Links Between Ancient India and Mayans

From the Deccan Chronicle

HYDERABAD, INDIA, April 29, 2002: Recent studies suggest a link between Indus Valley and Mayans of Central America. The studies focused on the calendars of the two advanced civilizations. The Indus Valley inhabitants followed a calendar based on the movements of Jupiter and the Mayans followed one based on the Venus. In the Puranas, a secondary Hindu scripture, Jupiter, Brihaspati, was acknowledged to be the leader of the gods, while Venus, Shukra, was the leader of the asuras. The texts further state that the devas and asuras lived on opposite sides of the Earth. Mexico and India are at opposite sides in longitude. The correspondences were pointed out by B. G. Siddarth, director of the B. M. Birla Science Centre in Hyderabad. He also said the Hindu story of the churning of the ocean has been found in carvings in Mexico, as well Mayan representations of a tortoise carrying twelve pillars similar to Indian illustrations. Dr. Ganapati Sthapati of Chennai, a foremost expert on Vastu Shastra, the ancient Hindu architecture, has visited the Mayan structures in Central America and found many similarities between the design and construction methods of the Mayans and that of the ancient Hindus.

          KIROAN KUMAR CHALAPAKA

(ancient alien theorist,paranormal researcher)

Were the Mayas’ Pyramids Built By the Vedic Architect Maya? (by Marcus Schmieke)

~KIROAN~

Nowadays, it is generally known that Columbus was not the first to discover America. In the course of centuries, almost every seafaring culture set out to the American continents. In the last few years, direct traces have been discovered which lead from India directly into the heart of the Maya Culture of Central America.

In the scriptures of South India, countries located south of India and their relation to the Vedic culture were mentioned. Following these traces, the renowned Vedic architect Dr. V. Ganapati Sthapati travelled to Peru in spring of 1995. His ancestors had built the big Shiva temple in Tanjore approximately a thousand years ago, and he himself continues to build temples all over the world according to the same principles of Vedic architecture. Merely studying old Sanskrit and Tamil scriptures on architecture caused him to assume that there had to be a connection between South America and India.

Not only is its plot based exactly on the same geometric matrix, the Vasatipurusha Mandala, but also its form is identical with the South Indian Vimana (temple domes) even in details. Furthermore, there are amazing similarities as to measurements.

Dr. Sthapati discovered that the South-Indian measure/rule (Kishku yardstick approx. 33 inch) was used mainly in the Peruvian region of Kushku. Residential buildings were also built strictly according to the principles of Vasati, as developed by Maya Danava. Its plots, position of doors and windows, proportions, form of roofs, inclination angles of roofs, diameter of columns, width of walls etc. are perfectly in accordance with the rules of Vasati, which are still applied in 60% of all houses built in India nowadays.

Residential buildings were also built strictly according to the principles of Vasati, as developed by Maya Danava. Its plots, position of doors and windows, proportions, form of roofs, inclination angles of roofs, diameter of columns, width of walls etc. are perfectly in accordance with the rules of Vasati, which are still applied in 60% of all houses built in India nowadays.

Considering so many similarities, it is hard to believe in accident as an explanation. In addition, also the techniques applied by the Maya to erect their buildings and to hammer their huge stones for temples and pyramids are identical to those still taught and applied by Dr. Sthapati today. They have been described by Maya Danava in his books on Vasati.

Did Maya Danava really travel from South India to Peru, or did he originally come from South America to become a famous architect in India later? This question can only be answered if we take into account the mystical personality of Maya Danava.

According to historical records of the Vedic culture, Maya Danava’s influence on man was prevailing for 8000 years. But at the same time, he is described as a being from another planetary system who is equipped with all sorts of mystic powers and with an astronomic life span. Had the same Maya Danava first worked as an architect in South India and published Vedic texts in order to contribute later to the development of the Maya Culture in Central America, which shows a number of similarities with the Vedic India also in fields different from architecture?

It is also very interesting to have a closer look at a linguistic comparison. Even today there are a number of words in the Maya language which indicate a relation to the Vedic culture. The Maya word K’ultanlini refers to the divine power and has obvious similarities to the Sanskrit word Kundalini which also refers to the life power and the power of consciousness.

The Sanskrit term yoga can be found again in the Maya word Yok’hah, which means at the top of truth. For our considerations, it is most interesting to investigate the connection between the Maya word Chilambalam which is the name for the temple room of the caste-pyramid Chichen Itza. This pyramid has the same plot as a South Indian temple vimana. Both are based on a grid consisting of 8 x 8 squares.

In Vasati such a square grid is called Manduka Mandala, the frog mandala. The centre is formed by a square made of four squares, which corresponds to the Brahmasthana, the place of Brahma. At this location the divine energy is so strong that it is not suitable for people to live there.

Both in the Vasati temples and in the Maya pyramids the most sacred place of the whole structure is located exactly in this square. The Mayas call this area Chilambalam, which means sacred room. This room is cubic and corresponds to the original form of room itself in Vasati.

Adhering to this principle, there is a Shiva-temple in South India in which the sacred room or the room of consciousness is being worshiped. This temple with immaculate proportions is called Chidambaram and ranks amongst the most famous Vasati temples of South India next to Shri Rangam. The same concept of the sacred room or hall of consciousness was called Chilambalam by the Mayas. Another perplexing parallel.

 http://www.floridavediccollege.edu/vasati/vasati_articles_mayas.htm

THE INDIAN TRADITION IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY: AN OVERVIEW

~KIROAN KUMAR CHALAPAKA~


Courtesy : http://samanvaya.com/

Any study of the Indian tradition of science has to start with linguistics. This is so notonly because Linguistics is the earliest of Indian sciences to have been rigorously systematised, but also because this systematisation became the paradigm example for all other sciences of India.

Like all sciences and arts of the Indian tradition, Linguistics finds its first expression in the Vedas. For most of the Indian sciences, already by the Vedic period, the basic elements of study and the basic categories through which these are to be studied had been established, preliminary data for the operation of these sciences had been collected and rough systematisation had been achieved. Thus, for the science of Linguistics, in the siksha and pratiakhya texts associated with the various Vedas, we find a settled complete list of phonemes appropriately classified into vowels, semivowels, sibilants and the five groups of five consonants, all beautifully arranged according to the place of articulation which moves systematically from the throat to the lips. In fact phonetics and phonology are taken for granted by all authorities on etymology (nirukta) and grammar (vyakarana) including Yaska and Panini. In the pratisakhya literature one also find the morpho-phonemic (sandhi) rules and much of the methodology basic to the later grammatical literature.

The Indian science of Linguistics finds its rigorous systematisation in Panini’s Ashtadhyayi. The date of this text, like that of much f the early Indian literature, is
yet to settled with any certainty. But surely the Ashtadiyayi is not of a date later than 500 BC*. In the Ashtadhyayi, Panini achieves a complete characterisation of the Sanskrit language as spoken at his time, and also manages to specify the way it
deviated from the Sanskrit of the Vedas. Given a lit of the root words of the Sanskrit language (dhatupatha) and using the sutras of Panini it is possible to generate all possible correct utterances in Sanskrit. This is of course the main thrust of the generative grammars of today that seek to achieve a purely grammatical description of language through a formalized set of derivational strings. It is understandable that till such attempts were made in the West in the recent past, the Paninian sutras to the Western scholars looked like nothing but some artificial and abstruse formulations with little content.

Patanjali (c 1st C BC) in his major commentary on the Ashtadhyayi, the Mahabhashya gives an elaborate rationale for the Paninian exercise. According to the Mahabhashya the purpose of grammar is to give an exposition of all correct utterances in the language. An obvious way to do this is to enumerate all correct utterances individually. This is how the celestial teacher Brihaspati would have taught the science of language to the celestial student, Indra. However for ordinary mortals, not having access to celestial time scales this method can apparently not be of much use.

Therefore according to the Mahabhashya it is necessary to lay down general rules
(utsarga sutras) with a wide application so that with a comparatively small effort men can learn larger and larger collections of valid utterances. What falls to fit in this set of general rules should than be encompassed in exceptional rules (apavada sutras), and so on.

In providing this characterisation of the science of grammar Patanjali laid his finger on perhaps the most essential feature of the Indian scientific effort. Science in India seems to start with the assumption that truth resides in the real world with all its diversity and complexity. Thus for the Linguist what is ultimately true is the language as spoken by the people in all their diverse expressions. As Patanjali emphasises, valid utterances are not manufactured by the Linguist, but are already established by the practice in the world. Nobody goes to a linguist asking for valid utterances, the way one goes to a potter asking for pots. Linguist do make generalisations about the language as spoken in the world. But these generalisations are not the truth behind or above the reality. These are not the idealisation according to which reality is to be tailored. On the other hand what is ideal is the real, and some part of the real always escapes our idealisation of it.

