Flying machines in old Indian
Sanskrit texts
By Professor Dr. Dileep Kumar Kanjilal gave a brilliant lecture with this title
to the Sixth Congress of the Ancient Astronaut Society in Munich in 1979.
Kanjilal is a professor at the Calcutta Sanskrit College and therefore a leading
scholar in Sanskrit.
(source:
Pathways
To The Gods: The Stones of Kiribati
- By Erich Von Daniken
p. 179-187).
But if we follow the history of idolatry in India we come
across two important works, the Kausitaki and
the Satapatha Brahmana, dating from before
500 B.C. and telling us about images of the gods. Text and illustration show
forcefully that the gods were originally corporeal beings. But how, and this
question must be faced, did these gods reach the earth through the atmosphere?
The Yujurveda quite
clearly tells of a flying machine, which was used by the Asvins (two heavenly
twins). The Vimana is simply a synonym for flying machine. It occurs in the
Yajurveda, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Bhagavata Purana, as well as in
classical Indian literature.
At least 20 passages in the Rigveda
(1028 hymns to the gods) refer exclusively to the flying vehicle of the
Asvins. This flying machine is represented as three-storeyed, triangular and
three –wheeled. It could carry at least three passengers. According to
tradition the machine was made of gold, silver and iron, and had two wings. With
this flying machine the Asvins saved King Bhujyu who was in distress at sea.
Every scholar knows the Vaimanika
Shastra, a collection of sketches the core of which is attributed to Bharatvaj
the Wise around the 4th century B.C. The writings in the
Vaimanika Shastra were rediscovered in 1875. The text deals with the size and
the most important parts of the various flying machines. We learn how they
steered, what special precautions had to be taken on long flights, how the
machines could be protected against violent storms and lightning, how to make a
forced landing and even how to switch the drive to solar energy to make the fuel
go further. Bharatvaj refers to no fewer than 70 authorities and ten experts of
Indian air travel in antiquity!
The description of these machines in old Indian texts are
amazingly precise. The difficulty we are faced with today is basically that the
texts mention various metals and alloys which we cannot translate. We do not
know what our ancestors understood by them. In the Amarangasutradhara
five flying machines were originally built for the gods Brahma, Vishnu, Yama,
Kuvera and Indra. Later there were some additions. Four main types of flying
Vimanas are described: Rukma, Sundara, Tripura and Sakuna. The Rukma were
conical in shape and dyed gold, whereas the Sundata were like rockets and had a
silver sheen. The Tripura were three-storeyed and the Sakuna looked like birds.
There were 113 subdivisions of these four main types that differed only in minor
details. The position and functioning of the solar energy collectors are
described in the Vaimanika Shastra. It says that eight tubes had to be made of
special glass absorbing the sun’s ray. A whole series of details are listed,
some of which we do not understand. The Amaranganasutradhara
even explains the drive, the controls and the fuel for the flying machine.
It says that quicksilver and ‘Rasa’ were used. Unfortunately we do not yet
know what “Rasa’ was. Ten sections deal with uncannily topical themes such
as pilot training, flight paths, the individual parts of flying machines, as
well as clothing for pilots and passengers, and the food recommended for long
flights. There was much technical detail: the metals used, heat-absorbing metals
and their melting point, the propulsion units and various types of flying
machines. The information about metals used in construction name three sorts,
somala, soundaalika and mourthwika. If they were mixed in the right proportions,
the result was 16 kinds of heat-absorbing metals with names like ushnambhara,
ushnapaa, raajaamlatrit, etc. which cannot be translated into English. The texts
also explained how to clean metals, the acids such as lemon or apple to be used
and the correct mixture, the right oils to work with and the correct temperature
for them. Seven types of engine are described with the special functions for
which they are suited and the altitudes at which they work best. The catalogue
is not short of data about the size of the machines, which had storeys, nor of
their suitability for various purposes.
This text is recommended to all who
doubt the existence of flying machines in antiquity. The mindless cry that there
were no such things would have to fall silent in shame.
The ruined sites of Parhaspur have been the scene of
‘divine’ air battles? Pyramids reminiscent of the Mayan pyramids in the
Central American jungles in the center of Parhaspur.
In 1979 a book by David W. Davenport, an Englishman born in
India, was published in Italy. Its title was 2000 AC
Diztruzione Atomica, Atomic Destruction 2000. BC. Davenport claimed
to have proof that Mohenjo Daro, one of the oldest cities in the history of
human civilization, had been destroyed by an atomic bomb. Davenport shows that
the ruined site known as the place of death by archaeologists was not formed by
gradual decay.
Originally Mohenjo Daro, which is more than 5000 years old,
lay on two islands in the Indus. Within a radius of 1.5 km Davenport
demonstrates three different degrees of devastation which spread from the center
outwards. Enormous heat unleashed total destruction at the center. Thousands of
lumps, christened ‘black stones’ by archaeologists, turned out to be
fragments of clay vessels which had melted into each other in the extreme heat.
The possibility of a volcanic eruption is excluded because there is no hardened
lava or volcanic ash in or near Mohenjo Daro. Davenport assumed that the brief
intensive heat reached 2000 degree C. It made the ceramic vessels melt.
He further says that in the suburbs of Mohenjo Daro skeletons
of people lying flat on the ground, often hand in hand were found, as if the
living had been suddenly overcome by an unexpected catastrophe.
In spite of the interdisciplinary possibilities, archaeology
works solely by traditional methods in Mohenjo Daro. They ought to use the
former, for it would produce results. If flying machines and a nuclear explosion
as the cause of the ruins are excluded out of hand, there can be no research by
enlarged teams with physicists, chemists, metallurgists, etc. As the iron
curtain so often falls on sites that are important in the history of mankind, I
cannot help feeling that surprising facts endangering existing ways of thinking
might and should be discovered. A nuclear explosion 5000 years ago does not fit
into the scenario?