All in the Stars (Jaipur, India)
All in the Stars (Jaipur, India) - Like a surrealist's children's playground, Jantar Mantar was designed not far away to the outstanding royal Palace of the Winds as an astronomical observatory. designed around 1730 by the Maharajah of the famed Pink town, Jaipur, it absolutely was among the foremost correct and detailed observatory for its time within the world. The star-inspired maharajah designed 5 such observatories across India, four of that still exist nowadays.To the untrained eye, the structures appear as if inventive and appealing outsized playground rides to climb and jump upon. With some description, they detail a fascination with correct celestial measurements for the sun and moon, detailing the seasons, tracking the orbits of major stars, zodiac constellations and planets, predicting eclipses and measuring time itself. Importantly for the religious Indians, the observatory was utilised to satisfy an obsession with detailed horoscopes to make sure the simplest doable circumstances for weddings, major festivals, conferences and most aspects of life.
The giant among the 30 or so structures is the 27 metre high Samrat Jantar (see background of second photo from the top)with its small covered deck for making relevant announcements. It is the world's largest sundial. The time remains extraordinarily accurate to this day with the cast shadow moving around one millimetre every second or one metre in just over quarter of an hour. You can literally see time move. The guide explains that it is angled at 27 degrees which corresponds to the latitude that Jaipur sits above the equator.
Other equally strange structures include one with two large red disks also used to measure time and a strange structure like a cake with every second slice missing. It is able to measure the angle of the sun to assist with detailing the seasons.
Jantar Mantar is a fascinating work integrating science, astronomy, religion and art. Particularly on a sunny day, wandering and climbing these strange stone travel wonders provides an interesting insight into the 18th century balance of science and spirituality.