There are always exceptions. It is the business of the scientist to formulate these generalisations, but also at the same time to be always attuned to the reality, to always to conscious of the exceptional nature of each specific instance. This attitude, as we shall have occasion to see, seems to permeate all Indian science and makes it an exercise quite different from the scientific enterprise of the West.

In the tradition of Linguistics after the period of Mahabhashya the major attempt of the grammarians seems to be to provide refinements and simplifications of Panini. In this period a number of Sanskrit grammars are written. One of them, Siddhanta Kaumudi 9c.1600) became eminently successful, perhaps because of its simplicity.

These attempts continue till the 19th century. Another form of study that became
popular amongst the grammarians is what may be called the philosophical semantics, wherein one starts with an utterance and by analysing it into its basic grammatical components tries to fix and characterise its meaning. This of course, is the major application for which grammar is intended in the first place.

Other Indian language grammars were written using Paninian framework as the basis. In fact these grammars are not fully formalised grammars in the sense of Panini. Instead what is attempted is to start with the Paninian apparatus and specify the transfer rules from Sanskrit as also the specific morpho-phonemic rules (sandhi), for the language under consideration. Such grammars for various Prakrit languages of the North and also the South Indian languages continued to be written till the 18th century, so much so that in the 16th century Krishnadas wrote a grammar for the Persian language. Parasi Prakash styled on the grammars of the Prakrit languages.

II

Among the sciences of the Indian tradition Astronomy and Mathematics also occupy an important place. Indian mathematics finds its early beginnings in the famous Shulva Sutras of the Vedic times. Purportedly written to facilitate the accurate construction of various types of sacrificial altars of the Vedic ritual, these sutras lay down the basic geometrical properties of plane figures like the triangle, the rectangle, the rhombus, and the circle. Basic categories of the Indian astronomical tradition wee also already established in the various Vedanga Jyotisha texts.
Rigorous systematisation of Indian astronomy however begins with Aryabhata (b.470
AD). His Aryabhatiya is a concise text of 121 aphoristic verses containing separate
sections on the basic astronomical definitions and parameters, basic mathematical
procedures in arithmetic, geometry, algebra and trigonometry, methods of determining
mean and true positions of the planets at any given time, and description of the
motions of sun, moon and the planets along with computation of the solar and lunar
eclipses. After Aryabhata, one comes across a long series of illustrious astronomers
with their equally illustrious texts, many of which gave rise to a host of commentaries
and refinements by later astronomers and became the corner stones of flourishing
schools of astronomy and of Varahamihira (d.578 AD). Brahmagupta (b.598 AD), Bhaskara 1(b.629 AD). Lalla (C.8th C AD), Munjala (932 AD, Sripati (1039 AD), Bhaskara II
(b.1114 AD), Madhava (c.14th C Ad), Parameshwara (c.16th C AD), Nilakantha (c.16th C
AD), Jyeshthadeva (c.16thC AD), Ganesha Dalvajna (c.16th C.AD) and a host of others.
The tradition continued and thrived right upto the late eighteenth century, and in
regions like Kerala, original work in the Indian tradition continued to appear till much
later.

The most striking feature of this long tradition of Indian mathematics and astronomy is
the efficacy with which the Indians seem to be handling and solving rather complicated
problems. Thus in Mathematics the Indians already in Shulva sutras know all the basic
theorems of plane geometry. Around this time they also develop a sophisticated theory
of numbers including the concepts of zero, and negative numbers. They also seem to
have arrived t simple algorithms for all basic arithmetical operations by using the place
value notation.

Thus by the time of Aryabhatiya the Indians have all basic mathematical concepts and
procedures that are today taught at the high school level. By the 10th or 11th century
they are able to solve sophisticated problems in algebra such as second order
Diophantine equations. By the 14th century infinite series for sine and cosine functions
are written down in trigonometry. High levels of approximations of and recognition
of its irrational character are also achieved by the same time.

The reason for this success of the Indian mathematicians lies perhaps in the explicitly
algorithmic and computational nature of Indian mathematics. The objective of the
Indian mathematician was not to find ultimate axiomatic truths in mathematics but to
find methods of solving specific problems that may arise in the astronomical or other
contexts. For the purpose the Indian mathematicians were prepared to set up simple
algorithms that may give only approximate solutions to the problem at hand, and to
evolve theories of error and recursive procedures so that the approximations may be
kept in check. This algorithmic methodology persisted in the Indian mathematical
consciousness till recently so that Ramanujan in the twentieth century seems to be
chalking up his impressive mathematical discoveries perhaps through the use of this
traditional Indian methodology.

The same pragmatic concern to be able to calculate the positions of the various planets
and eclipses of the sun and the moon reasonably accurately, informs the efforts of the
Indian astronomers. And in this they turned out to be eminently successful. In their
calculations Indians often take the beginning of the Kaliyuga in the year 3102 before
Christ as their starting point, and the so-called Siddhanta texts deal with a much larger
period consisting of 43,20,000 years called a Mahayuga or sometimes even a period
1000 times the above, which is called a Kalpa. In spite of dealing with such long time
periods the Indian astronomers were able to keep their techniques fairly simple and
their parameters fairly well refined so that even towards the end of the eighteenth
century and early parts of nineteenth, when the active astronomical tradition had
become dormant in large parts of India, European astronomers are able to locate
Brahmins in South India, who could calculate for them the details of the current
eclipses to an accuracy comparable to, and often better than the best calculations of
Europe of the time.

The reasons for the simplicity and accuracy of the Indian astronomical techniques are
again to be found in the pragmatic attitude of the Indians towards the sciences. The
Indian astronomers wee in the business to calculate and to compute; but not to form
pictures of the heavens, as they ought to be in reality. Indian astronomers do use some
geometrical models but these are supposed to be nothing more than artefacts
necessary to perform their calculations (see Appendix). It is obvious that the
astronomical parameters obtained using such artefacts will get out of tune with reality
sooner or later and the calculations made with such parameters will start deviating
from actual positions of the planets. Indian astronomers are aware of this and were
quite willing to take up the onerous task of continuously observing the skies,
continuously checking their computations against observations and repeatedly readjusting
their parameters so as to make their calculations accord with reality. Thus
the sixteenth century astronomer Nilakantha Somasutvan, finding a contemporary
commentator lamenting about the different times given in different Siddhantas and the
computed times differing from the actual ones, exhorts.

O faint hearted, there is nothing to be despaired of…one has to realise that
five Siddhantas had been correct at a particular time. Therefore one has
to search for a Siddhanta that does not show discord with the actual
observation at the present time. Such accordance has to be ascertained by
observations during time of eclipses, etc. When Siddhantas show discord
observations should be made with the use of Instruments and correct
number of revolutions etc, found, and a new Siddhanta enunciated.’
A little later Jyesthadeva in the Drikkarana tells how from aryabhata to the present
day the astronomers have adjusted the parameters to accord with observations and
how he too is doing the same job for his times and he ends with the statement that
‘henceforth too the deviations that occur should be carefully observed and revisions
effected.

III

The third major science” of the classical tradition is Ayurveda, the science of Life. Like
Linguistics and Astronomy this too finds its early expression in the Vedas, especially the
Atharvaveda in which a large amount of early; medicinal lore is collected.
Systematisation of Ayurveda takes place during the period 5th century BC and 5th
century AD in the Charaka Samhita Sushruta Samhit and the Ashtanga Sangraha, the so
called Brihat –trayee texts, which are still popular today. This is followed by a long
period of intense activity during which attempts are made to refine the theory and
practice of medicine, and to bring more and more information into the stream of
systematic medicine. This process of accretion of information and refinement of
practice continued right upto the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Like in Linguistics and Astronomy, the remarkable feature of Indian tradition of
medicine is its pragmatic attitude towards scientific theorization. The Ayurvedic texts
while providing a theoretical framework through which the problem of finding an
appropriate cure for a particular patent must be approached, never tire of reminding
the practitioner that he must be constantly observant of all the specific features that a
particular case presents in fact for Charaka Samhita the most desirable intellectual
accomplishment of a doctor is that of possessing Yukti, the Yukti is the capacity of the
trained intellect that manages to see the course of action through the complexity of
phenomena with their multiple causes.

