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Literary Review
A sense of the marvellous
JAI SINGH II is primarily remembered for his achievements in Astronomy and Architecture. His most ambitious building project was the city of Jaipur designed on the principles of the Pithampada mandala with the palace at the centre. Between 1686-1743 he also built five observatories in Jaipur, Delhi, Banaras, Ujjain and Mathura all of which have the same types of instruments or yantras laid out according to their astronomical functions. This book, originally a Ph.D. thesis, is a study of the construction methods and style of these scientific installations. It is an unusual area of research and, as the writer points out, is ignored by archaeologists because the structures lack decoration and defy traditional architectural styles.
The book is clumsily written and the translation does no favour to the author. Nonetheless, the scholarship is impressive, ranging from an account of the historical and philosophical context of these architectural curiosities to details of wages and building costs. Andreas Volwahsen stresses the importance of the specific cultural conditions of the 1700s, the architects' conception of science and its relationship to religion. Beginning with an account of the origin and history of astronomy, he brings out the relationship between the observatories of the ancient world and their more modern counterparts, from 13th-century BC Egypt to 17th-century Peking including Stonehenge, Chichen Itza in Mexico and others.
The theoretical foundations of Jai Singh's instruments can be traced to Ptolemy and Hipparchus, who in turn derived their knowledge from Egyptian and Babylonian astronomers. The Jai Prakash Yantra (sundial) in the Indian observatories was adopted from the Greeks who inherited it from the Babylonians. The Arab influence via Samarkhand is evident in the astronomical charts that Jai Singh II employed and the instruments that he built. An awareness of the Central European instruments which evolved into large buildings in Jai Singh's observatories may have been derived from the Jesuits and Europeans at his court. For instance, the marble quadrant from Tycho Brahe's observatory at Stenjeneborg became the Shestansha Yantra in the Delhi and Jaipur observatories.
A large proportion of Jai Singh's instruments were built on platforms reminiscent of the Vedic fire altar. The observatories were also designed according to Hindu notions of space. The structure of the Jai Prakash Yantra or the Mishra Yantra in the observatories is reminiscent of the Hindu monolithic approach. But sections of yantras are broken up into internal rooms, walls and frameworks of walls reminiscent of Islamic architecture. According to Volwahsen, in the building of the observatories "a Hindu-style architectural form was being technically and functionally Islamicised".
In spite of this range of influences, it is essentially the Hindu worldview that is dominant. The observatories were designed by architects and artists who were also priests, and as members of a religious order they attempted to project an image of the universe according to their particular religious orthodoxies. In this sense Jai Singh's endeavours were not unlike those of other astronomer-priests of the ancient world such as the builders of Stonehenge and Chichen Itza.
Designed according to the mandala, the embodiment of order, unity and wholeness, the architecture of the observatories represented the geometric relation between earth, sun, stars and planets, the apparent diurnal motion of the sun, the movement of the stars, and the cycle of the seasons.
On the face of it, Jai Singh's intentions were entirely electric — to build as many observatories as he could to enable anyone who so wished, to study the heavens. Therefore, wherever he was installed as governor by the Mughal Emperor, he built an observatory, and his yantras dominated the landscape. The structures were as costly as the imperial houses of the time and their scale is emblematic of the importance that Jai Singh assigned to them.
These are laudable intentions, but there are problems with the observatories. Why were they built on such a monumental scale when smaller instruments were available and accurate enough? The same buildings were unnecessarily repeated and in certain cases the subsidence in the soil rendered them useless for astronomical readings. Moreover, the Maharaja also had a collection of traditional metal instruments, suggesting that, at least for purposes of observation, he had no need for these enormous yantras.
Perhaps they were built for ostentation, but the writer sees this view as simplistic. According to him they were emblematic of the Hindu worldview at a time of religious ferment when Christianity and Islam were casting doubt on the magic of the tantric squares. There was only one possible way of defining once and for all the paths of the celestial bodies — to build them so large as to render them indestructible either by mankind or by the elements. In this they resemble the giant monoliths of Stonehenge which, after almost 5,000 years of history, are still "a clear illustration of cosmic order independent of the fate of the people who passed through or settled, ravaged or cultivated this area."
This argument is persuasive but not entirely convincing. Jai Singh was undoubtedly obsessive. He diverted all the energies of his people into building structures that were not inspired by a pattern of stars, nor did they commemorate a momentous event of an earlier age as one theory regarding the pyramids suggests, nor does the layout follow any traditional aesthetic norms. Although he tried to establish architecturally, symbolically and astronomically a view of contemporary cosmology, his representations were not accurate. His architects were creative and imaginative thinkers, but there were other less rigorous, less expensive ways of expounding the mysteries of the universe.
Unfortunately, the cost of maintaining the observatories is prohibitive and they are no longer in as good a state as they deserve to be. The Banaras observatory is structurally sound but unkempt. The observatory at Mathura has simply disappeared. By the early part of the 20th Century, all the instruments in the Ujjain observatory were in a state of ruin and the Archaeological Survey of India had to rebuild them from scratch.
But in spite of their dilapidated condition, the sense of the marvellous remains undiminished. These magnificent buildings have a sculptural presence and draw attention to themselves by the scale and power of brick, plaster and limestone, to which the 60 full colour photographs, 11 black and while illustrations and 85 drawings in the book do full justice. The play of geometric shapes gives them a curiously modern look which influenced architects like Le Corbusier. One should simply be grateful that these mysterious and magnificent buildings still stand.
Cosmic Architecture in India: the Astronomical Monuments of Jai Singh II, Andreas Volwahsen, translated from the German by Sandra Harper, Mapin Publishing, Rs. 3380.
HAVOVI ANKLESARIA
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