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Space
Heroes of Old
India
The
Ramayana telling in magic imagery the quest of Rama for his stolen
wife Sita, has thrilled the people of India for thousands of years; generations
of wandering story-tellers have recited its 24,000 verses to marveling audiences
captivated by this brilliant panorama of the fantastic past, the passions of
heroic love, tragedies of dark revenge, aerial battles between Gods and Demons
waged with nuclear bombs; the glory of noble deeds; the thrilling poetry of
life, the philosophy of destiny and death.
Some descriptions of the war:
In
his wonderful translation of the ‘Ramayana’ Romesh
Chunder Dutt describes Rama’s father, King Dasartatha, as ‘sprung
of ancient Solar Race’, a descendant of Kings of the Sun, Spacebeings, who
ruled
India
..
Ravan speeding on his chariot
and Rama on the heavenly car fought an epic duel in long and wild fury, the
winds were hushed in voiceless terror and the livid sun turned pale. Rama dueled
with Ravana in celestial cars fighting in the sky and destroyed him with
annihilating missiles to win back Sita. After rescuing Sita, Rama took her home
by aerial car, an enormous, beautifully painted two-storied car, furnished with
windows adorned with flags and colors, and several apartments for passengers and
crew; the vehicle emitted a melodious sound heard on the ground.
The happy pair, reunited flew
from
Sri Lanka
across
India
over the
Ganges
, home to Ayodhya, as Rama gave a colorful description of the historic landscape
of hills and rivers gliding swiftly below.
‘Sailing
o’er the cloudless ether Rama’s Pushpa chariot came
And ten thousand jocund voices shouted Rama’s joyous name.
Silver swans by Rama’s bidding soft descended from the air
And on earth the chariot lighted – car of flowers divinely fair.’
(Note: To marveling mortals
spaceships gleaming in the sun shine would resemble silver swans).
The Drona Parva p. 171,
rejoices that when Rama ruled his kingdom, the Rishis, Gods and men, all lived
together on the Earth; the world became extremely beautiful. Rama (and
presumably his descendants) reigned in his kingdom for eleven thousand years. In
this Golden Age Celestials from other planets trod our Earth as mentioned in the
Egyptian and Greek texts.
(Note:
Abduction
of Sita by Ravana in the Epic of Ramayana. This
wonderful epic of the ‘Ramayana’ the inspiration of the world’s great
classic literature, intrigues us most today by its frequent allusions to aerial
vehicles and annihilating bombs, which we consider to be inventions of our own
20th century impossible in the far past. Students of Sanskrit
literature soon revise their preconceived ideas and find that the heroes of
Ancient India were apparently equipped with aircraft and missiles more
sophisticated than those we boast today.
This wonderful epic of the
‘Ramayana’ the inspiration of the world’s great classic literature,
intrigues us most today by its frequent allusions to aerial vehicles and
annihilating bombs, which we consider to be inventions of our own 20th
century impossible in the far past. Students of Sanskrit literature soon revise
their preconceived ideas and find that the heroes of Ancient India were
apparently equipped with aircraft and missiles more sophisticated than those we
boast today.
The 31st chapter
of the Samaranganasutradhara, ascribed to
King Bhojadira in the 11th century, contains descriptions of
remarkable flying ships such as the elephant-machine, wooden-bird-machine
traveling in the sky, wooden-vimana-machine flying in the air,
door-keeper-machine, soldier-machine, etc. denoting different type of craft for
different purposes. The poet had persons not initiated in art of building
machines will cause trouble. Surely the understatement of the century!
Ramachandra
Dikshitar (1896 - 1953) in his fascinating
War in Ancient India
translates the
Samar
as saying that these flying machines could attack visible and invisible
objects, ascending, cruising thousands of miles in different directions in the
atmosphere, even mounting to the solar and stellar regions. ‘The aerial cars
are made of light wood looking like a great bird with a durable and well-formed
body having mercury inside and fire at the bottom. It has two resplendent wings
and is propelled by air. It flies in the atmospheric regions for a great
distance and carries several persons in it. The inside construction resembles
heaven created by Brahma himself. Iron, copper, lead and other metals are also
used for these machines. Despite their apparent simplicity the
Samar
stresses that these vimanas were costly to make and were the exclusive
privilege of the aristocrats, who fought celestial duels. Today we associate
such craft with Spacemen.
The
Mahabharata
The most fascinating tales of
war in the air waged with fantastic weapons transcending our own
science-fiction-today are narrated in the ‘Mahabharata’, a wonderful poem of
200,000 lines, eight times as long as the ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey’
combined, a veritable world in literature. This epic concerning the great
Bharata War in Northern India fought about 1400 BC paints in glorious color a
great and noble civilization, where kings and priests, princes and philosophers,
warriors and fair women, mingled in a brilliant society, perhaps the most
glittering period in all history. The brilliant characterization of the noble
prince Arjuna, his peerless bride, Draupadi, the God, Krishna, the host of
Celestials and warrior-knights, transcend the bucolic creations of Homer and the
colorful pageant is studded with human personages, whose fallings from sublimity
to despair are revealed with an insight unsurpassed by genius in our Western
world. Transmuting the martial adventures and exquisite passions brood the
sublime teachings of the Bhagavad Gita with their incalculable influence on the
Greek philosophers and the great Thinkers of the West. We today are more
intrigued by the aerial craft and wonder weapons suggesting some secret science
inspired by Beings from Space.