The attitude of Ayurveda towards theoretical generalisations is very clearly brought out
in a revealing verse of Sushruta Samhita. While describing the theoretical qualities of a
substance through which its medicinal properties are to be determined, the text comes up with the warning that the wise physician should never raise theoretical arguments
about the properties of a drug when they are already known and established in
tradition based on actual practice, because afterall ‘a thousand reasons will not make
the drugs of the ambastha group perform laxative functions’. Therefore the physician
must rely on what is established in tradition based on actual practice, rather then
acting exclusively on his theoretical reasoning. This attitude towards theory gives the
Ayurvedic texts, a refreshing openness and a surprising keenness of observation.
Nothing that may have any effect on the problem of health seems to escape the
observation of the physicians. One finds the physicians worrying about the differing
aspects of the seasons, the soils, the waters and so on. And in the therapeutic sections
they bring into use all their theoretical understanding and all the folk practices that
have been proved to be efficacious in tradition.

This pragmatic attitude towards scientific theoretization made the doing of science in
India a rather painstaking business. The Indian scientists not having the luxury of
reducing the reality of the world to that encompassed by their theories of the time,
had to be continuously aware of the world in its complete complexity, and had to
continuously refine and simplify their procedures in order to operate successfully in
this complex world. That they were able to do this systematically in a number of fields
over a long period of over 2000 years is measure of their ingenuity and industry. Thus
one can only marvel of the stupendousness of the task of encapsulating the whole of
Sanskrit language as it was spoken in 4000 aphoristic rules. Equally remarkable is the
effort of the astronomer- mathematicians to repeatedly refine their parameters to fit
the observations so that ever since Aryabhata the Indians always had access to
reasonably accurate information about the motions of the heavens. But the
astronomer –mathematicians also simplified their computations to an extent that
learned Brahmins in their innumerable locales could also compute all the astronomical
information that mattered to the residents. The effort of Indian physicians also falls in
the same class. They were not only able to painstakingly acquire and systematize
within their theoretical framework all the information about drugs and diseases that
was current amongst the people in diverse areas, but were also able to simplify their
theories sufficiently so that much of the Ayurvedic science became the folders of
health known in all families. The fact that the Indian scientists given their theoretical
attitude had to be necessarily open to the world around them perhaps ensured that the
folk and the science had to remain in a symbiotic relation with each other.

Besides Linguistic, Astronomy and Mathematics, and Medicine, Indians also developed
the sciences of matter (Padartha Sastra), metallurgy (Rasa Sastra), architecture (Vastu
Sastra), music (Sangitha Sastra) etc. To all of these sciences they brought their
peculiarly Indian mode of careful but tentative generalisations and continuous keen
observation.

IV

The pragmatic attitude of conceptual sophistication and operational simplicity that we
have noticed amongst the sciences of India seems also to have informed the Indian
technologies. A systematic history of the traditional Indian technologies is yet to be
written. Therefore one has to rely largely on the accounts of European travellers and
administrators who observed and wrote about the Indian practices during the early
phase of European conquest of India.

The major technological endeavour of India was of course in the field of agriculture.
Col.Alexander Walker writing in the early nineteenth century seems to have been
amazed at the keen interest that ordinary Indians showed in everything connected with
agriculture. He is also greatly impressed by the care with which the Indian cultivators
tended their fields, so that to him the fields of Malabar and Gujarat seem more like
carefully laid out gardens. This care is coupled with an intimate knowledge of the
soils, the seasons and seeds. The Indians seemed to have mastered techniques of
rotation of crops, irrigation, manuring, and selection of seeds etc. from very early
times. These techniques had been so well studied and so optimised to the peculiar
conditions of each area that John Voeicker, the Consulting Chemist to the “Royal
Agricultural Society”, sent to India towards the end of the nineteenth century to
suggest ways of improving Indian agriculture through the use of chemistry, could
recommend little by way of technological changes. He was of the opinion if only the
traditional facilities of water and manure could be ensured the farmers of India could
obtain the best possible yields. As for suggesting improvements he seemed to have felt
that I was much easier to propose improvements in English agriculture, than to make
really valuable suggestions for that of India. Another expert of early twentieth century
John Kenny, remarks in the same vein that he did not consider it wise ‘to suggest seed
selection in a land where 4000 different sorts of paddy are grown in one province alone
and carefully differentiated according to their qualities and land suitable for them’.
The implements of the Indian cultivator often seemed rough and primitive to the
occasional observer. However it was soon realised that these implements were fully
adapted to the particular conditions in which they operated and even in the late
nineteenth century nothing could be suggested by way of their improvement. In fact
an early experiment during the later half of the eighteenth century to introduce the
heavy English plough near Salsette on the west coast had proved a total disaster. In
1795 Cap. Thos Holcott reported on the sophistication of the Indian drill plough widely
used in the Andhra region. The drill plough till then was considered a ‘modern’
European Invention.

With their simple but sophisticated implements and their meticulous techniques of
agriculture, the Indian farmers were able to obtain impressive yields. It was reported
that in early nineteenth century in the Allahabad region the produce of an acre of land
amounted to over 55 Bushels per harvest while that in England around the same time
was only about 20 Bushels. Since the Indian farmer in this region usually produced two
crops a year, the annual yield of each acre may be taken as over 110 Bushels at his
time. The productivity of Indian agriculture, however, declined very rapidly during the
nineteenth century. But even in the 1890’s lands which had access to irrigation and
manure yielded harvests comparable to those in England, and larger than the harvests
obtained those days in Europe, USA and Australia.

V

The Indian technical ingenuity in evolving simple techniques that are sophisticated
enough to take advantage of the full complexity of the local situation, and then
meshing these local techniques into a large impressive system can be best seen in the
tank irrigation system of South India. It seems that the whole of South India was
dotted with these tanks. A British expert writing in the 1850 ‘s estimated the total
number of such tanks in the Madras Presidency to be over 50,000. Another estimate
indicates that in the eighteenth century there were more than 38,000 tanks in the
region, which later constituted the Mysore state. The state had an area of around
29,500 square miles. It is, therefore, fair estimate that there were over a lakh tanks in
whole of South India. From what is known of the political circumstances of the time it
is clear that these tanks were constructed and maintained by local effort. However,
together they formed a closely knit whole so that the outflow from the one at a higher
level supplied the one at a lower level, and so on. This chain of tanks was so complete
and inter related within itself that the British engineers of the nineteenth century felt
that it would have been impossible to add another tank to the chain.

The Indian genius for performing vast tasks through simple, small and dispersed
techniques is seen even better in the case of metallurgy. Early European observers
noticed the Indians using small furnaces for something and refining iron and making
steel. Scores of seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth century accounts of
Indian manufacture of iron and steel are available, and these pertain to perhaps a
hundred districts spread all over India. The smelting furnaces described in these
accounts seem to be of quite rough construction from the outside. However, the
observers noticed that the internal proportions and various angles needed to be rather
exact, and there were cases where the furnace had to be demolished and
reconstructed to correct some minor error in the angle of blast, or in some internal
proportion. Yet these sophisticated furnaces were routinely constructed by the Indian
iron-smiths in a matter of hours without the help of any very complicated Instruments.
These furnaces worked quite efficiently by the standard of those times. Thus,
according to one detailed account, two units of charcoal were sufficient to produce
one unit of crude iron in these furnaces. Processes of refining iron and steel making
were also equally efficient. Steel was prepared by direct carbonisation of Iron in
closed crucibles in which green leaves, wood and charcoal were all put together. This
process seemed mysterious to the British observers, since a process of direct
conversion was discovered in Europe only in the 1920’s. Even then, observers were
often surprised at the quickness with which steel was made in the Indian furnaces, the
process taking a few hours compared to many days taken in the corresponding
European processes.

The simplicity of these Indian techniques should be seen in the context of the fact that
Indian iron and steel had been renowned for their qualities for centuries past. All over
India one can find scattered Iron pillars and girders of very high quality, especially as
regards corrosion resistance. Indian steel has an equally distinguished record of
maintaining excellent quality, and even in the late eighteenth century an expert in
Britain when presented with a sample of Indian steel noted that it was ‘excellently
adapted for the purpose of fine cutlery, and particularly for all edged instruments used
for surgical purposes’.

It is worth remarking that with their small and dispersed furnaces, which produced
perhaps half a ton of iron during a week’s operation, Indians were capable of producing
a rather large amount of iron and steel. According to some nineteenth century
enumerations there were hundreds of such furnaces operating in certain districts and
taluks. On the basis of this information it has been estimated that the total number of
furnaces throughout India in the later part of the eighteenth century could have been
over 10,000 and these furnaces together had the potential to produce some 2 lakh
tonnes of iron annually.

