Jantar Mantar

Jantar Mantar Architecture, Astronomy, and Solar Kingship in Princely india Bonnie G. MacDougall The gigantic masonry astronomical instru- world. Although there are reports or remains of ments built by the Maharaja Jai Singh of Jaipur earlier massive instruments in the Near East or (1688-1743) are among the most startling and Central Asia, most notably at Samarkand, Jai visually compelling monuments in the entire Singh's designs are for the most part without Indian architectural record. As staples on the known formal precedent in India or elsewhere. "must see" list of historians, practitioners, and The better known and largest of Jai Singh's students of architecture who pass through India observatories are easily accessible to the trav- these Jantar Mantars, as the observatories are eler (fig. 4). The most widely visited complex. known colloquially, are perhaps second only to now meticulously maintained by the Govern- the Taj Mahal as perennial attractions. The ment of India, lies in the heart of New Delhi, the Swiss architect Le Corbusier mounted a sculp- national capital, surrounded by palms in a small tural element drawn from one of the massive park near the Imperial Hotel. A second and even instruments atop a hyperbolic cone of his assem- larger complex is located within the palace bly building at Chandigarh (fig. 3), and it seems precincts (once those of Jai Singh himself) at safe to say that these spare and bold geometric Jaipur, the capital of the modern Indian state of forms, variously described as ultramodern, sur- Rajasthan in northwest India, which lies a few real and mysterious, have stirred interest in the hours by rail from New Delhi. Three other South Asian landscape as no others. similar but smaller complexes were also con- The power of these astronomical instru- structed by Jai Singh elsewhere in northern ments to arrest the viewer derives in part from India-at Benares, Ujjain, and Matura. The last their stylistic departure from the rest of the Indian of these is unfortunately no longer extant.1 architectural legacy, especially traditional Hindu Many casual visitors to the Delhi complex are forms. Hindu architecture is most closely identi- unaware that the Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh was a fied with temples that are cloaked in profuse man of considerable personal and political ambi- sculpture with few surfaces left unworked, and tion who left his signature on an architectural the structures at the observatories are stark and legacy that was even more extensive. His largest unadorned. Programmatically, the works at the project was the design and building of Jaipur (c. observatories are also detached from the architec- 1727), which has served as a regional center from tural record in India whose major buildings in- the eighteenth century until the present day. The clude temples, mosques, palaces, and tombs. construction of a new town on such a scale was Prior to Jai Singh's time, observational instru- unprecedented in the annals of Indian town plan- ments were not interpreted architecturally either ning. Its design, especially its east-west ceremonial singly or in groups. Astronomers in India, like axis and its rectilinear grid pattern, was also re- their counterparts in the Near East and Europe markable. Formally and conceptually, Jaipur was relied on astrolabes and other hand-held instru- without parallel in India until the twentieth century, ments of smaller proportions. Indeed, the forms when an international team headed by the Swiss at the observatories are serendipitous finds, like modernist Le Corbusier designed Chandigarh, a rare birds of paradise, and they are unique in the new town with which it has often been compared. 16 1 Samral Yantrajaipui from the intcnoi oi (he Jai Prakash Y cises in which Jai Singh was also engaged will 2 Samrat Yantra.Delhi Reading the observatories: assist us in this reading, as will a generous 3 Palace of Assembly, Chandiparh the literal level detour into the public construction of Hindu kingship and the inner workings of Indian The astronomical instruments at the obser- cuUure. vatories are in effect texts that can be read on For all their differences, the observato- two different levels, the first literal, and the ries and the city of Jaipur were ideationally second broadly allegorical in construction and linked. Products of the same fertile imagina- declamatory in intent. The first reading is tion, they referred to the same symbolic lan- derived from Jai Singh's own statements. He guage and were instrumentalized by Jai Singh left an account of his intentions in the intro- as part of a broader political agenda. The duction to his well-known astronomical tables, Maharaja engaged in a wide range of archi- the Zij Muhammed Shahi. Jai Singh, he ex- tectural, ceremonial, and political activities plained (referring to himself in the third per- which he orchestrated through a common son), built the observatories to provide more body of tropes, especially solar allegories, precise