In Our Time - The Observatory at Jaipur

Episode Date: February 19, 2009

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Observatory in Jaipur with its vast and beautiful instruments built to make astronomical measurements of the stars. Commissioned in the early 18th century by the Rajput prince and child prodigy, Jai Singh, it was at the centre of attempts to marry hundreds of years of Indian and Persian astronomical tradition. The Observatory was also at the very centre of the city which was laid out according to astrological principles. Jai Singh’s observatory was the cutting edge of Indian astronomy but also a repository for aeons of Hindu and Islamic intellectual life. The instruments were extraordinarily accurate for the time but used no lenses and were built of masonry, not metal. They helped to develop astrological tables, immensely important in Hindu Society, and come down to us as a record of Indian astronomy on the cusp of colonialism. With Chandrika Kaul, Lecturer in Modern History at the University of St Andrews; David Arnold, Professor of Asian and Global History at the University of Warwick; Chris Minkowski, Professor in Sanskrit at the University of Oxford

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get your podcasts. Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk, forward slash Radio 4. I hope you enjoy the program. Hello, if you travel to the city of Jaipur in northern India, you'll find at its heart a palace.

And at the heart of the palace, there's something rather unusual, a plot filled with great sculptural shapes with curved white walls, curious niches, and staircases into the sky. This collection of strange and beautiful things may look like art and indeed may have become art, but it began a science. It's an observatory, and it was built in the early 18th century

by the Rajput prince, Jai Singh. Jai Singh's observatory was the cutting edge of Indian astronomy at the time, but also a repository for eons of Hindu and Islamic intellectual life and a record of Indian astronomy on the cusp of colonialism. With me to discuss the observatory of Jaipur, are Chris Minkowski, Professor in Sanskrit, the University of Oxford, David Arnold, Professor of Asian and Global History at the University of Warwick, and Chandrika Kahl, lecturer in modern history at the University of St. Andrews.

Chandrika Kahl, the observatory is to be found in the city of Jaipur. It was built by Jai Singh. Can you tell us something about him? Sure. Jai Singh was born in the 1780s to a family of Rarch-Puts, rulers called the Kachvahs, who traced their lineage right back to the solar dynasty and the house of the god Ram. He himself is considered to have been a child prodigy. He was very interested in the sciences, in maths, and in astronomy. And it is said that at the age of 13,

he constructed a very elaborate set of tools at his royal palace in America to help in watering a hanging garden, which involved a gradient of mathematical position. Orang Zab, the Mughal Emperor, who was ruling at this time, was so impressed by this young scholar, that he gave him the title of Savai, Jai Singh. Savai literally means a quarter. So he was a quarter more than any other man. So hence his title and the title of his descendants is Savai Jai Jai Singh.

Jai Singh went to school in the traditional fashion. He learned a great deal of great many languages, but he always showed a very precocious interest in science and technology and had a great number of both Islamic, Hindu, as well as Western astronomical texts translated for him from a very young age. He ascended the throne as a very young teenager at the age of only 13. So his precociousness in terms of his academic interest had to be curved in the initial 10 to 20 years

because he had to re-establish his dynasty. and he engaged in that re-establishment using a great deal of his sort of intellect in negotiating and renegotiating his position as a provincial governor of the Mughal Emperor. And by these means, he managed to re-establish the financial stability of the House of Amer and Jepur, which then enabled him to carry on and do all those wonderful things that you mentioned. It's not rare in any country, right, the world, where a young man who happens to, about to be the ruler, is called a prodigy, and given an entire, supposed to be entitled to all sorts of talents.