VI

A survey of Indian technologies cannot be complete without some discussion of textiles,
the great industrial enterprise of pre-British India. Upto 1800 India was the world’s
leading producer and exporter of textiles. Yet this production was almost entirely
based on techniques that could be operated at the level of he individual or the family.
Spinning of yarn was an activity in which perhaps whole of India participated.
According to an observer from Manchester, Amo Pearse, who in 1930 visited India to
study its cotton industry, there were probably 5 crors spinning wheels (Charkhas)
intermittently at work even then. And this simple small wheel was so efficient that till
the early decades of the nineteenth century a widowed mother could still maintain a
whole family in reasonable manner by spinning on the charkha for a few hours a day.
Weaving was a relatively more specialised activity. However, the number to those
belonging to the weaver castes was smaller in comparison only to those from the
cultivating castes. Early nineteenth century data for certain districts of South India
indicate that each district had around 20,000 looms. Amo Pearse in 1930 estimated the
number of handlooms operating in India to be in the vicinity of 20 lakhs.

There were vast regions of India, which specialised in specific types of fabrics. Each of
these areas developed techniques of weaving, bleaching, dyeing and painting etc., that
were indigenous to the region, and also had its own characteristic designs, motifs and
symbols. For example, in Western India alone, Sironj in Rajasthan and Burhanpur in
Khandesh were major centres of cotton painting cheap printed cottons came from
Ahmedabad; woollens including the extra-ordinary Cashmere Shawls were produced in
Kashmir, true silks wee worked as Patolas at Patan in Gujarat and so on.

These dispersed and diverse techniques were so optimised that textile produced in
Britain through the post industrial revolution British technology could hardly match the
Indian textiles in quality or price. Till the early nineteenth century, mill produced
fabric had to be protected from Indian competition by the imposition of duties of 70 to
80 percent on the cottons and silks imported from India or, by positive prohibition. As
the historian H.W.Wilson notes, without such prohibitory duties and decrees, ‘the mills
of Paisley and Manchester would have been stopped in their outset and could scarcely,
have been again set in motion even by the power of steam’.

The Indians had developed their locality specific techniques not only in agriculture,
irrigation, metallurgy and textiles, but also in diverse other areas like building and
construction, sculpture, pottery, making of glass, and even luxuries like making of Ice
etc. That is perhaps why most historians of pre-British India are agreed that India of
that time was not only an agricultural, but also an industrial society.

Appendix: Computations in Indian Astronomy

By M.D.Srinivas

To get a flavour of the Indian way of doing Astronomy and Mathematics, it may be
instructive to look at the way they make particular Astronomical calculations like for
example the calculation of the longitudes of the grahas (the sun, the moon and the
various planets) at any given time. The following are the essential steps.

1. The Indian Astronomers first compute the shargana or the total number of
mean solar days slapeed from the chosen epoch till the given date, specified as
such and such Sakabda (Saka year) masa (lunar month) and and tithi (lunar
day). For this, they first compute the number of adhikamasas (intercalary
lunar months) elapsed since the epoch till the beginning of the current Saka
year. From this the number of tithis elapsed since the epoch till the given date
is calculated. Then the number of kshayahas (omitted lunar days) from the
epoch are computed and this when subtracted from the number of tithis, gives
the shargana for the given data. The computation of the number of
ashikamasas and kshyahas is based on specified basic astronomical parameters,
such as the mean motions of the sun and the moon.

2. From the computed shargana, the mean longitudes (madhyama graha) of the
sun, the moon and planets are calculated using the specified values of mean
(daily) motions of these grahas.

3. To take care of the irregular motion of the grahas a series of corrections are
applied to the madhyama graha mean longitude to get sphuta graha the true
longitude. For the case of planets the basic corrections are the manda karma
and the sighra karma. For the (outer) planets-Mars, Jupitar and Saturn – the
manda karma is roughly the equation of centre which takes care of the noncircular
orbit, and the sighra karma converts the corrected heliocentric
longitudes into the corrected geocentric longitudes. The basic form of the
manda and sighra corrections are obtained from a geometric epicyclic (or
eccentric) model and involves the mean motions of the apsides (mandocche
and sighroccha) and the circumferences (manda paridhi and sighra paridhi) of
the epicycles, as the basic parameters. However, what every text of Indian
astronomy prescribes is a series of manda and sighra type of corrections
performed iteratively till the results show a convergence to desired accuracy.
The actual steps involved in this sequence of corrections depend on the
particular planet and also varies from one school of astronomy to another. This
procedure seems to enable the Indian astronomers achieve much better fit with
observations than those achieved in other ancient traditions of astronomy
which operative with ideal geometrical models of planetary motion involving
epicycles, equants, etc. This sequence of operations is what enables the Indian
astronomers to incorporate for instance some of the higher order corrections to
the equation of centre which in modern astronomy are calculated using the
Kepierian orbits, etc.

4. The above planetary position is as observed at the time of sunrise (or midnight
in some schools of Indian astronomy) at the Indian zero meridians passing
through Ujjain. The desantara correction is applied to calculate the planetary
position at sunrise of places on a different meridian.

5. Finally, the planetary position at any given time of the day or night is
calculated from that at sunrise (or midnight) by using the so called sphutagati
or the true daily motion of the planet. This calculation also involves the
knowledge of the latitude of the place. Further it is necessary to know
whether the planet is in retrograde motion by computing the so called
sighragati phala in computing these gatis or velocities, various formulae which
are obtained by procedures which tantamount to differentiation of the
expressions for the sighra and manda corrections, are used.
The basic astronomical parameters involved in the above calculation are the mean
motions of the sun, he moon and the various planets, their apsides, and the
circumferences of the manda and sighra epicycles, etc. These have to be
determined on the basis of careful observations made over long periods. Each text
of Indian astronomy gives the values for these parameters current at its time.

v i m a n a s - Ancient Writings tell of UFO visit in 4,000 B.C. Contributed by John Burrows

~KIROAN KUMAR CHALAPAKA~

India, according to Dr.V. Raghavan, retired head of the Sanskrit department of India's prestigious University of Madras, was alone in playing host to extraterrestrials in prehistory. Dr. Raghavan contends that centuries-old documents in Sanskrit (the classical language of India and Hinduism) prove that aliens from outer space visited his nation.

"Fifty years of researching this ancient works convinces me that there are livings beings on other planets, and that they visited earth as far back as4,000 B.C.", the scholar says.

"There is a just a mass of fascinating information about flying machines, even fantastic science fiction weapons, that can be found in translations of the Vedas (scriptures), Indian epics, and other ancient Sanskrit text". 

In the Mahabharata (writings), there is notion of divine lighting and ray weapons, even a kind of hypnotic weapon.

And in the Ramayana (writings), there is a description of Vimanas, or flying machines, that navigated at great heights with the aid of quicksilver and a great propulsive wind.

"These were space vehicles similar to the so-called flying saucers reported throughout the world today. The Ramayana even describes a beautiful chariot which 'arrived shining, a wonderful divine car that sped through the air'. In another passage, there is mention of a chariot being seen 'sailing overhead like a moon' ".

The references in the Mahabharata are no less astounding:

-  At Rama`s behest, the magnificent chariot rose up to a mountain of cloud with a tremendous din. Another passage reads: Bhima flew with his Vimana on an enormous ray which was as brilliant as the sun and made a noise like the thunder of a storm.

-  In the ancient Vymanka-Shastra (science of aeronautics), there is a description of a Vimana: "An apparatus which can go by its own force, from one place to place or globe to globe".

-  Dr. Raghavan points out, "The text's revelations become even more astounding. Thirty-one parts-of which the machine consists-are described, including a photographing mirror underneath. The text also enumerates 16 kinds of metal that are needed to construct the flying vehicle: `Metals suitable, lighare 16 kinds`.  But only three of them are known to us today. The rest remain untranslatable."

-  Another authority who agrees with Dr. Raghavan`s interpretations is Dr. A.V. Krishna Murty, professor of aeronautics at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. "It is true," Dr. Krishna Murty says, "that the ancient Indian Vedas and other text refer to aeronautics, spaceships, flying machines, ancient astronauts. "A study of the Sanskrit texts has convinced me that ancient India did know the secret of building flying machines-and that those machines were patterned after spaceships coming from other planets."

The Vedic traditions of India tell us that we are now in the Fourth Age of mankind. The Vedas call them the "The Golden Age", "The Silver Age", and "The Bronze Age" and we are now, according to their scriptures in the "The Iron Age". As we approach the end of the 20th century both Native Americans, Mayans, and Incans, prophecies claim that we are coming to the end of an age. Sanskrit texts are filled with references to Gods who fought battles in the sky using Vimanas equipped with weapons as deadly as any we can deploy in these more enlightened times.

