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In this archive story we are seeing the Sun go down over Jodhpur in Rajasthan, India.
Read the background story of this archive photo by the photographer. |
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The Sun, as the source of energy and light for life on Earth has been a central object in culture and religion since prehistory. Ritual solar worship has given rise to solar deities in theistic traditions not only in India, but also throughout the world and solar symbolism is ubiquitous. Apart from its immediate connection to light and warmth, the Sun is also important in timekeeping as the main indicator of the day and the year as in this photograph depicted in Jodhpur, India. |
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Sun over Jodhpur, India
It is not without reason that Jodhpur is called the 'Sun City' because the weather remains bright and sunny all around the year and to keep the houses cool blue color is used on the houses. The earliest understanding of the Sun was that of a disk in the sky, whose presence above the horizon creates day and whose absence causes night. In the Bronze Age, this understanding was modified by assuming that the Sun is transported across the sky in a boat or a chariot and transported back to the place of sunrise during the night passing through the underworld. The Sun is roughly middle-aged and it has not changed dramatically for more than 4 billion years and will remain fairly stable for more than another 5 billion years. It currently fuses about 600 million tons of hydrogen into helium every second.
What is the Sun?
The Sun is the star that, together with its planetary system, forms the solar system. The Earth and other matter revolve around the Sun, which in itself makes up about 99.8 percent of the mass of the solar system. Energy from the Sun is in the form of sunlight is essential for almost all life on earth via photosynthesis. |
History and symbolism of the sun
The Sun's development suggest that 3.8 to 2.5 billion years ago, the Sun was only about 70 percent as bright as it is today. Such a weak star would not have been able to sustain liquid water on Earth's surface in India and thus life should not have been able to develop. However, the geological record demonstrates that Earth has remained at a fairly constant temperature throughout its history and that the young earth was somewhat warmer than it is today.
The Sun god in Hinduism is an ancient and revered deity. In later Hindu usage, all the 'Vedic Adityas' lost identity and metamorphosed into one composite deity, 'Surya', the Sun. The attributes of all other 'Adityas' merged into that of 'Surya' and the names of all other 'Adityas' became synonymous with or epithets of, 'Surya'. The 'Ramayana' has 'Rama' as a descendant of the 'Surya', thus belonging to the 'Suryavansha' or the 'Clan of the sun'. The 'Mahabharata' describes one of its warrior heroes, 'Karna', as being the son of the 'Pandav'a mother 'Kunti' and 'Surya'. The sun god is said to be married to the goddess 'Ranaadeh', also known as 'Sanjnya'. She is depicted in dual form, being both sunlight and shadow, personified. The goddess is revered in Gujarat and Rajasthan.
The Aravalli Range in India
As a photographer and traveler in India it is easy to be amazed of the country's landscape. The hills that one can see in the above photograph is amoung the mountains in the Aravalli Range. A range of mountains running around 700 kilometers in a southwest direction, starting in North India from Delhi and passing through southern Haryana, through to Western India across the states of Rajasthan and ending in Gujarat. The climate of Jodhpur is hot and semi-arid during its nearly yearlong dry season, but contains a brief rainy season from late June to September.
Although the average rainfall is around 450 millimeters, it fluctuates greatly. In the famine year over 100 years ago, Jodhpur received only 24 millimeters, but in the flood year some years later it received as much as over 1,000 millimeters. Temperatures are extreme from March to October, except when the monsoonal rain produces thick clouds to lower it slightly.
"In the months of April, May and June, high temperatures routinely exceed 40 degrees. During the monsoon season, average temperatures decrease slightly. However, the city's generally low humidity rises, which adds to the perception of the heat. The highest temperature recorded in Jodhpur was a couple of years ago when it rose up to 53.2 degrees"
See this video about the Sun made by National Geographic India.
Second largest city in Rajasthan
Jodhpur is the second largest city in the Indian state of Rajasthan and officially the second metropolitan city of the state. It was formerly the seat of a princely state of the same name. The capital of the kingdom was known as 'Marwar'. Jodhpur is a popular tourist destination, featuring many palaces, forts and temples, set in the stark landscape of the Thar Desert. A princely state, also called 'Native state', legally, under the British or Indian state for those states on the subcontinent, was a vassal state under a local or regional ruler in a subsidiary alliance with the British Raj.
Though the history of the princely states of the subcontinent dates from at least the classical period of Indian history, the predominant usage of the term princely state specifically refers to a semi-sovereign principality on the Indian subcontinent during the British Raj that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by a local ruler.
Read also: Scenery in Jodhpur, India
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India is a land full of stories. On every street, on every corner and in the many places in India, life is rushing by you as a photographer with millions of stories to be told. In the archive story above, you hopefully had a readable insight in the story that was behind the photo of a sunset in Jodhpur. On this website of Kristian Bertel | Photography you can find numerous travel pictures from the photographer. Stories and moments that tell the travel stories of how the photographer captured the specific scene that you see in the picture. The photographer's images have a story behind them, images that all are taken from around India throughout his photo journeys. The archive stories delve into Kristian's personal archive to reveal never-before-seen, including portraits and landscapes beautifully produced snapshots from various travel assignments. The archive is so-far organized into photo stories, this one included, each brought to life by narrative text and full-color photos. Together, these fascinating stories tell a story about the life in India. India, the motherland to many people around the world, a land of unforgetable travel moments. The archive takes viewers on a spectacular visual journey through some of the most stunning photographs to be found in the photographer's archive collection. The photographer culled the images to reflect the many variations on the universal theme of beauty and everyday life in India. By adding these back stories the photographer's work might immensely enhanced the understanding of the photographs.
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