Is the real evidence for this? Because there does seem to be. I'd just like to reassure listeners that we're not talking about, this word isn't being just slapped on as a label because he was a prince. I think there is real evidence from contemporary observers, both Indian, as well as foreigners who visited the court, later in his reign. He showed a precocious intelligence

and a questioning mind. At a time when the Mughal Empire was disintegrating, there was a great deal of ignorance and superstition around as well. And he was almost a ray of light, a beacon of light. Also, I think the term modernity is often applied to his approach to both rulership as well as sort of the interest in the sciences and astronomy. His cord was, as I understand it, about 11 kilometres above the Northern Indian plain,

and he didn't want to be in the mountains up at Amber. He came down to the plains and built the city of Jaipur, as I understand it, the first grid city in India built on the grid of the number nine. That was an extraordinary thing for him to do. Absolutely. It's considered to be one of the first modern cities in northern India. It's based on a traditional Hindu architectural system, which is called the Shilpashastras. And so he combined a modern perspective

in having a purpose-built city based, however, on traditional Hindu architectural texts. So there was an interesting combination of, if you like, the traditional and the more forward-looking or modern. What would the traditional be? The Shilpastrists. You mentioned the term nine. I think it's an important term in Indian cosmology and astronomy.

But it was the Hindu texts talked about the positioning of the different groups in society based on the Mundip, which is really how a Hindu temple is positioned. So you have the core, the most important part of the Hindu temple right at the center, surrounded on four and then eight sides by various deities. Now, the Hindu city of Jaipur was also based on a divisioning of the city into different compartments, which were then populated by civic, royal and religious houses and groups of people. David Arnold, why did he want to build this city and why did it put this, we're going to talk about this great observatory at the centre of it?

Well, I think it was very important to him for many reasons to create an observatory of this kind. I think we first of all had to recognise the political circumstances of the time. This was a period particularly of the death of Orangzeb in 1707 when the Mughal Empire was disintegrating or appearing to disintegrate. And I think it was very important for Jaising to demonstrate that he was a powerful ruler, one who could command considerable resources, and in a sense to impress upon the landscape his own power and authority. So in a sense, the observatory works in several different ways.

For one thing, it helps cement his relationship with Mahalai. Ahmad Shah, the new Mughal Emperor in Delhi, and to reflect the ongoing relationship between the House of Amber, Jaipur, and the moguls. How does it do that? Well, this was an alliance going back

to Akbar one and a half centuries earlier. And the House of Amber and Jaipur had always had a very close relationship with the moguls. The household had provided the moguls were some of their leading generals and

advisors. And it was very important to Jaisin to maintain that tradition through establishing a close association with Mohammed Shah as the emperor by providing him the information about astronomy by using his patronage as a way of elaborate his own power. The first he built five observators. The first

he built was in Delhi, but let's talk about the one in Jaipur. Can you describe it for listeners who haven't been fortunate to be? Can you tell us about how it was, how it looked, what it consisted of? Well, Jaipo these days is a bustling modern city of several million people, but once you enter the perimeter walls, you're in a very different world. And I suppose we have to set aside the Western notion of what an observatory is like.

We tend to associate an observatory with a built structure containing telescopes and various other instruments of metal and glass and so on. And that was the kind of observatory which was being built in Europe from the early mid-17th century onwards. but what you see at Jaiport is a very different kind of structure. It's in the open air, it's not within a built structure at all, and it consists of a whole number of different instruments built of stone rather than of brass or of glass with lenses and so on.

No telescopes. No telescopes. And indeed that's one of the striking differences between this observatory and the kinds of observatories being built in the West. In a sense, there's almost a kind of Alice in Wonderland quality about this observatory, because in a way what you see are enlarged versions of the kinds of astronomical instruments available to India at the time

an enlarged version of a sundial, of an astrolabe of sextant and so on. When you say enlarge, can you just tell how enlarge the sundial was, for instance? Well, we're talking about objects which are many feet, many yards, in their diameter or their height. For example, one of the most striking buildings or instruments in the observatory is about 90 feet high, and as you mention your introductory remarks, it's a kind of stairway to the stars.

