A Descriptive Catalogue of Indian Astronomical Instruments E-Book

Sreeramula Rajeswara Sarma

• Herausgeber: tredition
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Serie: A Descriptive Catalogue of Indian Astronomical Instruments
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 909

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

The large masonry instruments designed by Sawai Jai Singh and erected in his five observatories in the early eighteenth century mark the culmination of a long process of development in astronomical instrumentation. But what kind of astronomical instruments were used in India before Jai Singh's time? Sanskrit texts on astronomy describe the construction and use of several types of instruments. Are any of these extant in museums? Such questions led me to an exploration of nearly a hundred museums and private collections in India, Europe and USA for about a quarter century. The present catalogue is the outcome of this exploration. This catalogue describes each instrument in the context of the related extant specimens, while laying special emphasis on the interplay between Sanskrit and Islamic traditions of instrumentation. Therefore, each instrument type is organized in a separate section identified by the letters of the alphabet. These sections begin with introductory essays on the history of the instrument type and its varieties, followed by a full technical description of every specimen, with art historical notes. Moreover, all engraved data are reproduced and interpreted as far as possible. In some 4300 pages, it contains 600 entries, with introductory essays and long extracts from two important Sanskrit texts, namely Mahendra Sūri's Yantrarāja and Padmanābha's Dhruvabhramādhikāra, along with English translations. Following a suggestion that a shorter version of the Catalogue, consisting of all the introductory essays and appendices, but excluding the catalogue proper, would be easier for the general reader to handle, this Abridged Version has been prepared. The pagination here remains the same as in the Catalogue. Those who wish to read about individual instruments can always consult the Catalogue.

Leseprobe

A Descriptive Catalogue of Indian Astronomical Instruments – Abridged Version

© 2019 Sreeramula Rajeswara Sarma

Duesseldorf, Germany

Following a suggestion that a shorter version of the Catalogue, consisting of all the introductory essays and appendices, but excluding the catalogue proper, would be easier for the general reader to handle, this abridged version has been prepared. The pagination here remains the same as in the Catalogue. Those who wish to read about individual instruments can always consult the Catalogue which is available online at www.srsarma.in.

This Abridged Version of the Catalogue was first published in January 2019 at www.srsarma.in

Published and printed by

tredition GmbH, Halenreie 40-44, 22359 Hamburg, Germany

ISBN 978-3-7482-2782-3 (Hardcover)

ISBN 978-3-7482-2783-0 (e-Book)

The Catalogue may be viewed, stored and distributed for academic and personal purposes free of charge. Commercial use is not permitted. When reproduced, in part or as a whole, the author and the website www.srsarma.in must be named and there may be no alterations whatsoever to the contents. All images in the Catalogue are under copyright as indicated. Images may not be extracted from the Catalogue and may not be reproduced without the permission of the respective owners.

CONTENTS

Preface

Abbreviations and other Conventions

Acknowledgements

Preamble

A. Indo-Persian Astrolabes by the Lahore Family

B. Indo-Persian Astrolabes produced by Others

C. Sanskrit Astrolabes with Multiple Plates

D. Sanskrit Astrolabes with Single Plates

E. Astrolabes reworked in Sanskrit

F. Indo-Persian Celestial Globes produced by the Lahore Family

G. Indo-Persian Celestial Globes produced by others

H. Sanskrit Celestial Globes

I. Sanskrit Armillary Spheres (Gola-Yantra)

J. Indo-Persian Quadrants

K. Sanskrit Quadrants (Turīya-yantra)

L. Dhruvabhrama-yantra of Padmanābha

M. Phalaka-yantra of Bhāskara II

N. Palabhā-yantras & Equinoctial Sundials in Sanskrit

O. Cūḍā-yantras

P. Sanskrit Column Dials

Q. Indo-Persian Horizontal Sundials in Mosques and Museums

R. Water Clocks

S. Metal Instruments designed by Sawai Jai Singh

T. Instruments designed by Sawai Madho Singh

U. Instruments designed by Buhlomal and his Associates at Lahore

V. Astronomical Compendia

W. Miscellaneous Instruments

X. Indian Adaptations of European Instruments

Y. Foreign Instruments in Indian Collections

Z. Fake Astronomical Instruments

Appendices

Apx.A Bibliography

Apx.B Index of Museums with Indian Astronomical Instruments

Apx.C Index of the Instrument Makers, Designers and their Patrons

Apx.D1 The Yantrarāja of Mahendra Sūri with Malayendu Sūri’s Commentary: Some Extracts

Apx.D2 The Dhruvabhramādhikāra of Padmanābha with his own Commentary: Some Extracts

Apx.E Replicas and other Imitations of Sawai Jai Singh’s Masonry Instruments

PREFACE

In AD 628, Brahmagupta completed his monumental Brāhmasphuṭa-siddhānta which, as David Pingree observes, ‘was enormously influential on later Indian astronomy as well as on Islamic and Western European’ astronomies.i The twenty-second chapter of this work describes the construction and use of several astronomical instruments, from the simple quadrant to mercury-driven perpetual motion machines. While studying this chapter,ii I wondered whether any specimens of these instruments are preserved today in museums. Such specimens, I thought, would help in understanding better the rather brief descriptions in Sanskrit texts. Therefore, a survey of Sanskrit astronomical instruments in various museums in India would be a worthwhile task, I reflected. But gradually I came to realise that many Sanskrit instruments are closely related to Islamic astronomical instruments, that several Islamic astronomical instruments were also produced in India as well and that large numbers of specimens of Sanskrit as well as Islamic astronomical instruments are preserved in museums abroad, especially in UK.

It was about this time that I came across a catalogue of the exhibition on ‘Science in India’ which was mounted by the Science Museum of London in connection with the Festival of India in 1982. The exhibition gave an admirable account of scientific activity in India from the earliest times up to the present day, by means of manuscripts and artefacts. The catalogue, compiled by Dr R. G. W. Anderson, who later became the Director of the British Museum, made me aware of the actual specimens of Indian astronomical instruments which are still extant in various museums in India and abroad. Encouraged by this catalogue and later by personal conversations with Dr Anderson and other scholars, I began studying Indian astronomical instruments in museums and private collections within India and outside.

Thus began my exploration of pre-modern Indian astronomical instruments in 1991 which lasted a quarter century and spanned three continents.“ A descriptive catalogue of the extant instruments which I identified during the course of my explorations in about a hundred museums and private collections is presented in the following pages. The majority of the surviving instruments are astrolabes. These are not simple measuring tools. Their fabrication from sheets of brass demands sophisticated workmanship. Engraving the various kinds of lines and circles on the plates and on the back requires high precision. Fashioning the kursī and the rete involves fine artistic sense. Furthermore, large quantities of astronomical, astrological and geographical data are engraved on them. Therefore, astrolabes have been carefully preserved by owners and eagerly collected by cognoscenti throughout the centuries in all the regions.

