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Hello, if you travel to the city of Jaipur in northern India you'll find it

It's hard to palis and at the heart of the palace

There's something rather unusual a plot filled with great sculptural shapes with curved white walls curious niches and

Staircases into the sky

This collection of strange and beautiful things may look like art and indeed may have become art

But it began a science it's an observatory and it was built in the early 18th century by the Rajput prince

Jai Singh

Jai Singh's observatories the cutting edge of Indian astronomy at the time

But also repository for ears of Hindu and Islamic intellectual life and a record of Indian astronomy on the cusp of

Colonialism with me to discuss the observatory in Jaipur are Chris Minkowski professor in Sanskrit at the University of Oxford

David Arnold professor of Asian and global history at the University of Warwick and Chandrika call lecture in modern history at the University of

Andrews Chandrika call the observatory is to be found in the city of Jaipur. It was built by Jai Singh

Can you tell us something about him?

Sure Jai Singh was born in the 1780s to a family of Rajput

rulers called the Kachvahas who traced their lineage right back to the solar dynasty and the house of the god Ram

He himself is considered to have been a child prodigy

He was very interested in the sciences in maths and in astronomy

And it is said that at the age of 13 he constructed a very elaborate set of

tools at his Royal Palace in Ameri to help in watering a hanging garden which involved great deal of mathematical position

Aurangzeb the Mughal Emperor who was ruling at this time was so impressed by this young scholar

...