For example, there is a passage in the Ramayana which reads:

The Puspaka car that resembles the Sun and belongs to my brother was brought by the powerful Ravan; that aerial and excellent car going everywhere at will.... that car resembling a bright cloud in the sky.  ".. and the King [Rama] got in, and the excellent car at the command of the Raghira, rose up into the higher atmosphere."

In the Mahabharata, an ancient Indian poem of enormous length, we learn that an individual named Asura Maya had a Vimana measuring twelve cubits in circumference, with four strong wheels. The poem is a veritable gold mine of information relating to conflicts between gods who settled their differences apparently using weapons as lethal as the ones we are capable of deploying.

Apart from 'blazing missiles', the poem records the use of other deadly weapons. 'Indra's Dart' operated via a circular 'reflector'. When switched on, it produced a 'shaft of light' which, when focused on any target, immediately 'consumed it with its power'. In one particular exchange, the hero, Krishna, is pursuing his enemy, Salva, in the sky, when Salva's Vimana, the Saubha is made invisible in some way. Undeterred, Krishna immediately fires off a special weapon: 'I quickly laid on an arrow, which killed by seeking out sound'.

Many other terrible weapons are described, quite matter of fact, in the Mahabharata, but the most fearsome of all is the one used against the Vrishis. The narrative records:

Gurkha flying in his swift and powerful Vimana hurled against the three cities of the Vrishis and Andhakas a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and fire, as brilliant as ten thousands suns, rose in all its splendor. It was the unknown weapon, the Iron Thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and Andhakas.

It is important to note, that these kinds of records are not isolated. They can be cross-correlated with similar reports in other ancient civilizations.

The after-affects of this Iron Thunderbolt have anonymously recognizable ring. Apparently, those killed by it were so burnt that their corpses were unidentifiable. The survivors fared little ether, as it caused their hair and nails to fall out. Perhaps the most disturbing and challenging, information about these allegedly mythical Vimanas in the ancient records is that there are some matter-of-fact records, describing how to build one. In their way, the instructions are quite precise. In the Sanskrit Samaraanganasutraadhaara it is written:

Strong and durable must the body of the Vimana be made, like a great flying bird of light material. Inside one must put the mercury engine with its iron heating apparatus underneath. By means of the power latent in the mercury which sets the driving whirlwind in motion, a man sitting inside may travel a great distance in the sky. The movements of the Vimana are such that it can vertically ascend, vertically descend, move slanting forwards and backwards. With the help of the machines human beings can fly in the air and heavenly beings can come down to earth.

The Hakatha (Laws of the Babylonians) states quite unambiguously: The privilege of operating a flying machine is great. The knowledge of flight is among the most ancient of our inheritances. A gift from 'those from upon high'. We received it from them as a means of saving many lives.

More fantastic still is the information given in the ancient Chaldean work, The Sifrala, which contains over one hundred pages of technical details on building a flying machine. It contains words which translate as graphite rod, copper coils, crystal indicator, vibrating spheres, stable angles, etc.

('Ancient Indian Aircraft Technology' From The Anti-Gravity Handbook by D. Hatcher Childress).

Many researchers into the UFO enigma tend to overlook a very important fact. While it assumed that most flying saucers are of alien, or perhaps Governmental Military origin, another possible origin of UFOs is ancient India and Atlantis. What we know about ancient Indian flying vehicles comes from ancient Indian sources; written texts that have come down to us through the centuries. There is no doubt that most of these texts are authentic; many are the well known ancient Indian Epics themselves, and there are literally hundreds of them. Most of them have not even been translated into English yet from the old Sanskrit.

The Indian Emperor Ashoka started a "Secret Society of the Nine Unknown Men": great Indian scientists who were supposed to catalogue the many sciences. Ashoka kept their work secret because he was afraid that the advanced science catalogued by these men, culled from ancient Indian sources, would be used for the evil purpose of war, which Ashoka was strongly against, having been converted to Buddhism after defeating a rival army in a bloody battle. The "Nine Unknown Men" wrote a total of nine books, presumably one each. Book number was "The Secrets of Gravitation!". This book, known to historians, but not actually seen by them dealt chiefly with "gravity control." It is presumably still around somewhere, kept in a secret library in India, Tibet or else where (perhaps even in North America somewhere). One can certainly understand Ashoka's reasoning for wanting to keep such knowledge a secret, assuming it exists. Ashoka was also aware of devastating wars using such advanced vehicles and other "futuristic weapons" that had destroyed the ancient Indian "Rama Empire" several thousand years before.

Only a few years ago, the Chinese discovered some Sanskrit documents in Lhasa, Tibet and sent them to the University of Chandrigarh to be translated. Dr. Ruth Reyna of the University said recently that the documents contain directions for building interstellar spaceships! Their method of propulsion, she said, was "anti- gravitational" and was based upon a system analogous to that of "laghima," the unknown power of the ego existing in man's physiological makeup, "a centrifugal force strong enough to counteract all gravitational pull."

According to Hindu Yogis, it is this "laghima" which enables a person to levitate. Dr. Reyna said that on board these machines, which were called "Astras" by the text, the ancient Indians could have sent a detachment of men onto any planet, according to the document, which is thought to be thousands of years old. The manuscripts were also said to reveal the secret of "antima", "the cap of invisibility" and "garima", "how to become as heavy as a mountain of lead".  Naturally, Indian scientists did not take the texts very seriously, but then became more positive about the value of them when the Chinese announced that they were including certain parts of the data for study in their space program!. This was one of the first instances of a government admitting to be researching anti-gravity. The manuscripts did not say definitely that interplanetary travel was ever made but did mention, of all things, a planned trip to the Moon, though it is not clear whether this trip was actually carried out.

However, one of the great Indian epics, the Ramayana, does have a highly detailed story in it of a trip to the moon in a Vimana (or "Astra"), and in fact details a battle on the moon with an "Asvin" (or Atlantean) airship. This is but a small bit of recent evidence of anti-gravity and aerospace technology used by Indians. To really understand the technology, we must go much further back in time.

Flight Route of Rama (source: Vimana in Ancient India - By Dileep Kumar Kanjilal ).

The so-called "Rama Empire" of Northern India and Pakistan developed at least fifteen thousand years ago on the Indian subcontinent and was a nation of many large, sophisticated cities, many of which are still to be found in the deserts of Pakistan, northern, and western India.

Rama existed, apparently, parallel to the Atlantean civilization in the mid- Atlantic Ocean, and was ruled by "enlightened Priest-Kings" who governed the cities. 

The seven greatest capital cities of Rama were known in classical Hindu texts as The Seven Rishi Cities According to ancient Indian texts, the people had flying machines which were called "Vimanas." The ancient Indian epic describes a Vimana as a double deck, circular aircraft with portholes and a dome, much as we would imagine a flying saucer. It flew with the "speed of the wind" and gave forth a "melodious sound." There were at least four different types of Vimanas; some saucer shaped, others like long cylinders ("cigar shaped airships").

The ancient Indian texts on Vimanas are so numerous, it would take volumes to relate what they had to say. The ancient Indians, who manufactured these ships themselves, wrote entire flight manuals on the control of the various types of Vimanas, many of which are still in existence, and some have even been translated into English. The Samaraanganasutraadhaara is a scientific treatise dealing with every possible angle of air travel in a Vimana.

There are 230 stanzas dealing with the construction, take-off, cruising for thousand of miles, normal and forced landings, and even possible collisions with birds. In 1875, the Vaimanika Sastra, a fourth century B.C. text written by Bharadwaj the Wise, using even older texts as his source, was rediscovered in a temple in India. It dealt with the operation of Vimanas and included information on the steering, precautions for long flights, protection of the airships from storms and lightning and how to switch the drive to "solar energy" from a free energy source which sounds like "anti-gravity."

The Vaimanika Sastra (or Vymaanika-Shaastra) has eight chapters with diagrams, describing three types of aircraft, including apparatuses that could neither catch on fire nor break. It also mentions 31 essential parts of these vehicles and 16 materials from which they are constructed, which absorb light and heat; for which reason they were considered suitable for the construction of Vimanas. This document has been translated into English and is available by writing the publisher: VYMAANIDASHAASTRA AERONAUTICS

(by Maharishi Bharadwaaja, translated into English and edited, printed and published by Mr. G. R.Josyer, Mysore, India, 1979).

G. R. Josyer is the director of the International Academy of Sanskrit Investigation, located in Mysore. There seems to be no doubt that Vimanas were powered by some sort of "anti-gravity." Vimanas took off vertically, and were capable of hovering in the sky, like a modern helicopter or dirigible.