It consists of about 100 steps rising up through a sort of right angle, and at the top of the steps, there's a small pavilion, a chatry, from which the astronomers would observe the stars, anticipate the arrival of the lunar eclipse, and so on. Other parts of the observatory consists of a kind of giant,

disc as a sundial, something like 12, 15 feet across. There is a vast... It was wonderfully accurate. Well, the sundial is extremely accurate to this day. And if it's read carefully, you can read not only hours and minutes, but even divisions of 15 seconds from it. So we're talking about instruments on a colossal scale,

and that is part of their visual power and their authority in a sense. They're very striking. objects. He built five observatories. What was his ultimate aim of this, it seems like a grand project? What was the ultimate aim of that project?

Well, the initial part of the project was to try to establish a more accurate and reliable astronomical record that existed at that time. There were a number of almanacs and records and treatises going back many centuries, but

by the period we're talking about here by the 18th century, many of these were deemed to be inaccurate. So you couldn't actually forecast the occurrence of eclipses, for example. You couldn't actually determine the length of the solar year. So Gising's immediate purpose

was to try to establish absolutely accurate measurements. Thank you very much. Chris Minkowski, so we've got a giant machine for producing astronomical data. What did they do with the information they got? What did they use it? Principally, what did they use it for and for whom?

Right. Well, there are two projects involved. Jay Singh had a large intellectual project, which David Arnold has already described, of correcting the traditional astronomy that he had inherited based on more accurate observation and getting the predictions to match what was actually observed. But the most immediate goal of the project was something that he did for Muhammad Shah, the Mughal emperor, which was to create a book of tables called in Arabic Aziz. this is a set of tables which make it easy for anyone to calculate the position of the planets and to construct a calendar or cast a horoscope knowing nothing more than addition and subtraction.

All of the difficult trigonometry and algebra and geometry and so on is left to these experts in the observatory and they produce a set of tables which also include geographical locations of cities, longitudes and latitudes of those cities include things like the equation of time of the sun so that you can tell, you can make judgments about the length of days. It also includes a star chart so that

you can judge where in relation to the heavens a particular planet is, and so on. So there are a set of these tables. And these tables the reason that Jaising was particularly interested in producing Azid is that previous Mughal emperors had also produced

had zeeges produced for them. One of these was Shahjahan, the man who built the Taj Mahal, and also his grandfather, Akbar, had also had a zij produced. But neither of them had done any observations. They'd simply recycled a zige that had been produced by a ruler in Samarkand

in about 300 years before J Singh, and whose name was Ulug Beg. And Ullug Beg had, in fact, constructed a masonry observatory of the sort that Jaising also constructed and had produced a siege, the Zijid, which continued to be used for the next three centuries. So we have this, we have this information coming out, so it's a great deal of information.

Astronomy, astrology, great concentration in horoscopes, help with when the monsoons come, the eclipses, great power in eclipses, prophesying what might or what will happen, which it was the power for centuries and centuries. Who is running this observatory? Well, I think that in fact, J. Singh was probably a fairly hands-on director of this scientific research project, but it's important to understand that the construction of the observatory was only one part of his scientific project,

and the other was assembling a community of experts. And very interestingly, in the case of J. Singh, this was a community of experts who were expert in three different traditions of astronomy, the traditional Hindu astronomy expressed almost always in Sanskrit, usually called siddhantic astronomy, and then experts in the astronomy, which is communicated in Arabic and Persian, which was the one that had typically produced Zieg-type astronomy. And then towards the end of his career,

he also had some French Jesuits in his court who were informing him about European astronomy as well. So this entire team are not only, carrying out observations and doing calculations according to traditional practices. But they're also engaged in translating texts into Sanskrit, into Persian, and back and forth into various languages, just as Ulubeg had

assembled a set of texts that had been produced in the mid-13th century, in Maraga, in northwestern Iran, by Nassir al-Din Altusid, a very famous Arabic astronomer, mathematician, and social philosopher as well, who had been commissioned to assemble a team, produced translations of the Greek astronomical classics. All of these texts end up in Jay Singh's library

and are used by him in the project that he carries out. So, Chandrika Kahl, this seems almost like a summation. He's bringing in together astrology from Babylon, Egypt, Greece, we talked about the Arab influence and so on and so. He's bringing that all to bear here. Can you explain then concentrate a bit more on the Hindu part of it? He was a devout Hindu. He's in a Muslim empire. We can talk about that a little later, which is on the face of it nowadays.

