The Astronomical Observatories of Jai Singh c17.16

c17.16

84. Jai Singh began his work at a time when European astronomers had arrived at, what may be termed, the modern conception of the universe. The discoveries of Copernicus, Kepler, Galilei and Newton had been accepted, and scientists were settling down to work out, in detail, the results of their discoveries. Flamsteed's great catalogue was completed just as Jai Singh began his work. But Jai Singh was not in close contact with European ideas, and his first astronomical education was probably the study of the work of the Muslim astronomers, particularly Ulugh Beg. In the special circumstances of his experience, it is not surprising that Jai Singh refused to follow the lines of research indicated by the European astronomers. Had he done so, his power and his wealth might have enabled him to alter the whole condition of Indian scientific scholarship, and, instead of his labours ending with his death, when "science expired on his funeral pyre," there might have been established a living school of research. The troubled condition of the country, and the general state of civilization in it, were antagonistic to the progress of science, and Jai Singh's work is now only a tradition, and his observatories are archæological remains.