In this catalogue, astrolabes are described in five sections A, B, C, D and E. Then follow celestial globes in three sections F, G and H. These are also products of excellent metal craft and artistic beauty. Thereafter are treated diverse kinds of instruments which exist in smaller numbers.

I have personally examined and photographed many of the instruments described in this catalogue. In some cases, where I could not personally study the instruments, detailed information and photos were kindly sent to me by museums, auction houses and private collectors. The third source is archival. At the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, Francis Maddison collected a large number of photos of astrolabes and of other instruments which were sent to him for evaluation by auction houses. Likewise, Anthony J. Turner, Le Mesnil-le-Roi, has a large collection of photos. Both very generously lent me photos of Indian instruments in their collections. These photos fill important gaps and help in a drawing a more comprehensive picture of instrument production in India.

Astronomical instruments produced in India in the pre-modern period can be classified into two broad groups. In the first group are those with inscriptions and legends in Arabic and Persian. More specifically, the astronomical technical terms are in Arabic, and the inscriptions regarding the manufacture or ownership are often in Persian. These are classified as Indo-Persian instruments, because they were produced in a milieu where Persian was the official or scholarly language. The second group consists of instruments on which the legends are in Sanskrit language and in Devanagari script. These are called Sanskrit instruments. The original prototypes for the Indo-Persian instruments were derived from the Islamic world. Some of the Sanskrit instruments are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent and some others are adapted from Islamic models. There is also a small number of Sanskrit instruments derived from European models.

Excluded from this survey are the modern or post-telescopic astronomical instruments which were directly imported from the west and did not undergo any substantial variation in India, even when they were manufactured here. A further distinction between these two groups of pre-modern and modern instruments lies in the manner and scale of production: the former were produced by traditional artisans and each item was a unique product, whereas the latter were industrial products on a mass scale with identical copies. This difference is somewhat akin to the difference between manuscripts and printed books.

This does not mean that modern instruments like telescopes, sextants, transit circles have no historical value. Just as the copies of the first edition of a book are valuable as collectibles, so are also nineteenth century European instruments of historical interest. Universities and other academic institutions in India still possess many such historically interesting European instruments. These also deserve to be catalogued; in fact, even other kinds of scientific instruments and obsolete measuring devices like steel-yards which are scattered in museum stores need to be studied; but it is beyond the scope of the present catalogue.iv

Had I known the enormity of the project, I probably would not have ventured in the first place. But the interest and encouragement shown by scholars and the enthusiastic cooperation of museum directors gave me the necessary confidence to continue with the project. Therefore, the list of persons to whom I owe deep debt of gratitude is rather long.

I am quite conscious of the many shortcomings in this catalogue, caused by my linguistic and technical limitations. But I do hope that this first ever attempt at compiling the information about pre-modern Indian astronomical instruments which are dispersed in many parts of the world will be of some use to the historians of science and to the curators of museums.

Safavid astrolabe makers like Muḥammad Mahdī al-Khādim al-Yazdī (Y008), cAbd al-A’imma (Y009), Muḥammad Amīn (Y010), cAbd al-cAlī (Y011) and others usually engrave on their richly decorated astrolabes a line from the Gulistān of the Persian poet Shaykh Sacdī, which reads gharaḍ nakshīst kaz mā bāz mānad (the intention of this drawing is that it should remain after us), as can be seen in this cartouche engraved on the back of the astrolabe by Muḥammad Mahdī al-Khādim al-Yazdī (Figure Y008.6).

This is indeed the hope nurtured by every astrolabe maker and every author, including the compiler of this catalogue.

iPingree 1981, p. 21.

iiSarma 1986-87a

iiiI tried to cover all the known collections in India, Europe and USA; in India, the Asiatic Society, Kolkata, Indian Museum, Kolkata, and L. D. Institute, Ahmedabad, are known to own astronomical instruments, but they did not respond to my repeated requests for permission to study the instruments in their collections. New museums are coming up in Kuwait and in the United Arab Emirates, some of which are reported to possess Indo-Persian astrolabes and celestial globes, but I have not been able to contact these museums.

ivNational inventories of scientific instruments, both pre-modern and modern, are being compiled elsewhere. In the 1950s, the History of Science Division of the International Union for History and Philosophy of Science set up a commission to promote the compilation of an ‘inventaire mondiale des appareils scientifiques historiques’. The first step in this direction was to compile national inventories. Accordingly, several European countries brought out national inventories of scientific instruments: Belgium (1959-1960), Italy (1963), France (1964), USSR (1968), Czechoslovakia (1970; unpublished), Ireland (1990). The last and the most comprehensive in this series is Science Preserved: A Directory of Scientific Instruments in Collections in the United Kingdom and Eire, compiled by Mary Holbrook, R. G. W. Anderson & D. J. Bryden, London 1992.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In Indian Academic tradition, it is customary to commence with a homage to one’s gurus. From Professor David A. King (University of Frankfurt) I received my first lessons in how to study an astrolabe when I accompanied him to the Salar Jung Museum at Hyderabad and to the Jaipur Observatory in 1991. In his monumental In Synchrony with the Heavens, he dedicated a section to me and mentioned there my work with approval. I cannot think of any honour higher than this.

The little knowledge I acquired in these years on the medieval astronomical instruments is due to the writings of the late Professor Willy Hartner (University of Frankfurt), Professor David A. King (University of Frankfurt), the late Francis Maddison (Museum of the History of Science, Oxford), James Morrison (Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, USA), the late Professor David Pingree (Brown University, Providence), Professor Emilie Savage-Smith (University of Oxford) and Anthony J. Turner (Le Mesnil-le-Roi, France). Not only their books, but they themselves helped me in myriad ways through all these years. To these gurus, I address my first acknowledgement of gratitude.

I owe a deep debt of gratitude to the late Professor Fuat Sezgin, the founder and director of the Institut für die Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften at Frankfurt. I had the privilege of using the rich library and the guest apartment of the Institute several times. Professor Sezgin established a unique museum of history of science and technology in Islam with replicas of instruments and artefacts which were carefully reconstructed from descriptions and diagrams in Arabic manuscripts, and prepared a large comprehensive catalogue of this museum in five volumes. He entrusted my wife and me the task of translating this catalogue from German into English. Through this translation I could widen my knowledge of the Islamic astronomical instruments.

At Aligarh Muslim University, where I spent most of my professional career, my stay was considerably enriched by the occasional conversations with Professor Irfan Habib who always found time to answer my queries on medieval Indian history and has translated several Persian passages for me, for which I am highly obliged.

Special thanks are due to Professor Owen Gingerich (Harvard University), the only university professor I know who owns an Indo-Persian astrolabe, for his encouragement and help at the initial stages of my work.

