This map was made by the Buddhist monk, Zuda Rokashi, also known as Rokashi Hotan, who updated Buddhist cartography to include Europe and America. Previous Buddhist maps did not include the West at all, and Africa, the small island in the western sea, is called, “Land of Western Women.” Although there were a few Eurocentric maps floating around in Japan at the time, Rokashi clearly did not copy them. Lake Anavatapta is depicted prominently in the center, as it was believed to be the place where Queen Maya first envisioned the Buddha and the center of the universe. This map represents the author’s reconciliation between contemporary geography and Buddhist culture, which persisted in Japan during the Edo, against European, Neo-Confucian and Nativist cosmologies. In the top left corner is Rokashi’s list of the many works he consulted. Although it includes encyclopedias, histories, commentaries, Buddhist sutras, Chinese dynastic histories, dictionaries, geographic compendia, literary works and gazetteers, it does not name one very certain source; a seventeenth-century version of a fourteenth-century painting of the journey of Xuanzang. Xuanzang was a Chinese pilgrim who traveled through India and Central Asia during the seventh century, and recorded his experiences in the Great Tang Record of the Western Regions. The fourteenth-century painting is the earliest known Japanese world map. The seventeenth-century map is an updated version, which relied heavily on a Ming encyclopedia and Japanese editions of Matteo Ricci’s maps of Europe.
Rokashi’s title translates to “A Map of the Myriad Countries of Jambudvipa Like a Fruit Held in the Hand.” “Fruit Held in the Hand” is a Buddhist phrase, meaning something that is simple to understand. Rokashi asserted, “If Buddhist scholars do not examine this map when they consult the sutras, their investigations will be incomplete.”

In 1602, Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit missionary, presented a hand-drawn map of the world to the Wanli Emperor of China. Almost two centuries later, in 1785 Sekisui Nagakubo, a Japanese scholar, drew his own version. Not only was it one of the first world maps published in Japan, it was also one of the most influential, and soon became the source for many other Japanese maps. The revolutionary use of latitude and longitude transformed Japanese mapmaking thereafter. Small versions were printed and circulated through the popular market, but large hand-drawn manuscripts were sold to the wealthy for large sums. Seii Sato, author of this derivation, declared in the top margin, “Since people doubt if the earth is really a sphere, to prove it, this map was drawn as if looking at the globe from a high place.” This is an example of the chokan-zuho technique, or “bird’s-eye view,” a perspective we are quite familiar with in the west. The map continues to describe the world and all its people. Nagakubo kept most of the descriptions in Ricci’s words, however, he did not not include one about the Japanese people, which read, “The Japanese are warriors giving great importance to weapons, but don’t appreciate intellectual activities.”

Although created for the purpose of correctly detailing the inhabitants and geography of the New World, California now appears as an island.

It is interesting that, athough this map insists on showing California as an island, it admits to knowing little about what lies to the north.

The first publication of this work in 1626, was the first atlas map to show California as an island.

This map shows a surprising lack of detail, especially on the island of California.

This is one of only two of Blaeu’s maps to depict California as an island.

References to the Fore!

Bibliography

EXHIBIT NAVIGATION

 

Anonymous. 1855. Reports of the Commissioners on Portland Harbor, Accompanied by Statistics of Commerce, Railways, &c., of the State of Maine, and City of Portland, and by Proceedings and Correspondence of the City Government. Portland: printed by David Tucker.

———. 1859. Guide Book for Portland and Vicinity, to Which Is Appended a Summary History of Portland, by Hon. W. Willis. Portland: B. Thurston and J. F. Richardson, 1859.

———. 1901. “Brown Thurston.” In Thirty-Eighth Annual Report of the Proceedings of the Maine Press Association, for the Year Ending March 1, 1901, 37–38.

———. 1980. Counties, Cities, Towns and Plantations of Maine: A Handbook of Incorporations, Dissolutions and Boundary Changes. Augusta: Maine State Archives.

Baxter, James P. “Reminiscences of a Great Enterprise.” Collections and Proceedings of the Maine Historical Society 2s 3 (1892): 247–63.

Barry, William David. 1979. “Portland and the Phoenix.” The Real Guide (23 Feb. 1979): 8–9.

Bentley, William. 1905–14. The Diary of William Bentley, Pastor of the East Church, Salem, Massachusetts. 4 vols. Salem, Mass.: Essex Institute.

