Jantar Mantar II - And this contraption..... by pchamlis
Jai Singh II spared no expense in building Jantar Mantar. He literally spent astronomical sums of money on his astronomical devices, in an effort to further grasp and understand the heavens.The contraption pictured below obviously has a name.... but I can't remember what it was. Its purpose was to, via some sort of shadow point plotting design, measure the earth's position in the heavens via the daily rise of the sun on the horizon and throughout the day. While the people of Singh's time certainly understood the seasons in a basic "summer = hot, winter = cooler, spring = plant birth, fall = slowing down" kind of way, they were just beginning to realize the reasons for the seasons, so to speak. (The Earth's tilt and position with respect to the sun)
