©2011 Susan N. Johnson-Roehr THE SPATIALIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE AND POWER AT THE ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORIES OF SAWAI JAI SINGH II, C. 1721-1743 CE BY SUSAN N. JOHNSON-ROEHR DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2011 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor D. Fairchild Ruggles, Chair Assistant Professor Panayiota Pyla, Director of Research, University of Cyprus Professor Paul Kruty Professor Antoinette Burton ABSTRACT This dissertation is about the production of astronomical knowledge in northern India during the eighteenth century and the specific architectural elements and landscape configurations that affected the mobility and utility of that knowledge. Centered on a group of five astronomical observatories built between 1721 and 1743 CE under the patronage of the Maharaja Dhiraja of Jaipur and Amer, Sawai Jai Singh II, this project is an analysis of the relationship between patron, architecture, and space, and as such, represents an alternative approach to the writing of history. My project embraces the spatial and the material, and argues that architecture and landscape are not simply witnesses to history but participants in the process of change and transformation. This project starts from the position that our understanding of the spatial and intellectual relationships among the observatories has been shaped by colonial historiography and pushes for a reading of the historical landscape that recognizes both the power and the limitations of the agency of the local patron and populace. In this study, I demonstrate that the observatory outside the walls of Shahjahanabad functioned as the primary site for scientific production for several years before Sawai Jai Singh directed his attentions toward the observatory in Jaipur c. 1728 CE. A close reading of the plan and architecture of Jaipur reveals the multiple types of knowledge that were emplaced in the local landscape as a result of the construction of the observatory and shows that while the ostensible goal of the observatory was the production of astronomical knowledge, ancillary knowledge—accounting, building, political—was privileged in the intellectual institutions of the city. My analysis of the relationship between these institutions and the greater urban fabric disentangles the complexity of labor divisions at the observatory and highlights Sawai Jai Singh’s desire to consolidate his intellectual wealth into a single locale—the scholar’s village of Bhramapurī—at the periphery of ii the capital. This discussion also considers the stretch and limitations of Sawai Jai Singh’s power and reputation. Sawai Jai Singh made three separate attempts to re-settle European experts close to his most active observatory. In doing so, he appropriated the infrastructure of the Society of Jesus and used it to circumvent the hardships impressed upon travelers by the north Indian landscape in order to bring representatives of European science back to his capital city. However, in spite of the strength of his political and economic position in northern India, the natural landscape and the particularities of the Jesuit rule combined to thwart him in these endeavors. This project concludes with a consideration of the dominant themes in contemporary heritage discourse as they relate to the observatories and current practices of academic history writing. By turning away from the conventional archive, and examining instead the built environment and landscapes of northern India during the first half of the eighteenth century, my work offers an alternative narrative of the history of observatories, one that is underpinned by motion, exchange, adaptation, and creativity. iii For Mom and Dad iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I accrued many professional and personal debts while working on this dissertation. Financial support came to me in the form of the Alan K. and Leonarda F. Laing Memorial Fellowship in Architecture, the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, the Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellowship, the University of Illinois Graduate College Dissertation Travel Grant, the U.S. Department of State/Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs/Council of American Overseas Research Centers Critical Language Scholarship, the University of Illinois Center for Global Studies Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship, the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities Graduate Fellowship, the Kate Neal Kinley Memorial Fellowship, and the Scott Dissertation Completion Fellowship. Sections of this dissertation were presented at numerous conferences during the past five years, and I thank the University of