“Zij-i Jadid-i Muhammadshahi”

In this manuscript, the sky is turned into a table. This is not a book for ordinary reading, but an instrument of calculation: lines, columns, and red marks helped readers work with the movement of celestial bodies, the calendar, and time.
Zij-i Jadid-i Muhammadshahi may be rendered as “The New Astronomical Tables of Muhammad Shah.” A zij was an astronomical handbook in which observations of the sky were translated into numbers. The work is associated with the Indian ruler and astronomer Sawai Jai Singh II. This copy was transcribed in India in 1761 by the calligrapher Mawlavi Khusur Iloh.
The manuscript’s main expressive force lies in the order of the page. Numbers and signs are arranged like architecture: frames hold the calculation, while red headings guide the eye from section to section.
For the Babur sector, this object matters through the late Indo-Persian scholarly world. Here, courtly heritage, the language of science, and the observation of the sky meet in the precise work of pen, number, and sight.