The Astronomical Observatories of Jai Singh c17.14

c17.14

Galilei died a prisoner of the Inquisition in 1642, and his books were not removed from the *Index* until A.D. 1835: Jai Singh's European advisers appear to have been chiefly priests, who, if they were good Catholics,¹ would, at that time, have hardly upheld the teaching of Copernicus, Kepler and Galilei! More recent European discoveries might thus have been discredited in Jai Singh's eyes, and he would, at any rate, have found it difficult to reconcile the persecution by authority, on the one side, with the claim to brilliant scientific discoveries, on the other.