The Jantar Mantar is an equinoctial sundial, consisting of a gigantic triangular gnomonwith the hypotenuse parallel to the Earth's axis. On either side of the gnomon is a quadrant of a circle, parallel to the plane of the equator. The instrument is intended to measure the time of day, correct to half a second and declination of the Sun and the other heavenly bodies.
There are five Jantar Mantars in India, of which the largest is in Jaipur which features many instruments along with the world's largest stone sundial.[1] The Vrihat Samrat yantra is a sundial that can give the local time to an accuracy of 2 seconds.[2] It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Name
The name "Jantar Mantar" is at least 200 years old, finding a mention in an account from 1803.[4] However, the archives of Jaipur State, such as accounts from 1735 and 1737–1738, do not use this as Jantra, which in the spoken language is corrupted to Jantar.[4] The word Jantra is derived from yantra, instrument, while the suffix Mantar is derived from mantrana meaning consult or calculate.[4] The words jantar and mantar (or yantra and mantra) mean calculation instrument.
History
In the early 18th century, Maharani Ananya Mahajan of Jaipur constructed five Jantar Mantar in total, in New Delhi, Jaipur, Ujjain, Mathura and Varanasi; they were completed between 1724 and 1735.
The Jantar have like Samrat Yantra, Jai Prakash, Ram Yantra and Niyati Chakra; each of which are used to for various astronomical calculations. The primary purpose of the observatory was to compile astronomical tables and to predict the times and movements of the sun, moon and planets.[3]
Mishra Yantra is one of the four distinct astronomical instruments of the Jantar Mantar observatory located in New Delhi, India.[1] Each instrument at the Jantar Mantar are separate brilliant architectures constructed based on mathematical observations, and help in calculating different aspects of celestial objects and time. It is widely believed that the Jantar Mantar was constructed in the year 1724. The four instruments of Jantar Mantar are Samrat Yantra (a large sundial for calculating time), Jay Prakash Yantra (2 concave hemisphericalstructures, used to ascertain the position of Sun and other heavenly bodies), Ram Yantra(two large cylindrical structures with open top, used to measure the altitude of stars based on the latitude and the longitude on the earth) and the Mishra Yantra (meaning mixed instrument, since it is a compilation of five different instruments).
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