The Astronomical Observatories of Jai Singh c4.1

c4.1

1. Mahārāja Sawāī Jai Singh II of Jaipur was born in A. D. 1686¹ and succeeded to the Amber territory at the age of thirteen in A.D. 1699, a few years before the death of Aurangzeb. He had difficulties in establishing himself, but in 1708 obtained complete possession of the province. In 1719 he was appointed by Muḥammad Shāh governor of the province of Agra and soon after to Mālwa. In 1734 he was again governor of Mālwa and in that year, apparently with the cognizance of the Emperor, he resigned the province to the Peshwā. He died in 1743, two hundred years after Copernicus, and "his wives, concubines, and science expired with him on his funeral pyre."²