We look at it rather extraordinary. And how was he applying the knowledge he got from this to Hindu life? I think that's a very interesting point about his, secularism in terms of his acquisition of knowledge. But when it actually came to the implementation and use of astronomy and indeed astrology, there we find an interesting and a very Hindu take on things. Because Hindus believe that their entire lives from birth to death is governed by the movement of the stars. And that impact on...

One second. I don't want to be rude. Just to make quite clear, we're talking about a culture that believes that astronomy and astrology were different sides of precisely the same coin, and that had been going on for thousands of years. Absolutely, exactly. They're interchangible and symbiotic relations. So to begin with, the idea is that you have nine, primarily nine senses

or impacts or influences, that the cosmic calendar can have on a Hindu's daily life. Seven that can be cited, the sun and the moon and the seven planets that can be seen through, your eyes, and two that are dark, which are evil influences. They're known as Rahuk. There's a word called Rahu and Raghu Kal, which is sort of has, if you were to do auspicious things in those times of the day, then it would come to naught.

This concept is not dissimilar even in Islamic traditions of astronomy. We know Mughal emperors did not proceed to war unless they sort of checked with their astrologers about the correct time to invade a country or, you know, to invade a country or and so on. So in terms of the Hindu's life, it's governed by the movement of stars, by the timing of eclipses, by the coming of the new moon, and not just in terms of their daily observances, but also in terms of the seasonal changes, the beginning of spring, the harvest time. So even the common, you know, the agricultural laborer would be impacted by astronomical observations. So in a sense, as far as Hindu life, culture,

and indeed even economics, if you like, were concerned, very much guided by an astronomical religious perspective. And Jai Singh was catering to that need. He was a devout Veshnavite. And in fact, if you look at both the construction of the observatory, but also of the city of Jaiapur, you find that reflected in the way he constructs temples, the way he situates.

Sorry. The place, no. So there is a very practical, pragmatic man here who has a very keen sense of imparting information and knowledge, knowledge that he thinks is important linked to his scientific interests, but also to serve a wider need, to appeal to a wider populace. Did Grisman-Nkowski, did Ajai Singh ever have trouble reconciling the religious function of astrology with the scientific demands? It seems he worried about this problem, at least in one case. He was a devout worshiper of Krishna.

In fact, he's famous for moving a very celebrated image of Krishna from its home along the Yamuna River to the center of his new planned city. So there is a great temple to this Govindaveji image of Krishna right at the very heart of his planned Japur city. and the great text of devotion to Krishna is a text called the Bhagavatupurana which includes an entire chapter about what the world's shape is like and that is a separate tradition of cosmology in the Indian tradition which is very different

from the cosmology the astronomers used and posits an enormous but flat earth with a huge central mountain and all of the stars always above the surface of this flat earth and so on. So nothing that could be used for practical results in astronomy. And this discrepancy had always been

left lying by scholars in the past. But Jay Singh was worried about this and commissioned one of an unfortunate man named Keval Arama, his court astronomer and astrologer, to attempt to work out a way in which both of these two were physically

true. And so... Did it? Well, he produced a text certively. Many people think that it's not entirely successful since it has to posit the orbits of some of the planets passing through the surface of the earth and sort of imaginary roots, subterranean roots

and things of that sort. David Arnold, can we develop the idea of this observatory as an intellectual at the very least power centre and in a sense perhaps grander than that? As people are believing in taking these as the way they

should lead their lives, these are almost not so much laws, but in junctions, it is a powerful place. Can you just tell us about what went on there? Give us some idea of the strength of it, please. Well, its importance is to be seen in several ways. One is that it seems to be one of the most important focuses of activity in Gising's court itself. So he attracted astronomers and astrologers not just from his own immediate area, but from as far away as Bengal. So it was a kind of intellectual focus and a scientific focus. for a large part of India.

