Even though, there is no dearth of scientific gadgets and instruments to predict monsoon, astrologers in Jaipur still stick with the centuries old tradition of making prediction after analysing wind direction at India’s oldest astronomical observatory, the Jantar Mantar. “We predict good rains,” says Pandit Akhilesh after the analysing the direction of the wind.
The astrologers, however, also under lined the problem of mushrooming high rise buildings in Jaipur which they say stops smooth flow of the wind. “The method of analysing wind to predict monsoon is scientific. Since it has been based on the direction of the wind we face problems because of the obstacle created by high rise buildings in natural flow of wind,” says Dr Vinod Sharma, head of the astrological department in Sanskrit University.
Scholars and astrologers gathered at the Jantar Mantar on Thursday evening and climbed over the 90-feet-high Samrat Yantra, the largest instrument of the observatory and spend quite a some time atop to study the wind direction. “The flow of eastern wind confirms that there would be good monsoon this year,” says Pandit Satish Chandra Sharma who has been visiting the Jantar Mantar every year to forecast the rains.
“The Smarat Yantra is 90-feet-high and we use a flag in the air, that make the height 115 feet, but now we find that the high rise structures create problems in noting wind direction,” says Dr Vinod. The Unesco had listed the Jantar Mantar in its world heritage list.
According to superintendent of the observatory Om Prakash Sharma, the observatory was constructed by Jaipur’s then ruler Jai Singh, who had great interest in astronomy. “He built five observatories at five different locations including Delhi, but the Jaipur observatory is largest and well managed,” he said. It has 14 major geometric devices for measuring time, predicting eclipses and tracking location of stars as the earth orbits around the sun.
“It is for the first time since the last few years that the wind direction sounded good monsoon rains as well as crops,” said. Pandit Vinod.