About Jantar Mantar:
A unique structure raised in 1724, now lies in the heart of Delhi’s commercial center near Connaught Place. Maharaja Jai Singh II of Jaipur raised the Jantar Mantar, one of several astronomical observatories, as part of the five built by him. Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah tasked him with revising the calendar and astronomical tables. Someone placed a plaque on one of the structures in the Jantar Mantar observatory in New Delhi, mistakenly dating the construction of the complex to the year 1710. This occurred in 1910. Later research, though, suggests 1724 as the actual year of construction.
The primary purpose of the observatory was to compile astronomical tables and to predict the times and movements of the sun, moon, and planets. Some of these purposes nowadays would be classified as astronomy.
Purpose of Individual Structures
There are four distinct instruments within the observatory of Jantar Mantar in New Delhi: the Samrat Yantra, the Ram Yantra, the Jayaprakash, and the Mishra Yantras.
Samrat Yantra:
The Samrat Yantra, or Supreme Instrument, is a giant triangle that is basically an equal-hour sundial. It is 70 feet high, 114 feet long at the base, and 10 feet thick. It has a 128-foot-long (39 m) hypotenuse that is parallel to the Earth’s axis and points toward the North Pole. On either side of the triangle is a quadrant with graduations indicating hours, minutes, and seconds. At the time of the Samrat Yantra’s construction, sundials already existed, but the Samrat Yantra turned the basic sundial into a precision tool for measuring declination and other related coordinates of various heavenly bodies.
Jayaprakash Yantra:
The Jayaprakash consists of hollowed-out hemispheres with markings on their concave surfaces. Crosswires were stretched between points on their rim. From inside the Ram, an observer could align the position of a star with various markings or a window’s edge.
Mishra Yantra:
The Mishra Yantras were capable of indicating when it was noon in various cities all over the world and were the only structures in the observatory not invented by Jai Singh II.