It is my pleasant duty to thank two friends and colleagues of long standing for their encouragement and constant support. Professor S. M. Razaullah Ansari (formerly Professor of Physics at Aligarh Muslim University and formerly President of the Commission for the History of Ancient and Medieval Astronomy) aroused my interest in astronomical instruments by suggesting that I prepare an edition and translation of the Yantraprakāra which the astronomer prince Sawai Jai Singh got compiled before he designed the huge instruments in masonry.viii He also has published some of my early studies on instruments in the Studies in History of Medicine and Science of which he was the editor. Dr A. K. Bag (History of Science Division, Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi) has been very supportive of my project from the beginning. He published several of my papers in the Indian Journal of History of Science and thus gave me the opportunity to present my work to a wider academic community.

Three other friends whose expertise in Sanskrit and Arabic sources on astronomy and mathematics I could always draw on are Professors Michio Yano (Kyoto Sangyo University), Takao Hayashi (Doshisha University, Kyoto) and Takanori Kusuba (Osaka University of Economics). Professor Hayashi read parts of this catalogue and made valuable suggestions for improvement. It is a pleasure to express my thanks to them.

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For this project, I received funding from the following sources, which is gratefully acknowledged. The Scientific Instrument Commission (Dr R. G. W. Anderson, President; Professor G L’ E. Turner, Secretary) awarded me a grant for studying Indian astronomical instruments in the museums in UK in summer 1993.

Through the initiative of Professor Nalini Balbir (Sorbonne Nouvelle, University of Paris 3), I was offered Visiting Professorship at her department to study Indian instruments in Paris from mid-September to mid-October 1994.

On the recommendation of Professor David A. King (Institut für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Goethe University, Frankfurt), the Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst awarded me a scholarship to study the Indian instruments in Germany in the winter 1995-96.

Through the initiative of Dr A. K. Bag, the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi, awarded me a project to study the instruments in the various museums in India from October 1998- September 2001.

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Now I must record my deep appreciation and grateful thanks to the authorities of all the museums for opening the treasures of their collections for my study.

MUSEUMS IN INDIA

I began my exploration of museums in May 1991 at the Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad, where I had my first glimpse of the astrolabes and globes of the Lahore Family, with the warm-hearted cooperation of the director Dr M. L. Nigam and the keeper of the manuscripts Dr Rahmat Ali Khan. The next director Dr I. K. Sarma invited me to deliver the Salar Jung Memorial Lecture in 1995 and published the lecture under the title Astronomical Instruments in the Salar Jung Museum.ix During my third visit in 2004, the director Dr A. K. V. S. Reddy treated me as a special guest of the museum.

There are two other places in India which I visited frequently for the project. Sawai Jai Singh, aside from erecting huge astronomical instruments in masonry, collected some splendid masterpieces of Lahore astrolabes. His son Sawai Madho Singh designed some interesting instruments. A veritable treasury of these and several other instruments are preserved at the Jaipur Observatory. I went several times to Jaipur to study these instruments. I would like to thank the authorities of the Rajasthan State Department of Archaeology and Museums and, in particular, the Superintendent of the Observatory, Pandit Om Prakash Sharma. Pandit Om Prakash Sharma constructed a special gallery to display these portable instruments.

The Rampur Raza Library owns important instruments which I studied with the warm support of the late Dr W. H. Siddiqi, officer on special duty. Akbar Ali Khan Arshizada and Abu Sad Ilahi deciphered and translated Arabic and Persian inscriptions on some of these instruments. Dr Siddiqi desired that I prepare a catalogue of the astronomical instruments in their collection with the photographs by Mirza Jamshed Agha; the catalogue was published quite elegantly by Tanzim Raza Qureshi, Islamic Wonders Bureau, Delhi.

The other museums I visited, or collected information from, in India are listed in alphabetical order of the cities, with the names of the authorities in parentheses.

Aligarh, Aligarh Muslim University, Ajmal Khan Tibbia College (principal).

Hyderabad: Saidiya Library (Ahmad Athaullah); State Museum of Archaeology (S. S. Rangacharylu, assistant director).

Jaipur: Government Maharaja’s Sanskrit College (Professor Vijay Kumar Sharma); Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum, City Palace (Dr Giles H. R. Tillotson, director of research); Museum of Indology (Ramachandra Vyakul); Shri Sanjay Sharma Museum & Research Institute (Ram Kripalu Sharma and Tilak Raj Sharma).

Lucknow: Nadwatul Ulama (M. Haroon Nadwi, librarian of the Shibli Nomani Library),

Mumbai, Chatrapati Shivaji Sangrahalay (Dr Kalpana Desai, director; Arvind Fondekar, assistant curator); K. R. Cama Oriental Institute (Homai N. Modi, trustee).

New Delhi: Mumtaj Mahal Museum (Archaeological Museum), Red Fort (Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India); National Museum (U. Das, keeper; Anamika Pathak, C.A.).

Patna: Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library (Dr A. R. Bedar, director; Md. Atiqur Rehman, assistant librarian; Ata Khurshid, library assistant; Dr Mohammad Zakir Hussain, research scholar).

Srinagar: Sri Pratap Singh Museum: Munir Ul Islam, Director, Archives, Archaeology and Museums, Jammu & Kashmir; Rabia Qureshi, Curator, SPS Museum; Dr Seemin Rubab and Nazir Ahmad Doshab.

Srinagar: University of Kashmir, Central Asian Museum (Nazir Ahmad Doshab, photographer).

Vadodara: MS University of Baroda, Oriental Institute (Professor M. L. Wadekar, director; Dr Sweta Prajapati); Sanskrit Mahavidylaya (Professor Yogesh B. Oza, principal).

Varanasi: Banaras Hindu University, Bharat Kala Bhavan (Dr R. C. Sharma, director; Yashodhara Agarwal, curator); Sampurnanand Sanskrit University, Sarasvati Bhavan Library (Professor Mandan Mishra, vice-chancellor; D. S. Mishra, assistant librarian).

Museums in UK

In 1989, I attended the International Congress of History of Science at Hamburg and made a presentation on the ‘Astronomical Instruments in Mughal Miniatures.’x In the course of my presentation, I spoke about the need of an inventory of the extant astronomical instruments produced in India. The audience included Dr R. G. W. Anderson and Professor G. L’ E. Turner, who were then the president and secretary of the Scientific Instrument Commission. They approved of my idea and suggested that I should begin the work in UK where there are large collections. But I could not make it to UK until the summer of 1993.

A large part of my stay was spent at the Museum of the History of Science at Oxford, where the director Francis Maddison showed keen interest in my work. He allowed me access to a large collection of photographs of astronomical instruments which various auction houses sent him for his evaluation. He also allowed me to copy the relevant parts of the Repertoire he was then compiling. This work was never published, but the 1993 version I have has been very valuable for my work. I am highly indebted to him and also to Dr W. D. Hackmann, assistant director; A. V. Simcock, librarian and L. Norman, photographer. I was again in this museum in 2005 and the new director Dr Jim Bennett very kindly provided me all facilities to study the instruments. The present director, Dr Silke Ackermann, graciously permitted me to include several museum photos in this catalogue.

