Abstract
In 1727 Jayasiṃha, the Mahārāja of a Rajput state which lies about 150 miles South Southwest of Delhi, took two important steps in his eventful career.1 He founded his new capital a few miles from Amber, its predecessor, naming it Jayanagara or Jayapura, and he sent a Jesuit missionary, Father Manuel de Figueredo, along with several others to Portugal to obtain for him astronomical books and instruments, and a skilled astronomer.2 In November of 1730 Father Manuel returned, to the new city of Jayapura, with the items Jayasiṃha had requested. Though we are nowhere informed of what instruments were brought back from Europe, the books included the 1727 Paris reprint of Philippe de La Hire’s Tabulae astronomicae; 3 and the “skilled” astronomer selected by the Portuguese was the young Pedro da Silva, who had studied astronomy in Portugal under J. B. Carbone, who was using de La Hire’s tables in the 1720’s.4
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Pingree, D. (2002). Philippe de La Hire at the Court of Jayasiṃha. In: Ansari, S.M.R. (eds) History of Oriental Astronomy. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 275. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9862-0_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9862-0_10
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