Google Doodle celebrates the 187th birthday of Nain Singh Rawat

Today's Google Doodle celebrates the 187th birth anniversary of an Indian cartographer who disguised himself as a monk and accurately mapped the location and altitude of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, and the Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) river. Today's doodle by Hari Deepti Panicker depicts Rawat as an explorer with binoculars beholding the mountains.

Nain Singh Rawat scaled high-altitude routes across Nepal, present-day Arunachal Pradesh, Tibet, and Ladakh on foot. He hid a compass in a prayer wheel and recorded his travel journal in form of prayers. Rawat was applauded with many awards by the Royal Geographical Society.