In the 19th century, the railways began to synchronize their clocks through a time signal which would be sent by the head office at a specific time every day. Being the headquarters of the most important presidencies of British India, Mumbai and Kolkata time assumed importance and began to be adopted by nearby provinces and princely states. This was when it became crucial to have a unified time zone. Following this, as opposed to earlier when a day would begin at sunrise, a day now began at midnight.ĭespite this, most towns and cities continued using their own local times until the introduction of the railways in the 1850’s. This was the first time that a current time zone had been used. In 1802, the first official astronomer of the British East India Company, John Goldingham established the longitude of Chennai as 13★′24″N, 80☁8′30″E, which was five hours and thirty minutes ahead of Greenwich Mean Time. The Madras Observatory was established by the British East India Company in 1792 primarily because of the efforts of Michael Topping, a sailor and astronomer. An early example of this is the Jantar Mantar constructed by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh in 1733 in Jaipur which has large sundials (up to 90 feet high) which were used to accurately calculate local time. In ancient India, kingdoms used Hindu calenders to keep their own local time. Despite these early advancements standard time was not used other than in astrology. The book also elaborates that Rohatika and Avanti are situated on a line which passes through the Equator (76° E) and the North Pole.Ī sidereal day in ancient India began with sunrise at the Prime Meridian in Ujjain and then was divided into smaller time units. The book outlined that the Prime Meridian passed through Avanti (ancient name for the city of Ujjain) at 23☁1′N 75☄5′E and Rohitaka (ancient name for Rohtak) at 28★4′N 76☃8′E. Assuming to which, the earth is spherical. Earlier in the 4th century CE, an astronomical treatise “Surya Siddhanta” had mentioned about Standard Time in India.
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