The discourse between the
hero, Arjuna and the Lord Krishna, as the warrior hesitates to fight his own
kinsfolk form the lofty Bhagavad Gita, The Song of the Lord, where in
Krishna
reveals the meaning of the universe, the wisdom of Brahman and the duty of men
expounding the religion of the Hindus.
The battle between Arjuna and
the giant Rakshasas soared from the plains of
India
to the skies. The Samsaptakabadha Parva p. 58, describes Arjuna and
Krishna
borne in a car,
“….exceedingly
resplendent like a celestial car, O king, in the battle between the Gods and the
Asuras in the days of old, it displayed a circular, forward, backward and
diverse other kinds of motion….The Son of Pandu blew his prodigious conch
call, Devadotta. And then he shot the weapon called Tashtva, that is capable of
slaying large bodies of foes together.”
References in the
‘Mahabharata’ to fantastic weapons no longer evoke ridicule but becomes of
intense interest to our 20th century minds haunted by nuclear bombs.
The Bhisma Parva, p. 44, describing the conflict between Arjuna and Bhisma
states the enemy invoked a celestial weapon resembling fire in effulgence and
energy, Chandra Roy in his masterly translation notes, “The Brahma-danda,
meaning Brahma’s Rod, is infinitely more powerful than even Indra’s bolt.
The latter can strike only once, but the former can smite whole countries and
entire races from generation to generation.”
For thousands of years scholars assumed this to be a figment of the
Poet’s imagination; we at once are struck by the ominous resemblance to our
hydrogen-bomb, whose radiations mutate generations unborn.
Arjuna and his contemporaries
appeared to possess an arsenal of diverse, sophisticated nuclear weapons, equal
to, perhaps surpassing, the missiles of the Americans and Russians today. The
Badha Parva, p. 97, mentions the Vaishnava weapon conferring invisibility, able
to destroy all the Gods in all the worlds. The Drona
Parva, p. 283, refers to an
annihilating mace or missile.
‘Encompassed by them
(bowmen), O Bharata, Bhisma smiting the while and uttering a leonine roar, took
up and hurled at them with great force a fierce mace of destruction of hostile
ranks. That mace of adamantine strength, hurled like Indra’s thunder by Indra
himself, crushed, O King, thy soldiers in battle. And it seemed to fill, O King,
the whole Earth with a loud noise. And blazing forth in splendor, that fierce
mace of impetuous course and endowed with lightning flashes coursing towards
them, thy warriors fled away uttering frightful cries. And at the unbelievable
found, O Sire, of that fierce mace, many men fell down where they stood, and
many car-warriors also fell down from their cars.’
Atomic warfare with defenders
vainly launching anti-missiles to counter nuclear rockets startles us by its
uncanny resemblance to future wars, when our Earth’s capital may be blasted
with bombs of anti-matter launched from space-satellites. The Drona Parva, p.
592, describes:
Selective missiles like the
Narayana weapons, called ‘scorcher of foes’ were probably utilized against
troops on the battlefield. The ultimate weapon was the Agneya, reminiscent of
the Atlantean mash-mak, said to utilize some sidereal force, mercifully
undiscovered by us today. The Drona Parva, p. 677, holds us spell bound.
‘The valiant
Ashwathaman, then staying resolutely on his car touched water and
invoked the Agneya weapon, incapable of being resisted by the very Gods. Aiming
at all his visible and invisible foes, the preceptor’s son, that Slayer of
hostile heroes, inspired with mantras a blazing shaft of the effulgence of a
smokeless fire and let it off on all sides, filled with rage. Dense showers of
arrows then issued from it in the welkin. Endued with fiery flames those arrows
compassed Partha on all sides. Meteors flashed down from the firmament. A thick
gloom suddenly shrouded the Pandava host. All points of the compass also were
enveloped by that darkness. Rakshashas and Vicochas crowding together uttered
fierce cries. Inauspicious winds began to blow. The Sun himself no longer gave
any heat. Ravens fiercely croaked on all sides. Clouds roared in the welkin,
showering blood. Birds and beasts and kine and Munis of high vows and souls
under complete control became exceedingly uneasy. The very elements seemed to be
perturbed. The Sun seemed to turn round. The universe scorched with heats seemed
to be in a fever. The elephants and other creatures of the land scorched by the
energy of that weapon, ran in fright, breathing heavily and desirous of
protection against that terrible force. The very water being heated, the
creatures residing in that element, O Bharata, became exceedingly uneasy and
seemed to burn. From all points of the compass, cardinal and subsidiary, from
the firmament and the very Earth, showers of sharp and fierce arrows fell and
issued with the impetuosity of Garuda on the wind. Struck and burnt by those
shafts of Ashothaman that were all endued with the impetuosity of the thunder,
the hostile warriors fell down like trees burnt down by a raging fire.