It was part of a very active court culture in which astronomy, the sciences, the arts and medicine were all very important to the way in which he was able to patronise both Hindu and Muslim sciences. And I suppose part of what we're talking about here is a kind of eclecticism, which enables people like Jai Singh to draw upon different kinds of traditions. To some extent, he's drawing upon the Hindu tradition

that Chris is referred to, to some extent, his drawing upon an Islamic tradition in which there is much more interest in the practical observation of the stars and the planets. To some extent it has been suggested his drawing upon a European tradition of astronomy as well, although I think we have to be rather more sceptical about that element. But I suppose one way of thinking of it is to say that his ambition

was to try to make Jaipur a kind of intellectual epicentre for these various cultural strands. and even in a way to appropriate the West to the traditions of India. I mean, he was able to point out there were certain errors in the astronomical tables being used in Europe at the time. I think that even though this was in a sense on the eve of colonialism, he was very confident about the ability of an Indian rule like himself to bring together all these kinds of strains and in a sense to rationalise them.

Chandrika? Without in any sense taking away from his far-sightedness and his eclecticism, as you put it, I think a very big question mark remains about why he ignored the developments in Western astronomy, Copernicus, the whole heliocentric approach to cosmology, and concentrated instead on a very traditional and considered to be out-of-date approach. And I think one answer to that could be because he felt the pressure of the religious tradition, the Romantic tradition, within his immediate. surrounding, and therefore he, even though he was aware of Kepler and Copernicus and Newton, he perhaps chose to or didn't have enough clout to go against the traditional hierarchy. Yes, the Hinduism was very strong in him, as I understand, the Christian Catholic.

Can you give us a sense of how old Hindu astronomy is and some of the evidence for it? And why this would, as has been suggested, bear down on him so strongly? Right. Well, the Indian Astronombalm, tradition, as expressed in Sanskrit, has very early beginnings, aspects of the Vedic literature already reflect on the motion of the stars and count the number of the days.

I'm sorry, the Vedic tradition. It's very difficult to date, but conservatively, we would say some of the earliest astronomical text, the Jotisha Vedanga, about 500 BC. Proper systematic sedantic astronomy really begins

in the 3rd, 4th, 5th century AD. And there are five or six different schools of thought about this that develop different pukshas as they're called are schools of thought J. Singh belonged seems to have been particularly partisan to the Surya Sedanta

the school of thought belonged to the sun or the but there are numerous others and they were aware of each other and mutually influenced each other for the Well they were of previous research well there were the Babylonian tradition for instance they are clearly aware

of Hellenistic astronomy as some Some of the astronomy and astrology refers to the knowledge of the Yovina's, that is the Westerners, perhaps the people of the Northwest. There are astronomical and calculatory techniques that have Greek names transcribed into Sanskrit and so on. Chandrika, Cole, we've glided over the fact

that we have a Hindu ruler, even though the Mughal Empire isn't as strong as it was in the 17th century, it's still the empire of India. Hindu ruler inside a Muslim empire and he's doing very well out of it his relationship seems very good indeed he's given a great amount of money he builds these observatories

with Muslim money can you tell us how he managed that yes I think he was following in a tradition whereby the ruling house the Kachvahas Rashbuth had established particularly from the time of the great Mughal Agba to establish a very close marital relationship with the Mughal family. So the one of the princesses from this ruling

house married Akbar and indeed produced the next heir to the Mughal's throne. So there was a very astute combination of marital relations, but also a very pragmatic approach to this relationship, i.e. the Khachvahas were known to be warrior princess and they and the Mughal Empire was really at heart of war state. And so the numerous extensions of territory that took place, particularly if you think about in Jasing's times under Orangseye were towards the south, towards the Deccan. Not all very successful, but nevertheless, Jaising put himself at the head of elite stormtroopers, as it were, people he paid for.