Bharadwaj the Wise refers to no less than seventy authorities and 10 experts of air travel in antiquity. These sources are now lost.

Vimanas were kept in a Vimana Griha, a kind of hanger, and were sometimes said to be propelled by a yellowish-white liquid, and sometimes by some sort of mercury compound, though writers seem confused in this matter.

It is most likely that the later writers on Vimanas, wrote as observers and from earlier texts, and were understandably confused on the principle of their propulsion.

The "yellowish- white liquid" sounds suspiciously like gasoline, and perhaps Vimanas had a number of different propulsion sources, including combustion engines and even "pulse-jet" engines.

It is interesting to note, that the Nazis developed the first practical pulse-jet engines for their V-8 rocket "buzz bombs."

Hitler and the Nazi staff were exceptionally interested in ancient India and Tibet and sent expeditions to both these places yearly, starting in the 30's, in order to gather esoteric evidence that they did so, and perhaps it was from these people that the Nazis gained some of their scientific information!.  According to the Dronaparva, part of the Mahabharata, and the Ramayana, one Vimana described was shaped like a sphere and born along at great speed on a mighty wind generated by mercury. It moved like a UFO, going up, down, backwards and forwards as the pilot desired. In another Indian source, the Samar, Vimanas were "iron machines, well-knit and smooth, with a charge of mercury that shot out of the back in the form of a roaring flame."

Another work called the Samaranganasutradhara describes how the vehicles were constructed. It is possible that mercury did have something to do with the propulsion, or more possibly, with the guidance system. Curiously, Soviet scientists have discovered what they call "age old instruments used in navigating cosmic vehicles" in caves in Turkestan and the Gobi Desert. The "devices" are hemispherical objects of glass or porcelain, ending in a cone with a drop of mercury inside. It is evident that ancient Indians flew around in these vehicles, all over Asia, to Atlantis presumably; and even, apparently, to South America.

Writing found at Mohenjodaro in Pakistan (presumed to be one of the "Seven Rishi Cities of the Rama Empire") and still un deciphered, has also been found in one other place in the world: Easter Island!.  Writing on Easter Island, called Rongo-Rongo writing, is also un deciphered, and is uncannily similar to the Mohenjodaro script. Was Easter Island an air base for the Rama Empire's Vimana route?.

In Tibet, no small distance, it speaks of the "fiery chariot" thus: "Bhima flew along in his car, resplendent as the sun and loud as thunder... The flying chariot shone like a flame in the night sky of summer... it swept by like a comet... It was as if two suns were shining. Then the chariot rose up and all the heaven brightened". In the Mahavira of Bhavabhuti, a Jain text of the eighth century culled from older texts and traditions, we read: "An aerial chariot, the Pushpaka, conveys many people to the capital of Ayodhya. The sky is full of stupendous flying-machines, dark as night, but picked out by lights with a yellowish glare."

The Vedas, ancient Hindu poems, thought to be the oldest of all the Indian texts, describe Vimanas of various shapes and sizes: the "ahnihotravimana" with two engines, the "elephant-vimana" with more engines, and other types named after the kingfisher, ibis and other animals. Unfortunately, Vimanas, like most scientific discoveries, were ultimately used for war. Atlanteans used their flying machines, "Vailixi," a similar type of aircraft, to literally try and subjugate the world, it would seem, if Indian texts are to be believed.

The Atlanteans, known as "Asvins" in the Indian writings, were apparently even more advanced technologically than the Indians, and certainly of a more war-like temperament. Although no ancient texts on Atlantean Vailixi are known to exist, some information has come down through esoteric, "occult" sources which describe their flying machines. Similar, if not identical to Vimanas, Vailixi were generally "cigar shaped" and had the capability of maneuvering underwater as well as in the atmosphere or even outer space. Other vehicles, like Vimanas, were saucer shaped, and could apparently also be submerged.

According to Eklal Kueshana, author of "The Ultimate Frontier," in an article he wrote in 1966:

Vailixi were first developed in Atlantis 20,000 years ago, and the most common ones are "saucer shaped of generally trapezoidal cross- section with three hemispherical engine pods on the underside. They use a mechanical antigravity device driven by engines developing approximately 80,000 horse power. The Ramayana, Mahabharata and other texts speak of the hideous war that took place, some ten or twelve thousand years ago between Atlantis and Rama using weapons of destruction that could not be imagined by readers until the second half of this century.

The ancient Mahabharata, one of the sources on Vimanas, goes on to tell the awesome destructiveness of the war:

 "...(the weapon was) a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and flame as bright as the thousand suns rose in all its splendor. An iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death, which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas. The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. The hair and nails fell out; pottery broke without apparent cause, and the birds turned white.... after a few hours all foodstuffs were infected.... to escape from this fire, the soldiers threw themselves in streams to wash themselves and their equipment..."

It would seem that the Mahabharata is describing an atomic war!.  References like this one are not isolated; but battles, using a fantastic array of weapons and aerial vehicles are common in all the epic Indian books.

One even describes a Vimana-Vailix battle on the Moon!.  The above section very accurately describes what an atomic explosion would look like and the effects of the radioactivity on the population. Jumping into water is the only respite. When the Rishi City of Mohenjodaro was excavated by archaeologists in the last century, they found skeletons just lying in the streets, some of them holding hands, as if some great doom had suddenly overtaken them. These skeletons are among the most radioactive ever found, on a par with those found at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ancient cities whose brick and stonewalls have literally been vitrified, that is-fused together, can be found in India, Ireland, Scotland, France, Turkey and other places. There is no logical explanation for the vitrification of stone forts and cities, except from an atomic blast.

Further more, at Mohenjo-Daro, a well planned city laid on a grid, with a plumbing system superior to those used in Pakistan and India today, the streets were littered with "black lumps of glass." These globs of glass were discovered to be clay pots that had melted under intense heat! With the cataclysmic sinking of Atlantis and the wiping out of Rama with atomic weapons, the world collapsed into a "stone age" of sorts, and modern history picks up a few thousand years later Yet, it would seem that not all the Vimanas and Vailixi of Rama and Atlantis were gone. Built to last for thousands of years, many of them would still be in use, as evidenced by Ashoka's "Nine Unknown Men" and the Lhasa manuscript.

That secret societies or "Brotherhoods" of exceptional, "enlightened" human beings would have preserved these inventions and the knowledge of science, history, etc., does not seem surprising. Many well known historical personages including Jesus, Buddah, Lao Tzu, Confucious, Krishna, Zoroaster, Mahavira, Quetzalcoatl, Akhenaton, Moses, and more recent inventors and of course many other people who will probably remain anonymous, were probably members of such a secret organization.

It is interesting to note that when Alexander the Great invaded India more than two thousand years ago, his historians chronicled that at one point they were attacked by "flying, fiery shields" that dove at his army and frightened the cavalry. These "flying saucers" did not use any atomic bombs or beam weapons on Alexander's army however, perhaps out of benevolence, and Alexander went on to conquer India. It has been suggested by many writers that these "Brotherhoods" keep some of their Vimanas and Vailixi in secret caverns in Tibet or some other place is Central Asia, and the Lop Nor Desert in western China is known to be the center of a great UFO mystery. Perhaps it is here that many of the airships are still kept, in underground bases much as the Americans, British and Soviets have built around the world in the past few decades. Still, not all UFO activity can be accounted for by old Vimanas making trips to the Moon for some reason. Unknown alloys have been revealed in the ancient palm leaf manuscripts.

The writer and Sanskrit scholar Subramanyam Iyer has spent many years of his life deciphering old collections of palm leaves found in the villages of his native Karnataka in southern India. One of the palm leaf manuscripts they intend to decipher is the Amsu Bodhini, which, according to an anonymous text of 1931, contains information about the planets; the different kinds of light, heat, color, and electromagnetic fields; the methods used to construct machines capable of attracting solar rays and, in turn, of analyzing and separating their energy components; the possibility of conversing with people in remote places and sending messages by cable; and the manufacture of machines to transport people to other planets!

Contributed by John Burrows
 

In one episode, for example, the Vrishnis, a tribe whose warriors include the hero Krishna, are beset by the forces of a leader named Salva.

"The cruel Salva had come mounted on the Saubha chariot that can go anywhere, and from it he killed many valiant Vrishni youths and evilly devastated all city parks."

The Saubha is at once Salva's city, flagship, and battle headquarters. In it, he can fly wherever he chooses. Fortunately, the Vrishni heroes are similarly well equipped, and at one point have Salva at their mercy. The hero Pradyumna is about to finish him off with a special weapon, when the highest gods stop him "Not a man in battle is safe from this arrow," they say, and declare that Salva will fall to Krishna.