The other museums I visited in UK are listed in alphabetical order of the cities.

Cambridge: Whipple Museum of the History of Science (Dr J. A. Bennett, curator).

Cardiff: Welsh Industrial and Maritime Museum (Alex Dawson, documentation officer).

Edinburgh: Royal Museum of Scotland (Dr Alison Morrison-Low provided me excellent photos of instruments in the museum).

Lancashire: Stonyhurst College (Elizabeth Robinson, Persons Fellow).

London: British Museum (Dr R. G. W. Anderson, director; Dr Richard Blurton, Beatriz Waters); The Clockmakers’ Company Collection, Guildhall (Sir George White, curator); Horniman Museum (Ken Teague, assistant keeper); Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art (Professor Nasser D. Khalili and Nahla Nassar, registrar); National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (Dr Kristin Lippincott, Dr Gloria Clifton, Dr Louise Devoy); Science Museum (Kevin Johnson, Alison Boyle, Jeremiah Solak); Victoria and Albert Museum (Anthony North, Susan Strange).

Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum of Ethnology (Linda Mowat, assistant curator).

MUSEUMS IN USA

Professor David Pingree offered me visiting associate professorship at his Department of History of Mathematics at Brown University Providence for the year 1992-93. This gave me the opportunity to visit the various museums in the USA with collections of Indian astronomical instruments. More important, I read Mahendra Sūri’s Yantrarāja, the first Sanskrit manual on the astrolabe, with David Pingree and his students. I also had the opportunity to read the catalogue of Sanskrit and Indo-Persian astrolabes in the Adler Planetarium at Chicago, which Pingree was then preparing and which appeared posthumously in 2009 under the title Eastern Astrolabes.

Chicago: The Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum (Roderick Webster and Marjorie Webster, honorary curators). I am highly thankful to Dr Pedro Raposo, the curator, and Lauren Boegen, digital collections manager, for their kindness in generously sending me more than a hundred digital images of the Indian instruments in their collection.

New Haven: Yale University, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library (Dr Melisa Graffe, librarian).

New York: Columbia University, Butler Library, Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Rudolph Ellenbogen, assistant librarian).

Rockford: Time Museum (Patricia H. Atwood, executive director).

Washington, D. C.: National Museum of American History (Dr Peggy Kidwell, (late) Silvio Bedini, Deborah J. Warner, Drew Robarge).

I must offer special thanks to Dr David Coffeen (Tesseract, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY) for many photos of instruments in his collection anf for valuable suggestions.

MUSEUMS IN FRANCE

Paris: Institute du Monde Arabe (Jeanne Mouliérac); Observatory of Paris (Dr Jean-Pierre Verdet, Dr Suzanne Débarbat).

Anthony Turner and Dominique Brieux helped me in studying the instruments in private collections.

MUSEUMS IN GERMANY

With a scholarship from the Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst, I spent the winter 1995-96 at Professor David King’s Institut für die Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, where I could make use of the rich library and benefit from the expertise of Professor King’s students, Dr Francoise Charette, Dr Benno van Dalen, Dr Petra Schmidl and Dr Burkhard Stautz.

At Frankfurt, I could also use the rich library of the Institut für Geschichte der Arabisch-islamische Wissenschaft where Farid Benfeghoul, Dr Carl Ehrig-Eggert, Lutz Kotthof and Dr Gesine Yildiz rendered me various kinds of help.

Berlin: Museum für Indische Kunst (Regina Hickemann, Deputy Director).

Bielefeld: Kunstgewerbesammlung der Stadt Bielefeld.

Hannover: Kestner Museum (Prof. Dr Rosemarie Drenkhahn, Director).

Stuttgart: Linden Museum (Beate Siewart-Meyer, Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin).

BELGIUM

In Belgium, there are several Indian instruments in private collections and it is to the credit of Jan de Graeve that I could study and photograph these instruments.

NETHERLANDS

Leiden: Museum Boerhaave (Dr Robert van Gent; Tiemen Cocquyt).

PAKISTAN

I did not have the opportunity to visit the museums in Pakistan. Dr Nasim Naqvi (London) obtained for me some photographs of instruments through his contacts. Now Mubashir Ul-Haq Abbasi (Institute of Space Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan) kindly sent me detailed photos and information of instruments in the Islamabad Museum, Lahore Museum and National Museum of Pakistan at Karachi. He is also preparing a comprehensive catalogue of the astronomical instruments preserved in the museums of Pakistan.

QATAR

Doha: Museum of Islamic Art (Marc Pelletreau, Head of Multimedia)

RUSSIA

St. Petersburg: The State Hermitage Museum (Dr Olga P. Deshpande, Senior Curator, Oriental Department; Zhanna Etsina, Manager, Rights and Reproductions Office).

SWITZERLAND

Geneva: Musée d'Histoire des Sciences (Laurence-Isaline Stahl Gretsch; Stéphane Fischer).

TURKEY

I did not have the chance to visit Istanbul. At Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute, Professor Mustafa Aktar, professor of geophysics and in-charge of the collection of historical instruments, very kindly sent me photos and the exact measurements of the Indian instruments in the collection.

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Besides the museums mentioned above, many private collectors allowed me to study the Indian instruments in their collections; some have provided me with good photos. I am much obliged to them, but it is not appropriate to identify them with their names.

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Outside the museums, I am highly obliged to many scholars for arranging my lectures on instruments, for publishing my papers, for introducing me to the museums and private collectors and for various other favours.

India: Professor Ishrat Alam (Aligarh Muslim University), Dr Vijay V. Bedekar (Chairman, Vidyaprasarak Mandal, Thane, India); Professor Ramkrishna Bhattacharya (Kolkata); Dr Divyabhanusinh Chawda (Jaipur); Professor Ratna Prabha Chivukula (M. S. University of Baroda); Professor Ashok Das (formerly Director, Sawai Mansingh Library and Museum, Jaipur); Dr Devangana Desai (Editor, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Mumbai); Dr Sanjay Garg (National Archives of India, New Delhi); (late) S. A. K. Ghori (Aligarh); Dr Sudha Gopalakrishnan (formerly Director, National Manuscript Mission, New Delhi); Professor S. Irfan Habib (National University for Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi); Professor Amina Kishore (Aligarh Muslim University); Professor M. A. Kishore (Aligarh Muslim University); Professor Rani Majumdar (Aligarh Muslim University); Dr Syed Liyaqat Hussain Moini (Aligarh Muslim University); Professor Shirin Moosvi (Aligarh Muslim University); Ghulam Mujtaba, Aligarh; Professor Jayant Narliker (Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune); (late) Professor Ahsan Jan Qaisar (Aligarh Muslim University); Professor Zillur Rahman (President, Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences, Aligarh); Professor K. Ramasubramanian (IIT-B, Mumbai); Professor S. Balachandra Rao (Formerly Professor of Mathematics and Principal, National College, Bangalore); Abdul Rashid (Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi); Dr Mira Roy (Kolkata); (late) Yaduendra Sahai (Sawai Mansingh Library and Museum, Jaipur); (late) S. N. Sen (Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Kolkata); Subhash Sharma (Jaipur); Professor B. V. Subbarayappa (former President, International Union of History and Philosophy of Science, Bangalore); Dr Vijay Shankar Shukla (India Gandhi National Centre for Arts); Dr B. G. Sidharth (Director, B. M. Birla Science Centre, Hyderabad); Professor Romila Thaper (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi); Professor Radha Vallabh Tripathi (formerly Vice Chancellor, Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, New Delhi); late Dr Lotika Varadarajan (New Delhi); Dr Kapila Vatsyayan (Founder-Director, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi).