He was an elite sort of Man Sabdar of the Mughal, court and he was successful more often than he wasn't. So he was fighting for the Mongol Empire against all the Hindus. Against, that is a very interesting point. He managed to alienate a large number of his own clansmen, a large number of the Rajputs looked down upon his association with this Islamic ruler rather than upholding Rashput's clan honor and valor. He chose, was seen to side with, as indeed his ancestors had, with the Islamic

ruler, but also against the Marathas, who were, again, a very powerful and a very important Hindu ruling house in the north and west of the country. So he was sent to fight against the Marathes. Now, over the course of his rulership, he managed to persuade, particularly Mohammed Shah, to tone down some of his anti-Hindu sentiments and policies, and also to try and do less to alienate the marauders. Orang Zeb had done his best to do so but, but he was managing to persuade a different policy. So he's fighting against other Hindus,

he's leading battles against other Hindus, he's alienating even more locally his own clansmen, other Reichputs. He's doing this all in the service of being under the protection and getting an enormous amount of money from the emperors. Is this, David Arne, in your view, is this to do, might be true, survival might be due to building his own empire

because his own grew, but this is also to do with his idea that he's got to have these resources, has got to have this reduction to carry on with this project that he's got. And does it... Sorry, I'm sorry I ask you a certain question, it's a bad habit, but have we go. And is he

bringing together Muslim and Hindu ideas? Is the positive side of this, is that he's bringing these two together? Well, there are two ways of thinking about this, I suppose. One is to see the Hindu and Islamic traditions and traditions of rulership and science as being different and antagonistic. The other is to see them as actually much more intertwined than that kind of division would suggest.

And I suppose one of the trends of recent scholarship in this period of India has been to try to get away from that polarisation of Muslim and Hindu. And to argue that, for example, in fields like science or medicine or in the arts and literature, there was actually a very very positive and creative interaction between things that we might call Muslim and things that we might call Hindu. So I think it would be unfair to suggest that Jai Singh was actually saying, am I a Hindu, am I supporting the Muslims? Is this a betrayal? I think his pragmatism and the kind of culturally syncretic world in which he moved made it possible for him to both serve a Muslim Mughal emperor and at the same time to describe his instruments in

Sanskritic terms, locate three of the principal observatories in key Hindu pilgrimage places and so on. So I think that we have to see him as moving very fluidly between things which to us now appear to be a part of different traditions. Chris Minkowski, you mentioned earlier about translations. You sort of pushed through it very quickly, but I'd like to learn for one moment. What was being translated at this court in Jaipur? Well, for example, he and Nasudriddin Altusi, the 13th century Arabic astronomer, had produced versions of Ptolemy's Almagest in Arabic, then also Euclid in Arabic, and then also Theodosius's spherics, and Nasiridididian Altusi had written an astronomical treatise of his own Tadhira. So all four of those, there are Arabic copies of those and then also Persian versions of those

in what remains of Jaising's Library in the Palace Museum Library even today. And there are also Sanskrit translations of parts of those. So in fact, although Indian astronomers and mathematicians knew plenty of geometry, the first time that they... The Sanskritic astronomers, the first time they came in contact with Euclid

was through these translations of Jai Singh's. We're talking about in the early 18th century, Chandrika called a time of transition. The Mughal Empire is declining. It's propped up in the sense by Jaising and perhaps others. And the Western colonialism hasn't yet got any power, much of a power grip. Can you tell us where, as it were, the Europeans were at this time in the first third of the 18th century? Yes, I think the Mughal Empire, unlike, say, the, empire in China was a very open society, which meant that individual Europeans could move about freely

as long as they paid their taxes. And this resulted in a great deal of openness in Jaipur and in his kingdom. So you get a range of Europeans, not just the company people, but you get Portuguese, French, you mention the French, the English, of course. But as far as the English colonial powers, or the beginnings of colonial rule, of course, we have the East India Company, English East India company. Well, no, it's established in 1600, but it isn't growing quite, it isn't very strong.