Huge elephants burnt by that
weapon, fell down on the Earth all around, uttering fierce cries loud as those
of the clouds. Other huge elephants, scorched by that fire, ran hither and
thither, roared aloud in fear, as if in the midst of a forest conflagration. The
steeds, O King, and the cars also burnt by the energy of that weapon, looked, O
Sire, like the tops of trees burnt in a forest fire. Thousands of cars fell down
on all sides. Indeed, O Bharata, it seemed that the divine Lord Agni burnt the (Pandava)
host in that battle like Somvarta fire destroying everything at the end of the
Yuga. (Celestial fire destroying civilization at the end of a world age).
Could this marvelous
description of a nuclear-like blast related by that Indian thousands of years
ago be surpassed by our scientific reporters today? Such gripping narrative in
homely words reminds us of the eye-witness accounts of the people of
Hiroshima
. This tale is stamped with the hall marks of truth; it can be no aery-fairy
science-fiction, long ago in our world’s tortured history this frightful
catastrophe must have happened. Such fantastic warfare must have baffled
historian Romesh Chunder Dutt as he translated the Drona Parva in those
leisurely days of 1888, when battles were won by cavalry charges and heroes
waving banners; today we understand too well the titanic horrors of atomic war.
Conventional history denies any high technology to the peoples of antiquity who
are believed to have lived in a static culture for thousands of years in
agricultural communities waiting for James Watt to wake up one day and invent
the steam-engine. Man has suffered other Hiroshimas long ago; humanity always
learns enough to make the same sorry mistakes.
The ‘Ramayana’ and the
‘Mahabharta’ written so many millennia ago show that our remote ancestors
were not barbarians but lived and loved in a gay and glittering culture with a
spiritual insight into cosmic mysteries transcending our own. Perhaps in that
distant past we discern our future. In a few decades our Earth may be graced
again by Spacemen, the Gods of Old India.
While
our Western civilization is based on the Greeco-Judaic cultures, it is seldom
realized that the Greeks and the Jews derived many of their fundamental concepts
from old
India
especially after the invasion of Alexander in 327 BC.
Kannada and the Gnani Yogis
speculated on the atom five hundred years before Democritus, Aryabhatta
in the 6th century BC taught the rotation of the Earth, the
scientific principles of medicine, botany and chemistry were established as
early as 1300 BC in
India
while Indian astronomy dates from remote Antiquity.
The
Creation in Genesis seems a primitive version of the profound
teaching of the Days and Nights of Brahman; the tale of Noah an echo of
Vaivasvata warned by Lord Vishnu to build a ship for the coming Flood; the
Jewish Kabbala and various events in the Bible can be traced to Hindu scriptures
written many centuries earlier.
To
minds conditioned by two thousand years of Christianity, the lives and teachings
of
Krishna
and Buddha throw so much doubt on the historicity of Jesus, that we dare to
wonder if the whole Christian Legend is but a plagiarism of Hinduism and
Buddhism. Such apparent blasphemy outrages all our feelings, to doubt
the reality of Jesus seems mortal sin, yet if we honestly study the teachings of
Krishna, Hellenized to Chrestus hence Christ, and compare the fundamental dogma
of Virgin Birth, Miracles, Ritual death on a tree or cross, Immortality, we find
ourselves speculating whether Jesus was a myth based on the earlier historical
Krishna. Many scholars believe that
Old India was the source not only of civilization, the arts and sciences, but
also of all the great religions of Antiquity.
(source: Gods
and spacemen in the ancient east
- By W Raymond Drake p. 1 – 65).
Today
we tend to belittle the past and boast our age as the highest peak in human
cultures, despite its sadly apparent short-comings; the common man in
the West certainly lives more princely than many a King centuries ago and enjoys
marvels of genius which would have amazed the old magicians, yet the literature
of Eastern peoples show that the Ancients sometimes surpassed us in the very
things of which we are proud of. The Indian lyricize of spaceships faster than
light and missiles more violent than H-bombs; their Sanskrit texts describe
aircraft apparently with radar and cameras; the wonderful ‘Mahabahrata’
rivals the ‘Ilad’ and the ‘Odyssey’, the ‘Aeneid,’ the plays of
Shakespeare and most of our modern fiction all combined. The
religions and philosophies of the East distilled a sublimity of thought scarce
attained in the West; the wonderful Indian system of Yoga, the Gnani
Yoga of Wisdom, Raja Yoga of Mind, Hatha Yoga of Body, Bhakti Yoga of Love,
Karma Yoga of Work, developed a discipline millennia ago blending mysticism with
daily life, showing Man’s relation to the Universe incarnating ever upwards to
perfection to Union with God; this supreme and beneficent teaching now exerting
widening influence in our Western world must surely have sprung from
civilizations long vanished…”
(source: Gods
and spacemen in the ancient east
- By W Raymond Drake p. 226).
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