Belgium: Ernesto Canobbio and Dr Jean-Michel Delire.

Canada: Professor Ashok Aklujkar (University of British Columbia, Vancouver); Professor Dominik Wujastyk (University of Alberta, Edmonton).

Egypt: Dr Flora Vafea (Cairo); Ayman Aly (Cairo).

France: Eric and Dominique Delalande (Galerie Delalande, Paris); Professor Jan Houben (École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris); Dr Jérôme Petit (Bibliothèque Nationale de France); (late) Dr Arion Roşu (Versailles); Professor Fabrizio Speziale (Université Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle).

Germany: Professor Willem Bollée (Bamberg), Professor Rahul Peter Das (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenburg), (late) Professor Michael Hahn (Philipps University, Marburg), Professor Jürgen Hanneder (Philipps University, Marburg), Professor Oskar von Hinüber (Albert-Ludwigs University, Freiburg), (late) Dr Anthony R. Michaelis (Heidelberg); Professor Eva Orthmann (University of Bonn); (late) Professor Wilhelm Rau (Philipps University, Marburg); Dr Alexander Walland (Ingelheim); Karl Pohl (Cologne); Dr Jayandra Soni (Philipps University, Marburg); (late) Professor Claus Vogel (University of Bonn); Professor Albrecht Wezler (University of Hamburg).

Iran: Professor Mohammad Bagheri (Institute for the History of Science, University of Tehran).

Italy: Dr Paulo Brenni (President, Scientific Instruments Society); Dr Ileana Chinnici (Palermo Observatory, Palermo, Italy); Professor Mara Miniati (Curator Emeritus, Museo Galileo, Florence).

Japan: Dr Yukio Ohashi (Tokyo); Satoshi Ogura (Kyoto University).

Netherlands: Wilfred de Graaf and Professor Jan P. Hogendijk (University of Utrecht); Dr Saraju Rath (International Institute of Asian Studies, Leiden).

Russia: Sergei Maslikov (Director, Large Novosibirsk Planetarium, Novosibirsk).

Spain: Professor Emilia Calvo, Dr Roser Puig and Professor Julio Samso (University of Barcelona).

Sweden: Dr Martin Gansten (Lund, Sweden).

Switzerland: Dr Johannes Thomann (University of Zurich).

Thailand: Professor Ampha Otrakul (Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok).

UK: Dr Josefina Rodriguez Arribas (Warburg Institute, University of London); Professor Charles Burnett (Warburg Institute, University of London); Jeremy Collins (Christie’s, London); Dr Roy Fischel (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London); Dr Edward Gibbs (Sotheby’s, London); Dr Willem Hackmann (Editor, Bulletin of the Scientific Instruments Society).

USA: Professor Muzaffar Alam (University of Chicago); Dr Owen T. Cornwall (Columbia University, New York); Dr Sharon Gibbs-Thibodeau (US National Archives, College Park, Maryland); Dr Toke Lindegaard Knudsen (State University of New York, Oneonta); Professor Phyllis Granoff (Yale University, New Haven); Dr James McHugh (University of Southern California, Los Angeles); Dr Clemency Montelle (Brown University, Providence; now: University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand); Angur Patel (San Diego, California); Professor Sumathi Ramaswamy (Duke University, Durham, North Carolina); Professor Virendra Nath Sharma (University of Wisconsin); Profesor Michael Witzel (Harvard University).

❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀

I must record my sincere thanks to the following friends whose help I sought frequently during the past two years while drafting this catalogue and who have readily and warm-heartedly responded:

Dr Vijay Bedekar (Thane) and Jan de Graeve (Brussels) sent me, at short notices, rare published material; Dr Jean-Michel Delire (Brussels) very generously provided me detailed photos of instruments in Jaipur; Dr Martin Gansten (Lund) helped me with astrological matters. Mubashir Ul-Haq Abbasi (Islamabad) has been an enthusiastic collaborator during the past three years; the detailed descriptions and photos of the instruments preserved in the various museums of Pakistan are due to him; he also deciphered and translated some Persian inscriptions for me. When I asked Debasish Das (Gurgaon) for a photo of the sundial at the Jama Masjid in Delhi, he promptly sent me detailed photos of that sundial; not only that, he also made explorations throughout India and within a short time located several thitherto unknown sundials and became an expert in this process (see his very comprehensive and eminently readable report on the sundials in mosques in India at Das 2018).

❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀

For their abiding friendship and many acts of help, I owe a special debt of gratitude to Ursula and Oskar Kober (Homberg/Efze, Germany).

❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀

Without the loving support of my wife Renate Sarma and our son Ananda Sarma, I could not have worked for so many years and completed this catalogue. Renate proofread much of the catalogue with great patience. Ananda gave shape to my raw text, with his efficient formatting and nice layout; he is, in fact, the manager, editor and publisher of this catalogue.

viiiSarma 1986-87a.

ixSarma 1996a.

xSarma 1992a.

PREAMBLE

तनुने॔त्रैन्‍्यूनानृपतिरहिताराजनगरी

सरस्योनिष्पद्मायुवतिरपिकान्तेनरहिता |

निशानिःशीतांशु: सरिदपियथाचक्ररहिता

तथाज्योतिर्विद्याभवतिविफलायन्त्ररहिता ||

tanur netrair nyūnā nṛpatirahitā rājanagarī

sarasyo niṣpadmā yuvatir api kāntena rahitā|

niśā niḥśītāṃśuḥ sarid api yathā cakrarahitā

tathā jyotirvidyā bhavati viphalā yantrarahitā ||

Like body without eyes, royal capital minus the king,

lakes devoid of lotus flowers, a young woman without a lover,

the night without the moon, a river bereft of Cakravāka birds,

even so astronomical science is fruitless without instruments.

