Sawai Jai Singh
and His Times

Sawai Jai Singh and His Times

Excerpt from Chapter I of Sawai Jai Singh and His Astronomy
by Virendra Nath Sharma, Motilal Banarasidass Publishers, Delhi, (1995).

The Rulers of Amber

Sawai Jai Singh, the statesman-astronomer of India, was born to a royal family on November 3, 1688 in the town of Amber in the state of Rajastan, India. His ancestors belonged to the Kachavāhā dynasty of the Rajputs founded in 967 by Dūlaha Rāya (d. 1006) after he conquered small towns in the countryside suurounding the present city of Jaipur. The hill town of Amber, which became the capital of the Kachavāhā rulers for the next 700 years, was conquered by Dulaha Raya's son, Kākila Deva (d. 1036). The rulers of the Kachavāhā clan remained petty chieftans for a long time until Bhāramala, or Bihārīmala (d. 1573), recognizing the ascendancy of Mughal power, accepted the suzerainty of the emperor Akbar in 1562, and thereby made the house of Amber the most influential of all the Rajput houses serving the Mughals. Bhāramala's descendants, Māna Singh (1543 - 1614) and Mirzā Raja Jai Singh (1611 - 1667), were highly regarded nobles at the Mughal court and were entrusted with important missions.

The Amber Fort: construction was started by Mana Singh in 1592
and completed by his descendant Jai Singh I.
(Photo courtesy of D.P. Harvey II)

By the time Jai Singh was born, the house of Amber had lost much of its influence at the imperial court, such that Jai Singh's father Raja Biśana Singh or Vişņu Singh (ruled 1689 - 1700) occupied a relatively minor post in the imperial service. The emperor deployed him to suppress an insurrection around Mathura, a holy city about 150 km south of Delhi, and later posted him to Kabul, Afganistan, where he passed away at the age of 27.

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