Well, it is beginning to be, because by the time you come to 1757, you have the Great Battle of Placcy with Robert Clive, which really establishes the company in territorial terms. That's a bit further on than I wanted to be, but never mind. I think, I think, okay, right, if you go back even earlier, I think the point I was trying to make a moment ago was, I think we need to see

Gising's achievements in the context of a breakdown of the Mughal synthesis between Hindu and Islamic traditions. So I think that's where he came in at a time when it was a much more polarized society, where it was very much seen by contemporaries as us against them. I mean, you just have to look at Orangzeb

and the policies he inculcated. And of course, his successes, there was, in the space of about 14 years, you had four very bloody battles for survival and succession in the early 18th century, which is exactly the time when, Jai Singh was ruling. So he is negotiating in very troubled waters. And I think his success is therefore linked to the specific context in which he was working. But your question was more

about the European influence. Yeah, I'm going to turn to David Arnold now. He was bringing in European scholars and astronomers. I'm trying to stick to what extent was he doing that in his life? And to what extent more important was he taking any notice of them? Well, I think that's an important issue because certainly there were Jesuits and other Europeans who visited Jaipur, but towards the end of his reign. And I think that's the critical chronological question, that the observatories in Delhi and Jaipur were built or least conceptualized before these Europeans appeared on the scene. So my interpretation would be that they were visitors, that they were people who witnessed

the creation of these observatories, rather than people who in any sense inspired them. And I think that that is a critical difference. In fact, the contact with Europeans in one case, however, was initiated by Jaising. In the late 1720s, he came to hear something about European astronomy and its recent successes from some of the European visitors. So he sent an expedition to Portugal to bring back astronomy texts and astronomers, if possible. and they returned with the tables of a French astronomer called Philippe Dillahir, which were produced in 1702, and a very young man named Pedro de Silva,

who was supposed to explain these tables to the assembled scientists there in Jepur. The unfortunate Kavalarama, again, was commissioned to translate Philippe Delahir's tables into Sanskrit. Unfortunately, they made use of logarithms, which are not part of the mathematical practices of India at that time. And so Kavlarama, although he could reproduce all of the figures in the tables, didn't know how to use them. And as a result, at least for some time, the use of the European materials was very unsuccessful.

This is one example. David Handel is another. Copernicus at the turn of the 16th century had introduced the heliocentric theory that the planets go around the sun. Lenses had come in, lenses were being ground in Venice, and then very successful here in London. That was quite old hat of those things by the time that Jaising came on the scene, and yet both those things,

despite the magnificence of the places he built, and he's undoubted, as Chandigas pointed out, is undoubtedly said as a real scholar on a project, both these things, did they pass him by, or did he repudiate them? Well, in a sense, one can see Jai Singh's activities as anachronistic. he has an argument in his own discussion that he rejected the use of brass instruments

which were very important to the development of astronomy in the West arguing that you couldn't get sufficient accuracy of brass instruments because they were mostly rather small and also that they wore out rather easily and that perhaps in the heat of India where temperatures might be up to 40 degrees they would buckle and become very imperfect instruments so he was partly saying I know about the possibilities of brass instruments

but I'm rejecting them for something built in stone and mortar and brick, which I believe to be much more reliable. But it did relieve him, he had to rely still, however elaborate and wonderful, and these long tubes you look. He was still doing exactly the same as the Babylonians relying on the naked eye. He was relying upon the naked eye, yes, that's very central to the way in which this observatory works. And to that extent, as I say, he is rather anachronistic. But to go back to the Copernicus point,