— Rāmacandra Vājapeyin, 1428, Yantra-prakāśa

In reconstructing the history of science and technology of any civilization, scientific instruments play as valuable a role as literary documents do. This is particularly true of astronomical instruments. As Francis Maddison, long-time curator of the famous Museum of the History of Science at Oxford, remarks:

It was in astronomy that accurate measurement was first used systematically to obtain quantitative evaluations of observed phenomena. The instruments which were invented and which developed in response to this approach to scientific enquiry are (…) worthy of study as primary sources of the history of scientific thought and of technological achievement.11

In the Indian subcontinent, scientific instruments were used throughout history. The large number of weights, the remains of some metal scales and the fragment of a linear scale incised on a shell, which were recovered at the Indus Valley sites of Mahenjo-daro and Harappa, are some of the earliest specimens of Indian scientific instruments.12 Unfortunately, neither a systematic inventory of these instruments was made, nor were they studied in the context of their historical development. On the other extremity of the chronological scale, even Sawai Jai Singh’s observatories, which must be ranked as unique astronomical monuments of the world, are in a sad state of neglect. The large masonry instruments which Jai Singh designed and erected in his observatories are indeed the culmination of a long process of development in astronomical instrumentation. But what sort of instruments were used until the eighteenth century, before the time of Jai Singh?

SANSKRIT TEXTS ON ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS

Sanskrit astronomical texts describe many instruments (yantra) for measuring time, for taking the altitudes of heavenly bodies, for measuring the angular distance between two celestial objects, for visually demonstrating the apparent motion of the heavens, and so on. Kauṭilya’s Artha-śāstra, which was composed and expanded between the second century BC and the third century AD, speaks of measuring time by means of a water clock or with a gnomon.13 At the beginning of the sixth century, Āryabhaṭa described several interesting astronomical instruments in his Āryabhaṭa-siddhānta. This work is now lost but the descriptions of the instruments survive in Rāmakṛṣṇa Ārādhya’s commentary on the Sūrya-siddhānta.14 About the middle of the sixth century, Varāhamihira discussed a few instruments in the fourteenth chapter of his Pañca-siddhāntikā.

The first systematic and comprehensive account of astronomical instruments (kāla-yantras) is provided by Brahmagupta in his Brāhmasphuṭa-siddhānta, which he completed in 628 in western India. Here the twenty-first chapter is devoted to the armillary sphere (Gola-yantra) and the twenty-second chapter to the other instruments. The armillary sphere is treated separately because it is primarily a didactic device and not a measuring tool. Moreover, it appears that students of astronomy were encouraged to assemble their own armillary spheres, because by arranging the various imaginary circles in the heavens such as the celestial equator, the ecliptic and others as physical entities in the armillary sphere, they can grasp the purpose and function of these imaginary circles. Therefore, gola-bandha, i.e., tying together the different rings to constitute the armillary sphere, seems to be part of the traditional curriculum.

In the twenty-second chapter called Yantrādhyāya (chapter on instruments), Brahmagupta describes the construction and use of nine varieties of instruments, Dhanus, Turyagola, Cakra, Yaṣṭi,, Śaṅku, Ghaṭikā, Kapāla, Kartarī and Pīṭha. In addition, he describes eight types of accessories which are required when observations are made with instruments. He also describes some varieties of automata and perpetual motion machines (Svayaṃvaha-yantra).15

This procedure was adopted nearly in all the major astronomical texts in Sanskrit. In his Śiṣyadhīvṛddhida-tantra, Lalla (eighth or ninth century) devotes the fifteenth chapter Golabandhādhikāra for the construction of the armillary sphere and the twenty-first chapter Yantrādhyāya for the following instruments: automata, Gola, Cakra, Dhanus, Kartarī, Kapāla, Pīṭha, Bhagaṇa, Śaṅku, Ghaṭī, Śalākā, Śakaṭa and Yaṣṭi. Of these Bhagaṇa, Śalākā and Śakaṭa are new; these have not been described by Brahmagupta.

In his Siddhānta-śekhara of 1039, Śrīpati discusses the instruments somewhat briefly as compared to Lalla. The construction of the armillary sphere is treated in the fifteenth chapter entitled Golādhyāya. The nineteenth chapter entitled Yantrādhyāya deals with the following nine instruments: Svayaṃvaha-gola-yantra, Cakra, Dhanus, Kartarī, Kapāla, Pīṭha, Śaṅku, Ghaṭī and Yaṣṭi.

Closely following these predecessors, Bhāskarācārya devotes, in the Golādhyāya of his Siddhānta-śiromaṇi (1150), an exclusive chapter entitled Golabandhādhikāra to the armillary sphere and a subsequent chapter called Yantrādhyāya to ten different types of measuring instruments and three varieties of perpetual motion machines. The instruments discussed by him are Gola, Nāḍīvalaya, Ghaṭikā, Śaṅku, Cakra, Cāpa, Turya, Phalaka, Yaṣṭi and Dhī. In addition, he discusses Nalaka-yantra in the Tripraśnādhikāra of the Grahagaṇita.

In his Siddhānta-sundara (1503), Jñānarāja also follows the same pattern of separate chapters for the armillary sphere and for other instruments; in the latter he describes Turya, Chakra, Ghaṭī-yantra and Kāca-yantra, and several automata.

CONTACT WITH ISLAMIC ASTRONOMY

Contact with Islamic astronomy led, from about the fourteenth century onwards, to the composition of texts exclusively devoted to instruments. The earliest work of this nature is the Yantrarāja composed by the Jaina monk Mahendra Sūri at the court of Fīrūz Shāh Tughluq in Delhi in 1370. In this first Sanskrit manual on the astrolabe, this instrument was called yantrarāja, ‘king of instruments’. Astronomers also began to emphasise that astronomical studies remain incomplete without proper observational instruments. Thus Mahendra Sūri declares in his Yantrarāja:

Though hardened in fierce battles,

The soldier is defeated when deprived of weapons,

Though profound in the whole range of astral science,

The astronomer is disgraced without his instruments.’16

Writing about half a century later, in 1428, Rāmacandra Vājapeyin echoes the same idea in his Yantra-prakāśa, which is cited at the beginning of this Introduction.17 In the subsequent centuries also, several Sanskrit works were composed on instruments. The astrolabe was discussed in more than a dozen Sanskrit texts, some of which were exclusively devoted to this instrument. These texts will be discussed in the introduction to section C on Sanskrit astrolabes.

Besides, there are also other texts which dealt with several instruments. Notable among these is Rāmacandra Vajapeyin’s voluminous Yantra-prakāśa of 1428 in six chapters. Here the first four chapters are devoted to the astrolabe, the fifth chapter deals with the gnomon and staff, while the sixth chapter describes the construction and use of as many as 36 different types of instruments.18 Viśrāma’s Yantra-śiromaṇi of 1615 is a modest work which deals with six instruments, viz. Nara-yantra (gnomon), Jala-yantra (water clock), Yantrarāja (astrolabe), Cāpa-yantra (semi-circular instrument), Turyayantra (quadrant) and Nalaka-yantra (sighting tube). Nandalāla Miśra’s Yantra-sāra of 1772 discusses eleven instruments with special emphasis on the astrolabe and the quadrant.

