Digamsa Yantra

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  ScienceGroupOfINDIA (guest)

  A Digamsa yantra, consisting of two cylindrical walls surrounding a central pillar, measures the angle of azimuth of a celestial body. Its central pillar as well as its walls are engraved in degrees and minutes at their top surfaces. Cross wires are stretched between the cardinal points marked over the outer wall. The observer uses one or more strings with one end tied to a knob on the pillar and the other end to stone pebbles suspended over the walls. With these strings, the observer defines a vertical plane containing the cross-wire and the object in the sky. The angular distance of the vertical plane from the north point, read on the scales, indicates the azimuth of the body. It was developed by Jai Singh independently. Built only at Jaipur, Varanasi and Ujjain.

  17 years ago | reply | hide comment
• 
  pmvelankar

  The Digamsa Yantra was structured on a horizontal plane. It was basically made up of one solid drum-like pillar right in the center with two circular walls surrounding the center pillar subsequently. The height of the first (inner) circular wall was similar to the height of the center pillar and the height of the second (outer) circular wall was double the height of the center pillar and first circular wall. The top of each of the pillar and circular walls are separate pieces of marble slabs, crafted with precision to fit the circular surface shape of the pillar or wall that it is mounted on, with continuous azimuthal scales engraved. Two wires were suspended on top the second circular wall from the north to south and east to west points respectively. The intersection point of these two wires was directly above the exact center of the center pillar which was in line with the zenith. A sighting thread was fixed to the intersection point of the two wires for functioning purposes.

  12 years ago | reply | hide comment