Brown, Ralph H. 1940. “Early Maps of the United States: The Ebeling-Sotzmann Maps of the Northern Seaboard States.” Geographical Review 30, no. 3: 471–79.

Brückner, Martin. 2014. “The Lithographed Map in Philadelphia: Innovation, Imitation, and Antebellum Consumer Culture.” Winterthur Portfolio 48, nos. 2–3: 139–61.

Buehler, Michael. 2008. “Henry F. Walling and the Mapping of New England’s Towns, 1849–1857.” Portolan, no. 71: 22–33.

Chace, J., Jr. 1861. A Business Directory of the Subscribers to the New Map of Maine, with a Brief History and Descriptions of the State, Prepared by William Willis; also, Valuable Statistics and Advertisements. Portland: Published by J. Chace, Jr. & Co.; Sanborn & Carter, 55 Exchange Street; Bailey & Noyes, 56 & 58 Exchange Street.

Conforti, Joseph A., ed. 2005. Creating Portland: History and Place in Northern New England. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for the University of New Hampshire Press.

Conzen, Michael P. 1984. “The County Landownership Map in America: Its Commercial Development and Social Transformation, 1814–1939.” Imago Mundi 36: 9–31.

Edney, Matthew H. 2007. “Mapping Parts of the World.” In Maps: Finding Our Place in the World, edited by James R. Akerman and Robert W. Karrow, Jr., 117–57. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Goold, Nathan. 1897. Falmouth Neck in the Revolution. Portland: Press of the Thurston Print.

Goold, William. 1879. “Burning of Falmouth in 1775.” New-England Historical and Genealogical Register and Antiquarian Journal 27, no. 3: 256–66.

———. 1886. Portland in the Past, with Historical Notes of Old Famouth. Portland, Me.: B. Thurston & Co.

Hall, James. 1836. Report of James Hall, Engineer, on the Portland, Saco, and Portsmouth Rail Road Route. 22nd report of the 17th Legislature. Augusta, Me.: House of Representatives of the Maine Legislature.

Harrington, Bates. 1879. How ’Tis Done: A Thorough Ventilation of the Numerous Schemes Conducted by Wandering Canvassers, together with the Various Advertising Dodges for the Swindling of the Public. Chicago: Fidelity Publishing, 1879. Reprinted, Syracuse: W. I. Pattison, 1890.

Holtwijk, Theo H. B. M., and Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr., eds. 1999. Bold Vision: The Development of the Parks of Portland, Maine. Portland: Greater Portland Landmarks.

Hornsby, Stephen J. 2011. Surveyors of Empire: Samuel Holland, J. F. W. Des Barres, and the Making of The Atlantic Neptune. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Hornsby, Stephen J., Richard W. Judd, and Michael J. Hermann, eds. 2015. Historical Atlas of Maine. Orono: University of Maine Press.

Hull, John T. 1885. The Siege and Capture of Fort Loyall. Portland.

Kagan, Richard L. 1998. “Urbs and Civitas in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Spain.” In Envisioning the City: Six Studies in Urban Cartography, ed. David Buisseret, 75–108. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

———. 2000. Urban Images of the Hispanic World, 1493–1793. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.

Leamon, James S. 2005. “Falmouth, the American Revolution, and the Price of Moderation.” In Creating Portland: History and Place in Northern New England, ed. Joseph A. Conforti, 44–71. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England for the University of New Hampshire Press.

Levinsky, Allen. 2007. A Short History of Portland. Beverly, Mass.: Commonwealth Editions.

Lyon-Jenness, Cheryl. 2008. “Picturing Progress: Assessing the Nineteenth-Century Atlas-Map Bonanza.” In Mapping in Michigan and the Great Lakes Region, ed. David I. MacLeod, 209–39. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.

Macdougall, Walter M. 2006. Settling the Maine Wilderness: Moses Greenleaf, His Maps, and His Household of Faith, 1777–1834. Portland, Me.: Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education, University of Southern Maine, for the Osher Library Associates.

Martin, John Frederick. 1991. Profits in the Wilderness: Entrepreneurship and the Founding of New England Towns in the Seventeenth Century. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Va.

Murray, Jeffrey S. 2009. “Blueprinting in the History of Cartography.” Cartographic Journal 46, no. 3: 257–61.

