Jaipur: In the Samarkand inscription, Sawai Jai Singh II, the king of Jaipur, has been described as the servant of the Mughals. After the inscription came to the fore, discussions about the king of Jaipur were going on. Amidst this debate, in a conversation with ETV Bharat, Jaipur historian Devendra Kumar Bhagat informed on the basis of a document written in Persian of the Mughal court that Sawai Jai Singh was not a servant of the Mughals, but a commander, an advisor and the Mansabdar.
As far as the construction of observatories is concerned, Sawai Jai Singh had a special interest in them. That is the reason why he got not one, not two, but five observatories built. Offensive remarks on Sawai Raja Jai Singh have been made in the inscription written outside the Uzbekistan Samarkand Observatory in the city of Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
In the inscription of the observatory, Sawai Jai Singh has been written as the servant of Muhammad Shah, a descendant of Babur. Former TRS MP and daughter of Telangana CM KCR Kalvakuntla Kavita wrote a letter to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar expressing objection to such writings. The former royal family of Jaipur has also protested against this. At the same time, historians have also clarified the situation on the basis of evidence.
The Amber and Jaipur kings had political relations with the Mughals. Apart from this, there have been kings of Amber and Jaipur in the positions of big commanders. Even the question of succession of the Mughal emperor was decided only by the Maharajas of Jaipur. Hence, terming Sawai Jai Singh as a servant was wrong.
It is also clear in the Mughal and Persian documents that the Maharaja of Jaipur was not a servant of the Mughal court, but a consultant, a general, and the great Mansabdar. Not only this, during the British era, the Mughals used to get pensions from the British. Whereas Jaipur was considered the most prosperous city by the Britishers.
Historian Anand Sharma said that after the death of Aurangzeb, Bahadur Shah became the first Mughal emperor. He established suzerainty over Amer and changed its name to Mominabad. Later, Sawai Jai Singh overthrew the Mughal armies from Amber by forming a mixed organisation of Jodhpur, Udaipur and Amer and established Jaipur. During this, a treaty was signed between them. Later, the Mughal emperor realised his fault and maintained cordial ties with the Jaipur king.
Astronomy was the subject of interest of Sawai Jai Singh. He also wrote a book of his own titled 'Yantra Raj Rachna'. While building the observatory, Sawai Jai Singh elicited the opinion of people, who did astrological calculations from all over the world. Sawai Jai Singh built five observatories.
He kept the concept of 'Panch Dev' in these observatories. The biggest of which was in Jaipur. After this, observatories were built in Delhi, Mathura, Ujjain and Banaras. Out of these, the observatories of Mathura and Banaras have been destroyed due to a lack of maintenance. On the basis of the observatory built by Sawai Jai Singh in Jaipur, the 'Panchang' is still being published, which is called 'Jai Vinodhi Panchang'.
Books of Mughal courtiers have been written before the time of Sawai Jai Singh II. After Aurangzeb, no king could rule for a long time. This was the reason that no book was written by any courtier of his fame. However, after this, Veer Vinod tells the history of Mewar, Vansh Bhaskar, which is called the history of Bundi. It is described in the books of Gaurishankar Hirachand Ojha and many modern historians-writers that Sawai Jai Singh was a multi-talented king, not a servant.
The name of Mirza Ulugh Beg (1339-1419) is particularly noteworthy among the Muslim astrologers, who influenced Jai Singh the most. Beg was also a king and astrologer like Jai Singh. In those days, this grandson of Timur was becoming famous in the world in terms of his astrological knowledge. According to historians, Beg established an observatory in Samarkand in 1425.
