Our day started at 5 AM so that we could be air born in a balloon at sunrise (6:30 AM). Mary passed the toughest test, getting in the basket. It was a smooth flight thereafter. We rose to catch a view of the Amber Fort, the town, and the wall surrounding it. And as we rose further we got a view of other towns and lakes in the distance. We descended close to a ridge to look for animals, but only got a glimpse of an antelope. Drifting further along we went over a sanctuary for injured tigers - we didn't see any, but we could hear their roar. After an hour, we came to a gentle landing in a field.
After breakfast, we visited
Jantar Mantor, an astronomical observatory created when the the city was built in 1727. Here is the largest sundial in the world, at 27 meters tall and is capable of telling the time with an accuracy of 2 seconds. A huge triangle made of stone casts it shadow on a pair of marble-faced curving quadrants to tell the time. Because the quadrants are curved the hours are spaced equally apart. This sundial also works at night, by positioning a star from one of the quandrants so that it just touches the top of the triangle. Another instrument is the Mirror of Heavens. During the night an observer can find a star through the hole in the plate suspended above the instrument and read the position of the start from the interior of the bowl. There are other instruments to calculate the Hindu calendar, to locate the 12 signs of the Zodiac, to find the angle of any celestial body relative to the equator, and to observe heavenly bodies that are transiting the local meridian.
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| Curvlinear Sundial at Jantar Mantor |
Next door is the
City Palace, which took up 1/7th of the old walled city. The palace has three courtyards. In the first courtyard was a 19th century building to house foreign guests. The King's guru had warned against foreigners, thus they must live separately within the palace. This was emphasized again in the next courtyard which displayed two of thirty 900 gallon sterling silver pots used to hold Ganges water. These went with the king on his voyage to England for the coronation of George V to avoid being contaminated by foreign water. The third courtyard is known for it's doors - especially the "Peacock" doors. The palace today houses several small museums: armaments, portraits of the historic line of Rajahs in their reception room, traditional garments, and an artisan section where they demonstrated how traditional water colors were created. The colors were produced by scraping stones on a surface with water.
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| Peacock door at City Palace |
After a shopping stop for block prints and woolen carpets (one couple bought two carpets for their new home), we went to a Hindu temple built in 1985, popularly known as the
Birla Temple. It was gleaming white with statues of Vishnu and Pavarotti, his wife. More interesting was the outside columns where saints from many religions were depicted (except Muslims) including Jesus Christ, the Madonna, St. Anthony, Confusius, etc.
Topic: India's contribution to math and science While we call it the Arabic number system, the decimal system as well as the notion of zero, all came from India. In the fifth century, a mathematician named
Aryabhata calculated Pi at 3.1416, and discussed subjects such as square and cube roots, sines, and spherical geometry. India also has some of the most ancient text on Medicine in the world, including surgical procedures from the 4th century A.D. The ancient language of Sanskrit, forms the basis for most languages in the world. We also owe to Indians: weaving of cotton in cloth, the domestication of chickens, the game of chess, gambling with dice and yoga.
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