Today, it is a Unesco World Heritage site, not only because it's the best-preserved observatory of its kind in India, but as the Unesco inscription explains, it represents innovations in architecture, astronomy, and cosmology, as well as learnings and traditions from Western, Middle Eastern, Asian, and African cultures. Then he used these innovations to build five outdoor observatories in the Indian cities of Jaipur, Delhi, Ujjain, Varanasi and Mathura.įour Jantar Mantar survive (Mathura’s was demolished), but the one in Jaipur, completed in 1734, is the biggest and most comprehensive. To increase accuracy, he scaled up the size of the tools, stabilised them by reducing moving parts and made them resistant to wear and weather by fashioning them out of marble and local stone. However, after sending research teams across Central Asia and Europe to collect data based on the knowledge of Islamic and European scientists, Sawai Jai Singh found discrepancies among the readings of the brass instruments that were widely used at the time. He realised that to perfectly align Jaipur with the stars, aid in astrological practices and predict key weather events for crops, he would need instruments that were accurate and accessible. In 1727, when the region's king, Sawai Jai Singh, conceived Jaipur as his capital and as the country's first planned city, he wanted to design it based on the principles of Vastu Shastra, which draw on nature, astronomy and astrology to inform architecture and placement. They are ingenious architectural solutions to understanding the mechanics of astronomy, as well as key tools for traditional Hindu astrologers to craft birth charts and forecast auspicious dates. But years later, as a professional architect, I could better comprehend their use. The site – a 300-year-old collection of 20 scientific sculptures called yantra that can measure the positions of stars and planets, and precisely tell the time – had bemused me since my childhood here in Jaipur, when the structures seemed like giant versions of the delicate tools I kept in my school geometry kit. I strode through the frenzy of the Johri bazaar, the city's main market – its coral walls, delicate lattices and Mughal arches sweeping by as I headed towards the Jantar Mantar, India's mysterious gateway to the stars.Īt first glance, this open-air complex filled with strange triangular walls and stairways to nowhere seems out of place: it's neither ornate like the City Palace that surrounds it nor intricate like the revered Govind Dev Ji Temple and Hawa Mahal nearby. Perhaps a wrong time to venture out for sightseeing in Rajasthan's desert capital of Jaipur, but a perfect one to measure time with shadows cast by the sun. It was a week after the spring equinox, on a cloudless and hot afternoon.
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