Babu Shiv Prasad Gupta constructed the map of Undivided India between 1918 and 1924 in Bharat Mata Mandir, located in the Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapeeth campus of Varanasi. The map shows Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma (Myanmar) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka). The Temple was inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi and frequented by several national and international tourists daily. The white marble used to make the 3D map was brought from Makrana that lies in Pakistan now. The map depicts 450 mountain ranges and peaks, plains, oceans, rivers and other kinds of geographical bodies. Raju Singh, temple caretaker stated that the water bodies in the map are filled with water and the lands are adorned with flowers on Republic Day and Independence Day.
It is also scalable as one inch of the map area covers 6.40 miles on land. The temple is looked after by Gupta’s family.
Maithili Sharan Gupt, the eminent Rashtra Kavi whose 132nd birth anniversary is on 3rd August, had penned down a poem on the temple. The poem is displayed in the temple on a board. He is considered as one of the pioneers of modern Hindi poetry form called Khari Boli (plain dialect). He received Padma Bhusan for his immense contributions and honoured with the title of Rashtra Kavi by Mahatma Gandhi for his book Bharat-Bharati (1912) that was widely quoted during the freedom struggle.
Next time if you are in Varanasi, do not miss the opportunity to visit this wonderful piece of art and feel proud of our motherland while reading his poem.