Krishna took to the sky in pursuit of Salva, but his Saubha clung to the sky at a leagues length... He threw at me rockets, missiles, spears, spikes, battleaxes, three-bladed javelins, flame-throwers, without pausing... The sky... seemed to hold a hundred suns, a hundred moons... and a hundred myriad stars. Neither day nor night could be made out, or the points of a compass.

Krishna, however, wards off Salva's attack with what sounds like antiballistic missiles; I warded them off as they loomed towards me.

With my swift-striking shafts, as they flashed through the sky, And I cut them into two or three pieces with mine -- There was a great din in the sky above. However, the Saubha becomes invisible. Krishna then loads a special weapon, perhaps an ancient version of a smart bomb? I quickly laid on an arrow, which killed by seeking out sound, to kill them... All the Danavas [Salva's troops] who had been screeching lay dead, killed by the blazing sun like arrows that were triggered by sound.

However, the Saubha itself escaped the attack. Krishna fires his "favorite fire weapon" at it, a discus shaped like the "haloed sun". The discus breaks the Saubha in two, and the city falls from the sky, killing Salva. This is the end of the Mahabharata. One of the most intriguing thing about it is that the use of Pradyumna's special arrow, from which "not a man in battle is safe", was outlawed by the gods. What sort of weapon could this be?

Another chapter, describing the use of the Agneya weapon by the hero Adwattan.

When the weapon, a "blazing missile of smokeless fire" is unleashed; dense arrows of flame, like a great shower, issued forth upon creation, encompassing the enemy... A thick gloom swiftly settled upon the Pandava hosts. All points of the compass were lost in darkness. Fierce winds began to blow. Clouds roared upward, showering dust and gravel. Birds coked madly... the very elements seemed disturbed. The sun seemed to waver in the heavens. The earth shook, scorched by the terrible violent heat of this weapon. Elephants burst into flame and ran to and fro in a frenzy... over a vast area, other animals crumpled to the ground and died. From all points of the compass the arrows of flame rained continuously and fiercely.

And if that sounded like a firestorm, then a similar weapon fired by Gurkha sounds like nothing less than a nuclear blast complete with radioactive fallout;

Gurkha, flying in his swift and powerful Vimana, hurled against the three cities of the Vrishnis and Andhakas a single projectile charged with all the power of the universe.

An incandescent column of smoke and fire, as brilliant as ten thousand suns, rose in all its splendor. It was the unknown weapon, the iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes the entire race of Vrishnis and Andhakas.

The corpses were so burnt they were no longer recognizable. Hair and nails fell out. Pottery broke without cause... Foodstuffs were poisoned.

To escape, the warriors threw themselves in streams to wash themselves and their equipment.

v i m a n a s - Introduction

~KIROAN KUMAR CHALAPAKA~


In the Vedic literature of India, there are many descriptions of flying machines that are generally called Vimanas. India's national epic, The Mahabharata, is a poem of vast length and complexity. According to Dr. Vyacheslav Zaitsev: "the holy Indian Sages, the Ramayana for one, tell of "Two storied celestial chariots with many windows" "They roar like off into the sky until they appear like comets." The Mahabharata and various Sanskrit books describe at length these chariots, "powered by winged lighting...it was a ship that soared into the air, flying to both the solar and stellar regions." 
There is a just a mass of fascinating information about flying machines, even fantastic science fiction weapons, that can be found in translations of the Vedas (scriptures), Indian epics, and other ancient Sanskrit text. 
There are no physical remains of ancient Indian aircraft technology but references to ancient flying machines are commonplace in the ancient Indian texts. Several popular ancient epics describe their use in warfare. Depending on one's point of view, either it contains some of the earliest known science fiction, or it records conflict between beings with weapons as powerful and advanced as anything used today. 
Above all we need to remember: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. 


Grandiose time scales

Hinduism’s understanding of time is as grandiose as time itself. While most cultures base their cosmologies on familiar units such as few hundreds or thousands of years, the Hindu concept of time embraces billions and trillions of years. The Puranas describe time units from the infinitesimal truti, lasting 1/1,000,0000 of a second to a mahamantavara of 311 trillion years.Hindu sages describe time as cyclic, an endless procession of creation, preservation and dissolution. Scientists such as Carl Sagan have expressed amazement at the accuracy of space and time descriptions given by the ancient rishis and saints, who fathomed the secrets of the universe through their mystically awakened senses.

(source: Hinduism Today April/May/June 2007 p. 14).

"European scholarship regards human civilization as a recent progression starting yesterday with the Fiji islander, and ending today with Rockefeller, conceiving ancient culture as necessarily half savage culture." It is a superstition of modern thought that the march of knowledge has always been linear." "Our vision of "prehistory" is terribly inadequate. We have not yet rid our minds from the hold of a one-and-only God or one-and-only Book, and now a one-and-only Science." 
~ wrote Shri Aurobindo Ghosh (1872-1950) most original philosopher of modern India. For more refer to chapter on Quotes21_40). 
Unlike time in both the Judeo-Christian religious tradition and the current view of modern science Vedic time is cyclic. What goes around come around. The Vedic universe passes through repetitive cycles of creation and destruction. During the annihilation of the universe, energy is conserved, to manifest again in the next creation. Our contemporary knowledge embraces a version of change and progress that is linear. The ascendancy of Christianity brought the first major shift to historiography as handed down by the Greeks. Rejecting the cyclic understanding of existence, Augustine (AD 343-430) saw history as moving in a linear path, purposely from point A to point B. 
(source: Searching for Vedic India – By Devamrita Swami p. 335 and 47). 
“The ancient Hindus could navigate the air, and not only navigate it, but fight battles in it like so many war-eagles combating for the domination of the clouds. To be so perfect in aeronautics, they must have known all the arts and sciences related to the science, including the strata and currents of the atmosphere, the relative temperature, humidity, density and specific gravity of the various gases...” 
~ Col. Henry S Olcott (1832 – 1907) American author, attorney, philosopher, and cofounder of the Theosophical Society in a lecture in Allahabad, in 1881. 
*** 
"absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." - Dr Carl Sagan (1034 - 1996) 
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." - Aldous Huxley (1894-1963). 
"Don't let your minds be cluttered up with the prevailing doctrine." - Alexander Fleming (1881-1955). 

“To deny to Babylon, to Egypt and to India, their part in the development of science and scientific thinking is to defy the testimony of the ancients, supported by the discovery of the modern authorities. - L. C. Karpinski

“Thus we see that India’s marvels were not always false.” - Lynn Thorndike.

*** 
Frederick Soddy (1877 - 1956) English born scientist. Studied in the University of Oxford. From 1900 to 1902 and was Chemistry assistant in the University of McGill, Montreal, where he co-worked with Rutherford. He received in 1921 a Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry.He awarded the Nobel prize in 1921 - ""for his contributions to our knowledge of the chemistry of radioactive substances, and his investigations into the origin and nature of isotopes" In 1903, with Sir William Ramsay, Soddy verified that the decay of radium produced helium.
He had a great regard for the Indian epics of Ramayana and The Mahabharat. In 1909 when academics were first beginning to grasp the awesome power of the atom, he did not take these ancient records as fable. 
In the Interpretation of Radium (1909) he wrote these lines: 

“Can we not read into them some justification for the belief that some former forgotten race of men attained not only to the knowledge we have so recently won, but also to the power that is not yet ours?”

When Dr Soddy wrote the book, the atom-bomb box of Pandora had not yet been opened.

In 1909 when academics were first beginning to grasp the awesome power of the atom, physicist Frederick Soddy wrote in his Interpretation of Radium: "I believe that there have been civilisations in the past that were familiar with atomic energy, and that by misusing it they were totally destroyed."

(source: We Are Not The First: Riddles of Ancient Science - By Andrew Tomas p. 53). For more refer to chapter on War in Ancient India.

Ramchandra Dikshitar (1896 – 1953) was a Professor of historian at Madras University and author of several books including War in Ancient India and Studies in Tamil language and history.In a special chapter of his book, he waxed poetic over his country’s contribution to aviation – inventing it!

Said the proud historian back in 1944:

“No question can be more interesting in the present circumstances of the world than India ’s contribution to the science of aeronautics. There are numerous illustrations in our vast Puranic and epic literature to show how well and wonderfully the ancient Indians conquered the air. "

"To glibly characterize everything found in this literature as imaginary and summarily dismiss it as unreal has been the practice of both Western and Eastern scholars until very recently. "

"The very idea indeed was ridiculed and people went so far as to assert that it was physically impossible for man to use flying machines. But today what with balloons, aero planes and other flying machines a great change has come over our ideas on the subject.”

