Jantar Mantar

An integral part of India's
scientific  heritage,			Jantar	Parliament Street,
Mantar is one of the world’s
oldest observatories.			It was	Connaught Place
				Metro Station: Patel Chowk
built by Sawai Jai Singh II of
				Open: All days
Jaipur in AD 1724. A keen				Timings: Sunrise to Sunset
astronomer,		he	noted	Entry Fee: `5 (Indians), `100
that the calculations			based	(foreigners)
				Photography Charges: Nil (`25
on the	existing planetary
				for video filming)
tables	were	not	always
accurate. With a view to
setting	the	astronomical
tables	straight,		he

approached Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah and requested him for permission to build the observatories.

The most important “instrument” of Jantar Mantar is the huge sundial Samrat Yantra. Consisting of a triangular gnomon with the hypotenuse parallel to the earth’s axis, it measures the time of the day accurate to within half a second. Towards the south of Samrat Yantra lies Jai Prakash. It plays a key role to ascertain the position of the sun and other heavenly bodies.

Equally interesting is the Misra Yantra near the main entrance. It offers an accurate depiction of time of four other places in the world when it is noon in Delhi. Built with brick rubble and plastered with lime, similar observatories were also made at Jaipur, Ujjain, Varanasi and Mathura.