uttarakhand accomplished what even empires could not. His name: Pundit Nain Singh Rawat, the unsung hero who mapped the mysterious land of Tibet with nothing but his wit, willpower, and a humble rosary.

Born in 1830 in Bhatkura village, Nain Singh began life as an illiterate porter. But destiny had bigger plans. Recruited and trained secretly by the British as a “pundit surveyor,” he was tasked with charting Tibet — a forbidden, unknown land.

Without compasses or measuring wheels, Nain Singh devised a brilliant method: using a rosary of 100 bea

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