There are also exclusive works on other instruments. About 1423 Padmanābha composed an exclusive text on the Dhruvabhrama-yantra which he had invented. Probably in the first half of sixteenth century, Cakradhara composed the Yantra-cintāmaṇi on the sine quadrant. The work must have been very popular; there exist several manuscript copies. Not so popular, but more comprehensive is Bhūdhara’s Turya-yantra-prakāśa of 1572 on the sine quadrant, which text is available just in a single complete manuscript.19

This overview of Sanskrit texts on astronomical instruments raises the following questions. Were any of these instruments ever constructed and used in observation? Are there any specimens extant in museums in India or outside? If yes, are these extant instruments mentioned or described in literature? 20

The study of scientific instruments in other culture areas is well developed. In the West, there are excellent museums of history of science and technology, such as the Museum of History of Science at Oxford, the Adler Planetarium at Chicago, and the Deutsches Museum at Munich. Also the literature on medieval European instruments and instrument-makers is truly impressive, beginning with Ernst Zinner's classic study Deutsche und Niederlӓndische Astronomische Instrumente.21 Islamic astronomical instruments like the astrolabe and the celestial globe have been catalogued and studied in several publications, notably in A Computerized Checklist of Astrolabes by Derek Price and his associates22 and in the Islamicate Celestial Globes, their History, Construction, and Use by Emilie Savage-Smith.23 Professor David King embarked on a path-breaking work of cataloguing medieval European and Islamic astronomical instruments,24 and published a vast corpus of highly valuable work.25

In India, no comparable work has been done on the existing instruments. While studying Jai Singh’s masonry instruments in the early part of the last century, Garrett and Kaye severally paid some attention to the portable instruments at Jaipur.26 In 1921 Kaye also studied the four instruments acquired by the Archaeological Museum at Delhi.27 In 1935 Sulaiman Nadvi brought to light a hitherto unknown family of instrument makers of Lahore by listing 8 astrolabes and 4 celestial globes manufactured by the various members of this family.28 In the 1970s, S. N. Sen undertook a survey of ‘Astronomical Instruments of Historical Importance,’ and published an interesting study on the astrolabe.29 Beyond this, nothing more came out of the project.30

However, the first steps towards a descriptive catalogue were taken by R. T. Gunther in his pioneering work, The Astrolabes of the World, where he published the descriptions of 25 Indo-Persian astrolabes and 9 Sanskrit Astrolabes, together with excellent photos.31 Likewise, Emilie Savage-Smith’s catalogue of Islamicate Celestial Globes of 1985 contains descriptions of several Indo-Persian celestial globes.

Following this lead, I began the survey of extant astronomical instruments produced in pre-modern India and now preserved in museums and in private collections in India, Europe and USA, and identified some 555 instruments of diverse types, belonging to the two broad categories of Sanskrit instruments and Indo-Persian instruments.

INDO-PERSIAN ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS

Muslim astronomers in India cultivated the Middle Eastern tradition of astronomical instrumentation. They avidly studied and copied the Arabic and Persian texts on astronomy, astrology and astronomical instruments composed in the various parts of the Islamic world; this is attested by the rich collections of manuscripts in various libraries in India.32 They may also have composed original works on astronomical instruments either in Arabic or Persian, but such texts are yet to be surveyed. Immediately relevant for us is the fact that the Muslim astronomers in India produced a substantial number of Islamic, or more precisely Indo-Persian, astronomical instruments, mainly astrolabes and celestial globes, and a small number of other instruments like sine quadrants.

The production of Indo-Persian astrolabes in India may have begun at the court of Fīrūz Shāh Tughluq at Delhi in the second half of the fourteenth century, but the earliest extant dated astrolabe is of 1567. It was made by Allāhdād of Lahore. He and his six descendants dominated the production of astrolabes and celestial globes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Compared to the instruments made by this family, very few instruments by others outside this family are extant today. The instrument production in the Allāhdād family ceased after 1691. Hardly any Indo-Persian instruments bearing dates in the eighteenth century came to light. But this does not mean that the production of astrolabes or celestial globes ceased completely in the eighteenth century, because there exist quite many instruments fabricated in the nineteenth century. It is possible that some of the extant unsigned and undated astrolabes and celestial globes may have been produced in the eighteenth century. But what seems to be certain is that with gradual decline of the Mughal empire, patronage also declined for astronomical instruments, as a consequence of which not many large and ornate astrolabes and celestial globes with the names of makers and dates may have been made in the eighteenth century.

Although there is a kind of vigorous revival of the production of Indo-Persian astrolabes and celestial globes towards the middle of the nineteenth century, as will be shown below, the geographical extent of their production was limited only to the Panjab-Delhi region.33

SANSKRIT ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS

On the other hand, one would expect that Sanskrit astronomical instruments, unlike the Indo-Persian instruments, were manufactured throughout India. But surprisingly, their production, with the exception of the armillary spheres and water clocks, was also largely confined to the region comprising Gujarat, Rajasthan and Panjab, where it continued in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as well. I am unable to explain this anomaly. After all, there has been no discernable break in the study of Sanskrit astronomy in the southern and eastern parts of India. This is attested by manuscripts of all major Sanskrit texts copied in all parts of India and in all regional scripts. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Kerala made great advances in mathematical astronomy. A central figure of these advances, the great Nīlakaṇṭha Somayājin enjoins that only such astronomical treatises should be followed which agree with actual observations.34 This statement presupposes the existence of instruments for astronomical observation. Yet no astronomical instruments of any consequence were found there.

The earliest dated Sanskrit instrument is an astrolabe (C001) which was completed on Sunday, 25 December 1605, at Ahmedabad. It was commissioned by the astrologer Caṇḍīdāsa for his son Dāmodara. One may wonder why no Sanskrit astronomical instrument made earlier than this date is available. I have shown elsewhere that the custom of engraving the name of the maker and the date of production on metal instruments and other objects was introduced into India along with the astrolabe.35 Of course, stone epigraphs in India carried often the date and the name of the king who issued the epigraph, the name of the poet who composed the text and the name of the artisan who incised the inscription. The practice was followed later in copper plate epigraphs and in manuscripts as well. But there was no custom of engraving the name of the maker and date on metal artefacts before the introduction of the astrolabe.36Another reason for the absence of Sanskrit instruments made before the seventeenth century is that often brass instruments not in use were recycled to produce other objects.

As mentioned above, the earliest extant Sanskrit astrolabe was made in Ahmedabad in Gujarat. Some other early astrolabes also emanate from Gujarat. From there, the production spread to Rajasthan, where it received an impetus at the court of Sawai Jai Singh in the early eighteenth century. It is well known that Sawai Jai Singh (1688-1743) designed huge masonry instruments for accurate observations and with these he set up five observatories at Delhi, Jaipur, Varanasi, Mathura and Ujjain. But he did not neglect portable instruments. He was a great admirer of the astrolabe. He collected some of the best Mughal astrolabes, to some of which he caused Sanskrit legends to be added. He also appears to have established a workshop at Jaipur to produce Sanskrit astrolabes. Here were produced some ornate astrolabes with multiple plates, designed after the Indo-Persian astrolabes of the Lahore family (C021 and C022). But, the main products of this workshop are astrolabes with single plates calibrated to the latitude of Jaipur at 27°. Jai Singh seems to have got a large number of such astrolabes fabricated and distributed them among the astronomers of his court, so that they became proficient in the science of the astrolabe. In the stores of Jai Singh’s Observatory at Jaipur, I discovered a number of unfinished astrolabes belonging to this workshop (D077 – D089).

