If you drive through the Barapullah elevated road in Delhi, you cannot miss a huge blue-and-white signboard pointing to “The Sun Dial”, right at the centre of a park near Sarai Kale Khan.
During a routine morning walk earlier this month, incidentally on a cloudy day, I went to see it. The Sun Dial at Ring Road was built by the DDA as part of Commonwealth Games 2010 beautification drive. Its gnomon (projecting piece) is 12.7 metre high and 24.5 metre long, and has been certified as scientifically accurate by Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE).
The more famous Sun Dial in Delhi is part of the Samrat Yantra in Jantar Mantar, which was constructed in 1724 by the Maharaja of Jaipur, Sawai Jai Singh II. It gives a fairly accurate local time, with a margin of error of 2 seconds. Between 1724 and 1730, he had built five observatories -- the other four in Jaipur, Varanasi, Ujjain and Mathura.
The modern installation and the Sun Dial park built by DDA are quite good, but the problem is the approach road. It is an uneven dirt patch with a flyover on one side and a construction barrier on the other, and the entry is easy to miss. I was guided towards it by a woman who was taking rest in a ‘charpai’ below the flyover, flanked by two cows. The place can be made more popular with proper signage and regular workshops on astronomy for schoolchildren, which may include making of models of instruments like Samrat Yantra or Mishra Yantra.
Interestingly, there is a website called jantarmantar.org which has uploaded instructions manual for creating such paper models for astronomy enthusiasts. The website also has resource materials on the observatories and instruments made by Maharaja Jai Singh.
While Sun Dial used to be an important time-measuring instrument in earlier days, there are instances in history of use of a Moon Dial too. Queen's College, Cambridge, has a famous Moon Dial, though it is accepted by scientists that such a device is much more complicated and can never be fully accurate.
During a routine morning walk earlier this month, incidentally on a cloudy day, I went to see it. The Sun Dial at Ring Road was built by the DDA as part of Commonwealth Games 2010 beautification drive. Its gnomon (projecting piece) is 12.7 metre high and 24.5 metre long, and has been certified as scientifically accurate by Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE).
The more famous Sun Dial in Delhi is part of the Samrat Yantra in Jantar Mantar, which was constructed in 1724 by the Maharaja of Jaipur, Sawai Jai Singh II. It gives a fairly accurate local time, with a margin of error of 2 seconds. Between 1724 and 1730, he had built five observatories -- the other four in Jaipur, Varanasi, Ujjain and Mathura.
The modern installation and the Sun Dial park built by DDA are quite good, but the problem is the approach road. It is an uneven dirt patch with a flyover on one side and a construction barrier on the other, and the entry is easy to miss. I was guided towards it by a woman who was taking rest in a ‘charpai’ below the flyover, flanked by two cows. The place can be made more popular with proper signage and regular workshops on astronomy for schoolchildren, which may include making of models of instruments like Samrat Yantra or Mishra Yantra.
Interestingly, there is a website called jantarmantar.org which has uploaded instructions manual for creating such paper models for astronomy enthusiasts. The website also has resource materials on the observatories and instruments made by Maharaja Jai Singh.
While Sun Dial used to be an important time-measuring instrument in earlier days, there are instances in history of use of a Moon Dial too. Queen's College, Cambridge, has a famous Moon Dial, though it is accepted by scientists that such a device is much more complicated and can never be fully accurate.
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