Illinois Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, the University of Illinois Graduate College, and the National Science Foundation for their generous conference travel grants. I am also grateful for the assistance given me by the American Institute of India Studies, and would like to thank all of the staff and faculty of the AIIS Intermediate and Advanced Hindi programs in Chicago and Jaipur. The research for this dissertation was completed at multiple archives in four different countries. In London, I thank Helen George of the Print and Drawings Room of the Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections, as well as the reliably helpful staff at the APAC circulation desk. Special thanks go to Ursula Sims-Williams for providing a copy of C. A. Storey’s cataloging notes for the Chahār Gulshan. I thank Joanna Hopkins at the Royal Society, Kathy Lazenbatt and Alice McEwen at the Royal Asiatic Society, Jonathan Makepeace of the Photographs Collection at the Royal Institute of British Architects, and the friendly staff at the Science & Society Picture v Library. I would have been unable to complete my work in Paris without the help of le Père Archiviste, Robert Bonfils, and his assistant, at Archives de la Province de France de la Compagnie de Jésus. In Delhi, I would like to thank the Indian arm of the Fulbright Commission, the United States-Indian Educational Foundation, and the staff of the reading room at the National Archives of India in New Delhi. In Bhopal, my work could not have been completed without the assistance of Mr. Meena, Assistant Archivist, and Madam Subharwal, In- Charge, at the Directorate of Archaeology, Archives and Museums. For all their help with the Imārat Khāna accounts, I thank Mr. Bodhiya, and the many individuals staffing the reading room, library, and copy room at the Rajasthan State Archives in Bikaner. It is a pleasure to thank those most responsible for the success of this dissertation, my advisor and committee members: Panayiota Pyla, D. Fairchild Ruggles, Paul Kruty, and Antoinette Burton. I have learned a great deal from them as scholars, educators, and mentors. My dissertation also owes a great deal to the support of my advisor in the School of Arts and Aesthetics of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, Parul Dave Mukherji. Many faculty members at the University of Illinois provided valuable feedback and encouragement during the dissertation process. I would like to thank Christine Catanzarite, Lynne Dearborn, Rebecca Ginsburg, Dianne Harris, Areli Marina, Heather Hyde Minor, Mithilesh Mishra, David O’Brien, Vandana Puri, Dana Rabin, Lisa Rosenthal, Helaine Silverman, Amita Sinha, Maria Todorova, and all the 2009-2010 Faculty and Graduate Fellows at the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, University of Illinois. Faculty associated with other institutions also provided assistance and advice, including S.M. Razaullah Ansari, Judy Bausch, Shefali Chandra, Robert Ousterhout, Barry Perlus, Kim Plofker, and Virendra N. Sharma. A similar debt of gratitude is vi owed to Kathryn Danner and her hard-working staff in the Interlibrary Borrowing Department at the University of Illinois. None of the opportunities mentioned in the first paragraph of these acknowledgements would have landed in my lap without the assistance of the staff of the School of Architecture: Gary Ambler, Molly Blixen, Rhonda Frank, Spring Harrison, Cheryl Heck, and Chris Wilcock each deserve my thanks. My personal debts are tremendous and stretch across the globe. Diana Stanley, Nidhi Sharma, Pradeep and Vandana Khemani, Yogendra Singh and Samar Rathore, Vijay Juneja, and Pramod and Manju Sharma welcomed me into their homes while I was conducting research in the United Kingdom and India. I owe a particularly deep debt to all those who traveled and visited the observatories with me: Eric Colvard, Silas Ellison, Julia Kowalski, and Crystal Watson endured more than most. Andrew McDowell gets special props for staying alive and for making the trip to the deserts of Bikaner. Beth Watkins has served as my primary sounding board for all things intellectual and emotional during this project. Her enthusiasm for my research carried me through many a rough patch. Claire Snell-Rood deserves the richest of rewards for all she has given me in the past few years. She put herself in peril to help me when I needed it most and that kind of friendship cannot be replaced by anything or anyone. Thanks also go to Ajla Aksamija, Tutin Aryanti, Amelia Baldwin, Dana Cook, David Guy Evans, Rebecca Grapevine, Ayse Henry, Olivier Henry, Martin Holland, Erika Knudson, Beth Kuebler- Wolf, Assia Lamzah, Matt Myers, Dana Rabin, Lizzie Reis, Henry Schilb, Jim Schissel, Linda Smeins, Linda Smith, the entire