I mean, it is significant that Gai Singh dies in 1743, exactly 200 years after Copernicus as it happens. And there is some discussion as to how far he knew about these kinds of heliocentric theories. I suppose I would say a couple of things in response to that. One is that there had been an element of a heliocentric theory within Hindu astronomy from way back, but it had been contested and to a large extent derided as unorthodox. Now, Tocene was not a scientific revolutionary. He was interested in the practical possibilities of these observatories,

not in trying to develop or contest some new scientific theory. So I think his very pragmatism, his very attachment to a certain strand of orthodoxy, meant that he in a sense wasn't interested in trying to engage in those debates, and he could arrive at his observations without having to explain whether the earth revolved around the sun or vice versa. And also we must emphasise that his observations did the job that he wanted to have done. I mean, in the culture in which he lived, they did precisely what they set out to do.

But I think there's one further point there. If we talk about his contacts with Europe, to some extent his contacts with Europe were conservative ones. They were with Jesuits, they were with Portuguese, they weren't necessarily with the people who were the cutting edge of astronomy in Europe at that time.

John Rika, John Jankal, what about the British appreciation of the Indian achievements in this area? It went through a couple stages, two or three stages, didn't it? It started off as Indomania. Yes, indeed. I think there was a gradual of certainly in the first half of the 18th century in trying to discover whether there were any, whether there was anything new to add to the pantheon of Western astronomy and observations. Real excitement about it. And early travellers remarked about the sheer scale and monumental beauty about these instruments.

However, very soon you do get a kind of, if you like, an orientalist perspective, which was only interested in trying to discover the longus. the ancient origins of Indian astronomy, but at the same time deriding the current, the contemporary scientific basis of Indian astronomy. So this is a very classic orientalist sort of approach to Indian sort of culture more broadly defined. You do get in the 18th century individual members of the East India company who took a great deal of interest.

However, the company as a whole didn't have a position, a very clear position until the end of the 1780s when the first observatory was set up in Madras. By the East India Company. By the East India Company. And soon you had other observatories in the 19th century as well. And they were set up with telescopes or such. But they were probably a clash of cultures as well as sciences, isn't it?

They were to do something else. Exactly. They were basically for shipping. Exactly. Navigation for construction of navigational maps for surveying of land linked to the acquisition and control of territory and power, really linked to this whole idea of knowledge,

equaling power in colonial and traditional societies. And so the fact that Jaipur and Jai Singh's observatories didn't yield the kind of information they wanted also played into this orientalist discourse of actually downplaying the scientific rigor of these observatories. Chris Minkowski. Because that began to change again. I mean, there was a hugely dismissive minute,

It's by McCauley in the first half of the 19th century, basically saying we are exactly what you said. Very, you know, superiority, actually, military superiority of great contempt. It was... Something about English school girls in boarding houses. They moved to laughter. Yes, shaming and reverendezer. There you go, that is history.

And that changed, though. You get soon as a great lord... Lord Curzon, appreciating the second half of the 19th century, early 20th, appreciating these observatives, particularly putting money. in. The President of the Royal Society comes out and says these are magnificent buildings. This is a magnificent stage inside. You must look after it and treasure it and so on. So there's a turnaround.

Yes, there is. And if I could mention a predecessor of Lord Curson, it would be one of those orientalists, a man with the wonderful name of Lancelot Wilkinson, who was on the losing side of that debate with Macaulay about in what medium Indians should be educated. and who fostered an entire school of Indian astronomers, thinking that if once they knew proper Indian astronomy, as it had been practiced by the best, it would be a very short step for them to then move to a heliocentric understanding and so on,

but that the instruction should continue the ancient traditions. And that had some influence in Benares for the rest of that century. Well, thank you all very much. Thank you, Richard Cole, David Arnold, Chris Minkowski, And next week we'll be talking about TSAO Let's Spirm, The Wasteland, published in 1922, The Wasteland and the Modernity. Thanks for listening. We hope you've enjoyed this Radio 4 podcast. You can find hundreds of other programmes about history, science and philosophy at BBC.com.com.

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