Lāla Bulhomal (also Balhumal) Lāhorī was an Indian
metallurgist
Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys.
Metallurgy encompasses both the sc ...
and instrument maker from the city of
Lahore
Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city. ...
in modern Pakistan. He was famous for crafting ornate
astrolabe
An astrolabe ( grc, ἀστρολάβος ; ar, ٱلأَسْطُرلاب ; persian, ستارهیاب ) is an ancient astronomical instrument that was a handheld model of the universe. Its various functions also make it an elaborate inclin ...
s and
celestial globes
Celestial globes show the apparent positions of the stars in the sky. They omit the Sun, Moon, and planets because the positions of these bodies vary relative to those of the stars, but the ecliptic, along which the Sun moves, is indicated.
The ...
made in the tradition of Indo-Persian instruments. The toponymic surname Lāhorī indicates that he came from Lahore, while the prefix Lāla is an honorific indicating social status. His instruments, likely made between 1839 and 1851, were constructed mainly of brass, with inscriptions in Sanskrit, Devanagari, Arabic, and Persian. He is known to have produced at least twenty-eight such instruments. Forty-five instruments produced by Bulhomal and his associates are known to exist in museums and collections around the world; an 1849 astrolabe crafted for Sir
Henry Miers Elliot
Sir Henry Miers Elliot (1 March 1808 – 20 December 1853) was an English civil servant and historian who worked with the East India Company in India for 26 years. He is most known for ''The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians'' based ...
, an officer of the
East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...
, is now in the
Science Museum, London
The Science Museum is a major museum on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, London. It was founded in 1857 and is one of the city's major tourist attractions, attracting 3.3 million visitors annually in 2019.
Like other publicly funded ...
. Bulhomal's patron was Nihal Singh Ahluwalia, the
Raja
''Raja'' (; from , IAST ') is a royal title used for South Asian monarchs. The title is equivalent to king or princely ruler in South Asia and Southeast Asia.
The title has a long history in South Asia and Southeast Asia, being attested f ...
of
Kapurthala
Kapurthala is a city in Punjab state of India. It is the administrative headquarters of Kapurthala District. It was the capital of the Kapurthala State, a princely state in British India. The aesthetic mix of the city with its prominent build ...
(1837–1852), and his apprentices included Ghulām Qādir Kapūrthalī and Ustād Pīr Bakhsh Lāhorī. He may also have been associated with contemporary instrument maker Joshi Dharam Chand. Bulhomal's celestial globes were made both for decorative and instructive uses. The stars and constellations on these globes are labeled based on Arabic and Persian versions from Ptolemaic traditions. These seamless and hollow globes were constructed in the Lahore tradition by casting using the
lost wax technique
Lost-wax casting (also called "investment casting", "precision casting", or ''cire perdue'' which has been adopted into English from the French, ) is the process by which a duplicate metal sculpture (often silver, gold, brass, or bronze) i ...
.
References
{{reflist
Scientific instrument makers