Nystrom, Eric C. 2014. Seeing Underground: Maps, Models, and Mining Engineering in America. Las Vegas: University of Nevada Press.

Outwin, Charles P. M. 2000. “The ‘Pointer Draft’ of Falmouth in October 1775.” Maine History 39, no. 2: 133–36.

Piola, Erika, ed. 2012. Philadelphia on Stone: Commercial Lithography in Philadelphia, 1828–1878. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press for the Library Company of Philadelphia.

Poor, John A. 1855. Commercial, Railway, and Ship Building, Statistics, of the City of Portland, and the State of Maine. Prepared to Accompany the Second Report of the Commissioners on Portland Harbor. Portland: printed by David Tucker.

Preble, George Henry. 1868–1870. Genealogical Sketch of the First Three Generations of Prebles in America; With an Account of Abraham Preble the Emigrant, Their Common Ancestor, and of His Grandson Brigadier General Jedediah Preble, and His Descendents. Boston: David Clapp & Son “for family circulation.”

Reps, John W. 1984. Views and Viewmakers of Urban America: Lithographs of Towns and Cities in the United States and Canada, Notes on the Artists and Publishers, and a Union Catalog of their Work, 1825–1925. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.

Shettleworth, Earle G., Jr. 1971. “Portland, Maine, Engravers of the 1820s.” Old-Time New England 61, no. 3: 59–65 (“Part I”) and no. 4: 105–10 (“Part II”).

Smith, Thomas. 1821. Extracts from the Journals Kept by the Rev. Thomas Smith, Late Pastor of the First Church of Christ in Falmouth, in the County of York (Now Cumberland), from the Year 1720 to the Year 1788: With an Appendix, Containing a Variety of Other Matters. Ed. Samuel Freeman. Portland, Me.: Thomas Todd.

Smith, Thomas, and Samuel Deane. 1849. Journals of the Rev. Thomas Smith, and the Rev. Samuel Deane, Pastors of the First Church in Portland, with Notes and Biographical Notices: and a Summary History of Portland. Ed. Samuel Freeman and William Willis. Portland, Me.: J. S. Bailey.

Stauffer, David McNeely. 1907. American Engravers upon Copper and Steel. 2 vols. New York: Grolier Club.

Summers, Lydia B., ed. 1980. Portland. 2d ed. Portland, Me.: Greater Portland Landmarks, Inc.

Tatham, David. 1976. “John Henry Bufford: American Lithographer.” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 86, no. 1: 47–73.

Theriault, Megan G. 2014. “Antebellum County Maps in Maine: A Social Network.” Map commentary for Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education, University of Southern Maine. Online, October 2014.

Thompson, Edward V. 2010. Printed Maps of the District and State of Maine, 1793–1860: An Illustrated and Comparative Study. Bangor, Me.: Nimue Books & Prints.

Twyman, Michael. 2001. Breaking the Mould: The First Hundred Years of Lithography. London: The British Library.

Walling, Henry F. 1886. “Topographic Surveys of States.” Journal of the Association of Engineering Societies 5: 163–76.

Whitmore, William H. 1884. Abel Bowen, Engraver. Boston: Rockwell and Churchill for Bostonian Society.

Williamson, Joseph. 1896. A Bibliography of the State of Maine from the Earliest Period to 1891. 2 vols. Portland: Thurston Print.

Willis, William. 1831–33. The History of Portland, from its First Settlement: With Notices of the Neighbouring Towns, and of the Changes of Government in Maine. 2 vols. Portland: Day, Fraser & Co. / Charles Day & Co.

———. 1865. The History of Portland, from 1632 to 1864: With a Notice of Previous Settlements, Colonial Grants, and Changes of Government in Maine. 2nd ed. Portland: Bailey & Noyes.

Wood, Joseph S. 1997. The New England Village. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Yerxa, Donald A. 1975. “The Burning of Falmouth, 1775: A Case Study in British Imperial Pacification.” Maine Historical Society Quarterly 14, no. 3: 119–59. Reprinted in A History of Maine: A Collection of Readings on the History of Maine, 1600–1976, ed. Ronald F. Banks, 4th ed. (Dubuque, Ia: Kendall/Hunt, 1976), 122–34.

Zuckerman, Michael. 1970. Peacable Kingdoms: New England Towns in the Eighteenth Century. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.