Jaipur Monuments
Jantar Mantar
Across the road from the palaces is the famous JANTAR MANTAR one of the five
observatories in India . Built by Sawai Jai Singh, this is one of the largest
and the best preserved. A passionate hobby of the king in the field of Astronomy,
numerology, insighted him to execute this observatory and with the help of skilled
labourers, they managed to create a collection of complex astronomical instruments
chiselled out of stone and most of which continues to provide accurate information
to this day.
The most striking instrument is the Brihat Samrat yantra Sundial, an imposing
yellow edifice to the far right of the observatory complex which has a 27m high
gnomon arm set at an angle of 27degree.The shadow this casts moves up to 4m
in an hour, and aids in the calculation of local and meridian pass time and
various attributes of the heavenly bodies, including declination the angular
distance of a heavenly body from the celestial equator and altitude. This highlight
of the observatory has made it a centre of attraction for the tourist visiting
Jaipur.
Jantar Mantar is the most famous and elaborate observatory of its time. It was
constructed in the year 1724 A.D. by Sawai Jai Singh II, even before the city
of Jaipur was built, and has been described as the most surrealistic and logical
landscape instone. It was built to measure the local time, the sun's declination,
altitude, the declination of stars, planets and to determine eclipses.
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Jaipur Monuments: Jantar
Mantar » Hawa Mahal