…”the flying vimana of Rama or Ravana was set down as but a dream of the mythographer till aeroplanes and zeppelins of the present century saw the light of day. The mohanastra or the “arrow of unconsciousness” of old was until very recently a creature of legend till we heard the other day of bombs discharging poisonous gases."

(source: Technology of the Gods: The Incredible Sciences of the Ancients- By David Hatcher Childress p. 168 - 170).

Alexander Gorbovsky ( ?) an expert at the Russian Munitions Agency has written:

“The Mahabharata - an ancient Indian epic compiled 3000 years ago - contains a reference to a terrible weapon. Regrettably, in our age of the atomic bomb, the description of this weapon exploding will not appear to be an exaggeration: '.... a blazing shaft possessed of the effulgence of a smokeless fire (was) let off...'. That was how this weapon was perceived. The consequences of its use also evoke involuntary associations. '... This makes the bodies of the dead unidentifiable. ... The survivors lose their nails and hair, and their food becomes unfit for eating. For several subsequent years the Sun, the stars and the sky remain shrouded with clouds and bad weather'.

"This weapon was known as the Weapon of Brahma or the Flame of Indra......".

(source: Riddles of Ancient History - Alexander Gorbovsky, The Sputnik Magazine, Moscow, Sept. 1986, p. 137). 
Walter Raymond Drake (1913 - 1989), a British disciple of Charles Fort, published nine books on the ancient astronaut theme, the first four years earlier than Erich Von Däniken's bestseller Chariots of the Gods. 
In his book Gods and Spacemen in the Ancient East, he wrote:

"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.

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 20^thcentury 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."

He has observed about today's Spiritual sterility :

"No longer can people accept the dusty dogma of the past without question. In reaction to paganism the Christian Church dethroned the old Gods and closed men’s minds to the living universe. We ask ourselves whether God the Creator of countless worlds in many dimensions possibly paralleled by a universe of anti-matter would incarnate a unique Being on our tiny Earth for a purpose which is still not clear. The Virgin Birth and the Resurrection were not confined to Christianity but were common to most of the religions of Antiquity; some theologians speculate that the Crucifixion of Christ represented the murder of Tammuz, the Babylonian fertility God on the Dying King of many ancient cults. The Dead Sea Scrolls surprise us by not mentioning Christ or Christianity, the Essene teachings suggest that some of the Christian doctrine originated a century earlier. Nothing is gleamed of Christ from contemporary sources, surprising in an age of classic writers; almost all we know of Him is from Church written by imaginatives decades later.Perhaps Christianity is a Myth necessary to the evolution and inspiration of man during the lost Piscean age? Man’s questing soul soars beyond the dogmatic creeds of yesterday to the cosmic religion of tomorrow.

The oldest source of wisdom in the world must surely spring from India , whose initiates long ago probed the secrets of heaven, the story of Earth, the depths of Man’s soul, and propounded those sublime thoughts which illumined the Magi of Babylon, inspired the philosophers of Greece and worked their subtle influence on the religions of the West. "

(source: Gods and Spacemen in the Ancient East - By Walter Raymond Drake p. 25 and 226 and 9 - 49).

Erich von Daniken (1935 - ) known as the father of the ancient astronaut theory and Swiss author of many books including Chariots of the Gods has extensively written about the flying apparatus, the Vimanas in the epics of India and observes that: 
"We must not be cowards as to dismiss such traditions as pointless myths and acclaim the authors’ poetic imaginations. The large number of similar accounts in ancient scriptures turns a suspicion into certainty: the ‘gods’ used A or H weapons from unknown flying objects. No, No, revered experts, you must accept it in the end. The stories of the chroniclers were not the products of their macabre imagination. What they handed down was once the stuff of experience, ghastly reality. "
I realized that foreign sacred books are arrogantly dismissed by Bible-soaked Westerners: “Our religion is incomparably deeper and truer!” I cannot stand this denigration of other religions. 
(source: According to the Evidence - By Erich von Daniken p. 161 and Chariots of the Gods - By Erich von Daniken p. 1 - 50)
The revolutionary contents of the Vedas
For a quick glimpse at what unsung surprises may lie in the Vedas, let us consider these renditions from the Yajur-veda and Atharva-veda, for instance.

" O disciple, a student in the science of government, sail in oceans in steamers, fly in the air in airplanes, know God the creator through the Vedas, control thy breath through yoga, through astronomy know the functions of day and night, know all the Vedas, Rig, Yajur, Sama and Atharva, by means of their constituent parts."

" Through astronomy, geography, and geology, go thou to all the different countries of the world under the sun. Mayest thou attain through good preaching to statesmanship and artisanship, through medical science obtain knowledge of all medicinal plants, through hydrostatics learn the different uses of water, through electricity understand the working of ever lustrous lightening. Carry out my instructions willingly." (Yajur-veda 6.21).

" O royal skilled engineer, construct sea-boats, propelled on water by our experts, and airplanes, moving and flying upward, after the clouds that reside in the mid-region, that fly as the boats move on the sea, that fly high over and below the watery clouds. Be thou, thereby, prosperous in this world created by the Omnipresent God, and flier in both air and lightning." (Yajur-veda 10.19).

" The atomic energy fissions the ninety-nine elements, covering its path by the bombardments of neutrons without let or hindrance. Desirous of stalking the head, ie. The chief part of the swift power, hidden in the mass of molecular adjustments of the elements, this atomic energy approaches it in the very act of fissioning it by the above-noted bombardment. Herein, verily the scientists know the similar hidden striking force of the rays of the sun working in the orbit of the moon."(Atharva-veda 20.41.1-3).

(source: Searching for Vedic India - By Devamitra Swami p. 155 - 157). For more refer to chapter on Hindu Culture and Advanced Concepts).
*** 
The mention of airplanes is found many times throughout Vedic literature, including the following verse from the Yujur-Veda describing the movement of such machines: 
"O royal skilled engineer, construct sea-boats, propelled on water by our experts, and airplanes, moving and flying upward, after the clouds that reside in the mid-region, that fly as the boats move on the sea, that fly high over and below the watery clouds. Be thou, thereby, prosperous in this world created by the Omnipresent God, and flier in both air and lightening." Yajur Veda, 10.19) (Please refer to the Chapter ' Advanced Concept in Hinduism)

The Rg Veda, the oldest document of the human race includes references to the following modes of transportation:

Jalayan - a vehicle designed to operate in air and water. (Rig Veda 6.58.3)
Kaara- Kaara- Kaara- Kaara- Kaara- Kaara- a vehicle that operates on ground and in water. (Rig Veda 9.14.1)
Tritala- Tritala- Tritala- Tritala- Tritala- Tritala- a vehicle consisting of three stories. (Rig Veda 3.14.1)
Trichakra Ratha - Trichakra Ratha - Trichakra Ratha - Trichakra Ratha -Trichakra Ratha - Trichakra Ratha - a three-wheeled vehicle designed to operate in the air. (Rig Veda 4.36.1)
Vaayu Ratha- Vaayu Ratha- Vaayu Ratha- Vaayu Ratha- Vaayu Ratha- Vaayu Ratha- a gas or wind-powered chariot. (Rig Veda 5.41.6) 
Vidyut Ratha- Vidyut Ratha- Vidyut Ratha- Vidyut Ratha- Vidyut Ratha- a vehicle that operates on power. (Rig Veda 3.14.1).

Kathasaritsagara refers to highly talented woodworkers called Rajyadhara and Pranadhara. The former was so skilled in mechanical contrivances that he could make ocean crossing chariots. And the latter manufactured a flying chariot to carry a thousand passengers in the air. These chariots were stated to be as fast as thought itself.

(source: India Through The Ages: History, Art Culture and Religion - By G. Kuppuram p. 532-533).

According to Dr. Vyacheslav Zaitsev: "the holy Indian Sages, the Ramayana for one, tell of "Two storied celestial chariots with many windows" "They roar like off into the sky until they appear like comets." The Mahabharata and various Sanskrit books describe at length these chariots, "powered by winged lighting...it was a ship that soared into the air, flying to both the solar and stellar regions."

(source: Temples and Spaceships - By V. Zaitsev - Sputnik, Jan. 1967 and Hinduism in the Space Age - By E. Vedavyas p. 31-32). For more refer to chapters on Sanskritand War in Ancient India. Also Refer to Vymanika Shashtra - Aeronautical Society of India.

http://www.hinduwisdom.info/Vimanas.htm#Introduction:


~KIROAN~