readings of the positions and move- that linked him as a worldly sovereign with ments of the known planets, the fixed stars, the celestial and the divine. He managed to the sun and the moon, so as to construct make his own vision of his singular authority almanacs in the service of religion and the other-worldly connections intelligible to his state. Then as now in South Asia, astrological subjects and perhaps to his regional rivals tndia considerations were central to all important through many redundant tracts. The works undertakings from marriages to military ma- at the observatories that projected him as the neuvers. Jai Singh built large masonry instru- mastermind of a set of colossal scientific ments, he said because experiments with small instruments that clocked the heavenly bod- ones had produced inaccurate readings. Fi- ies as they along through their paths sug- nally he said that Jai Singh had erected the gested that his main connections with the instruments at various locations in North India universal were empirically or scientifically so that as many astronomers as possible could derived. However, Jai Singh also projected make their own observations, in the service of his sovereign authority through celestial al- science. lusions that were referentially mythic. For example, he claimed to be descendant from The underlying text the sun, and he engaged in grandiose sacrifices and ceremonial activities in which he Looking beyond considerations of func- portrayed himself, like the sun or the gods tion, composition, or style to areas of underly- that ensured its eternal return, as an agent of ing meaning, we may discern a social and cosmic rejuvenation. In fact, the structures at political intent to this unique architectural pro- the observatories embroidered the mytho- gram. Examination of other declamatory exer- logical dimension of the solar narrative, al- The Cornell Journal of Architecture/ MACDOIH 17 (hough the evocative paradigms were in- on three instrument types whose designs are scribed in deft and subtle ways. The instru- known to be original: the Samrat Yantra ments not only projected the Maharaja as a (supreme instrument, a sundial) the Jai "master of time" through the conventional Prakash Yantra (light of Jai instrument, an channels of observation and science, but they armillary sphere) and the Ram Yantra (Rama1 s also were named and troped so as to identify instrument) all of which are found at both them with the rhetoric ofthe world-renewing Jaipur and Delhi, (figs. 6 and 7). The nomen- sacrifices through which Jai Singh aligned clature of these instruments is of interest and his worldly authority with that of the gods. further distinguishes them as a set. Whereas The city of Jaipur, which reproduces ele- the rest ofthe instruments are named for their ments of a cosmic plan with the palace of the form or function, the names of these three Maharaja and his observatory at its very cen- instrument types, all conferred by Jai Singh, ter, enriches this narrative, instrumentalizing are related allegorically to solar rites and themes from Hindu cosmology to project the themes. Maharaja as the worldly counterpart of the divine ruler. It also instrumentalized the The political setting and the solar tools and precepts of Islamic astronomy to lineage of Jai Singn aggrandize his reputation as a divinely in- spired scientist. Jai Singh ascended the throne of the princely state of Amber at the age of eleven in The major instruments at the 1699. His kingdom was one of a number of observatories small tributary Hindu states in northern India that owed political allegiance to the Mughals, A birds-eye view of the observatory the Islamic rulers who entered India from grounds of the largest complex at Jaipur Central Asia, governed it from 1526 to 1858, shows approximately a score of masonry and left an indelible stamp on its literature, instruments of various scales arranged in the architecture, and art. During most of the first park with the palace as a backdrop (fig. 5). two decades of his reign as the Maharaja or At Delhi, the many smaller forms of Jaipur 'great ruler' of Amber, Jai Singh was engaged, are lacking, and the complex is organized as his immediate forebearers had been, in around four instrument types, all of them military campaigns, sometimes in the service massive. Unfortunately, precise historical of the Mughal emperors who were seated at records regarding the development of the Delhi, and sometimes as their foe. Over these observatories from Jai Singh's time to the years, he consolidated his power in the region, present were not kept. In fact, modern un- dramatically enlarged the territory under his derstandings of Jai Singh's role as a planner personal control, ingratiated himself with the and astronomer, and his conduct of rites of imperial authorities, and emerged as an influ- state, are drawn largely from legendary re- ential spokesman for regional interests at the constructions of the past rather than from Delhi court.

Load more