But production of Sanskrit astronomical instruments was not confined to Jaipur in the eighteenth century. Instruments were made and collected also at several other kingdoms in Rajasthan, and also in Gujarat.

In the nineteenth century, western sciences, including astronomy, began to be taught in universities and colleges throughout India and modern observatories were set up at several places with telescopes and related instruments. But these activities did not completely replace the Sanskrit and Islamic traditions of astronomical learning and the production of traditional astronomical instruments. At some places, the traditional Sanskrit or Islamic learning flourished side by side with western sciences; at others there is an amalgamation of both the streams in varying proportions. This is true also of scientific instrumentation. Sanskrit astronomical instruments continued to be manufactured mainly in Rajasthan. A new centre of production came up at Kuchaman, which is situated some 130 km west of Jaipur, but roughly on the same latitude of 27°. Here were produced Sanskrit astrolabes, the last of which (D037) was completed on Monday, the sixth day of the bright half of Kārtika in the year 1960 of Vikrama Saṃvat (= Monday 26 October 1903).37

Indo-Persian astrolabes and celestial globes continued to be made in Panjab, mainly at Lahore, in the nineteenth century. At Aurangabad in Maharashtra (19;53 N, 75;23 E), there flourished an astrolabe maker Muhammad Mūsa Asṭurlābī in the 18th century. A celestial globe made by his grandson Muḥammad Faḍl Allāh in 1808 (presumably at Aurangabad) survives today. This globe is mounted on a European style stand into which a magnetic compass is incorporated.38 In the east, at Tikari in Bihar (24;57° N, 85;53° E), Ghulām Ḥussayn Jaunpūrī made a celestial globe in 1816.39 But these are exceptions and not the rule. The production of Indo-Persian astrolabes and celestial globes was centred primarily at Lahore. Towards the middle of the nineteenth century, there was a sudden upsurge in the manufacture of these traditional astronomical instruments at Lahore under the aegis of a Hindu by name Lālah Bulhomal Lāhorī, who crafted astrolabes and celestial globes with legends either in Arabic-Persian or in Sanskrit. He also crafted Sanskrit instruments like Dhruvabhrama-yantras and Turīya-yantras, signing his name in pretty Sanskrit verses. He even created some new instruments of his own design. Some forty-five instruments of diverse types at Lahore made by him and by his Hindu and Muslim associates are known. Bulhomal can be regarded as the last representative of both Islamic and Sanskrit traditions of astronomical instrumentation.40

Although the telescope and the pendulum clock were widely available, it is interesting to note that Indian craftsmen copied European models of naked eye instruments, like ring dials, and engraved on them Persian legends for the sake of Muslim astrologers and Sanskrit legends for the use of Hindu jyotiṣīs. A scientific instrument that is still produced today at Muradabad in Uttar Pradesh, quite elegantly and in large numbers, is the perpetual calendar. Two nineteenth-century prototypes are preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum at London and in the Rampur Raza Library. These will be described in section T.

To sum up, the instruments which are extant today were produced between the mid-sixteenth century and the end of the nineteenth century, mainly in the region of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Panjab.

CATALOGUING ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS

In his The Astrolabes of the World of 1932, Robert T. Gunther described 317 standard astrolabes, 8 mariner’s astrolabes and 11 astrolabe clocks. He also included six ancient and medieval texts on the construction and use of the astrolabe, which is indeed laudable.41 Derek J. de Solla Price of Yale University and his associates, Sharon L. Gibbs and Janice A. Henderson, prepared in 1973 A Computerized Checklist of Astrolabes (= CCA). This list provides the date, reference number, diameter, equinox, precession, type and maker for over 1700 extant astrolabes produced in several cultural areas. Alain Brieux and Francis Maddison embarked on the compilation Répertoire des Facteurs d’Astrolabes, et leurs oeuvres. Islam, plus Byzance, Arménie, Géorgie et Inde Hindoue (= Répertoire) as an expanded version of L. A. Mayer’s Islamic Astrolabists and Their Works (Geneva 1956). This compilation is arranged by the names of instrument makers and lists under each name the various instruments made by this maker in a chronological sequence. The value of the compilation lies in the fact that it provides, besides the date, size, components of the instrument and the bibliography on it, also the full text of maker’s signature in original language together with a translation in French. Unfortunately, this very useful compilation was never published.42 David King began to extend the CCA list by assigning numbers beyond 4000 in some of his publications under the rubric ‘International Instrument Checklist’ (= IIC). But this new list has not been published in a consolidated form so far.

The Mariner’s astrolabe is a drastically simplified version of the standard astrolabe for taking altitudes at the high seas. As mentioned above, Gunther described 8 extant specimens (nos. 318-325) in his work. A complete inventory of all the extant specimens was published in 1988 by Alan Stimson in his The Mariner’s Astrolabe. A Survey of known, surviving Sea Astrolabes. Mariner’s astrolabes were not made in India, but an undated specimen survives in the Raza Library of Rampur.43

Emilie Savage-Smith prepared a descriptive catalogue of 132 Islamic celestial globes, which include several pieces made in India.44 In a subsequent publication, she mentions that the total number of extant Islamic celestial globes stands at 175.45

In his publication mentioned above, Gunther describes 25 Indo-Persian astrolabes under the heading ‘Indian astrolabes’ and 9 Sanskrit Astrolabes as ‘Hindu astrolabes’. Otherwise Sanskrit astrolabes have not been discussed systematically so far, but for the few specimens at the Time Museum described by Anthony Turner46 and at the Adler Planetarium by David Pingree.47 Other Sanskrit instruments were not discussed at all in any of the publications. A large group of over 200 Sanskrit astrolabes and other kinds of instruments are described here for the first time. As Derek Price aptly remarked, ‘[e]ach instrument is a valuable document in itself, yielding historical and scientific data often unobtainable elsewhere. … however … the full significance of any one instrument cannot be properly realised except by comparison with the corpus of all such instruments extant.’48

PRESENT CATALOGUE

The present descriptive catalogue aims to study each instrument in the context of all the related extant specimens. Therefore, each instrument type is organized in a separate section identified by the letters of the alphabet. These sections begin with introductory essays on the history of the instrument type and its varieties, followed by the catalogue of the extant specimens. There are also introductory essays on instrument makers. Extracts from some Sanskrit texts describing the construction and use of certain instruments will be given in appendices, together with translations. In the descriptions of individual instruments, all engraved data are reproduced and interpreted as far as possible.49