Vimanas (Flying Machines-3)

Vimanas

A vimana is a mythological flying machine, described in the ancient mythology of India. References to these flying machines are commonplace in ancient Indian texts, even describing their use in warfare. As well as being able to fly within Earth's atmosphere, vimanas were also said to be able to travel into space and travel submerged underwater.

Descriptions in the Vedas and later Indian literature detail vimanas of various shapes and sizes:

• In the Vedas: the Sun and Indra and several other Vedic deities are transported by flying wheeled chariots pulled by animals, usually horses (but the Vedic god Pusan's chariot is pulled by goats).

• The "agnihotra-vimana" with two engines. (Agni means fire in Sanskrit.)

• The "gaja-vimana" with more engines. (Gaja means elephant in Sanskrit.)

• Other types named after the kingfisher, ibis, and other animals.

The word comes from Sanskrit and seems to be vi-mana = 'apart' or 'having been measured". The word also means a part of a Hindu temple. The meaning of the word likely changed in this sequence:

• An area of land measured out and set apart to be used for sacred purposes.

• Temple

• A god's palace

• In the Ramayana: the demon-lord Ravana's flying palace called Pushpaka.

• In later Indian writings: other flying vehicles, and sometimes as a poetic word for ordinary ground vehicles.

In some modern Indian languages, the word vimana means ordinary real aircraft.

The Buddhist book Vimanavatthu (Pali for "Vimana Stories") uses the word "vimana" with a different meaning: "a small piece of text used as the inspiration for a Buddhist sermon".

UFO Lore

Some modern UFO enthusiasts have pointed to the Vimana as evidence for advanced technological civilizations in the distant past, or as support for the ancient astronaut theory. Others have linked the flying machines to the legend of the Nine Unknown Men.

Alexander the Great purportedly gave a description of "dozens of silver disk-like objects" entering and leaving the Jaxartes River in 337 BC. Alexander, so the story goes, then became obsessed with the craft and spent many hours in a primitive diving bell searching for them. (Source: History Channel "Unidentified Submarine Objects")

Mythological Descriptions

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.

In the Ramayana there is a passage in the Ramayana which reads:

"The Pushpaka chariot that resembles the Sun and belongs to my brother was brought by the powerful Ravana; 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.'"

"Pushpaka" is Sanskrit for "flowery". It is the first flying vimana mentioned in Hindu mythology (as distinct from gods' flying horse-drawn chariots). It is also called Pushpaka Vimana.

The special characteristic of this vehicle is, "What ever may be the number of people sitting in it, always there will be one more seat vacant i.e., If N people sit, There will be (N+1) seats". It was basically a vehicle that could soar the skies for long distances. It shows that even in ancient times, people were curious about flight and might have tried to design flying vehicles.

Pushpaka was originally made by Maya for Kubera, the God of wealth, but was later stolen, along with Lanka, by his half-brother, the demon king Ravana.

The core epic of the Mahabharata mentions no vimanas, but vimanas often occur in the large amount of matter which was added to the Mahabharata corpus later. One example is that the Asura Maya had a Vimana measuring twelve cubits in circumference, with four strong wheels.

The Mahabharata is a veritable gold mine of information relating to conflicts between gods who are said to have settled their differences apparently using weapons as lethal as those we have now. Apart from 'blazing missiles', the poem records the use of other deadly weapons. 'Indra's Dart' (Indravajra) 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 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-factly, 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 splendour. 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 an ominously recognizable ring. Apparently, those killed by it were said to be so burnt that their corpses were unidentifiable. The survivors fared little better, 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.

The Mahabharata also tells of 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 splendour... 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..." Some say 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.

In the Sanskrit Samarangana Sutradhara (Literally, "controller of the battlefield"), 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."

In Mesopotamian sources -- 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.

Archaeological Claims

Some say that when the Rishi City of Mohenjodaro was excavated by archaeologists in the last century, they found skeletons 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 been vitrified, that is, fused together, can be found in India, Ireland, Scotland, France, Turkey and other places. Some say that there is no logical explanation for the vitrification of stone forts and cities, except from an atomic blast; but others say that vitrified forts arose by an enemy setting fire to a fortification composed of a mixture of big timbers and stones.

References

The Yantra Sarvaswa of Maharshi Bharadwaja, Vimaana Chandrika of Maharshi Narayan, Vyoma Yaana Tantra of Sounaka, and Vyoma Yaanarka of Dandi Natha are some of them. They contained topics like Maargadhi Karana (Navigation and control of speed during flight), Lohaadhi Karana (alloys used for various components of the aircraft) and Saktyaadhi Karana (production and usage of various fuels used in aircraft).

Para Sabda Grahakata is a subject of monitoring the flight tracks of aircraft, navigatory communication system, and monitoring the conversation of the pilots in the aircraft. Maharshi Gouthama mentioned 32 models of aircraft used in Treta Yuga; only one model among them, called Pushpaka Vimaanam, became popular in the Ramayana. The Vaimaanika Sastra describes Tripura Vimaanam that uses a solar powered engine to travel at three levels - on the land, under the surface of water, and in the air. Sakuna Vimaanam is a cross between an aircraft and a rocket - a space shuttle.

A symposium on "Science and Technology in ancient India" was organised in December 1990 at B.M. Birla Science Center at Hyderabad, A.P., India. Many topics of ancient Indian aeronautics were discussed. The Vaimanika Prakaranam in Vimana Vignana deals with instruments like Guha Garbha Darsha Yantra which can locate objects hidden underground from an aircraft. A semiconductor ferrite named Chumbaka radiates microwave signals and detects hidden objects.

The B.M. Birla Scienc Center has been doing active research in finding scientific content in Vedas and Puranas. The Center has deciphered a number of new materials from Amsu Bodhini. These materials comprise of glasses with special effects and metallic alloys with rare combinations - many of them have extraordinary properties unknown to modern technology. Unlike the modern methods which use 'inert' materials, these materials required 'live' ingredients like herbs, tree barks, and tree gums in addition to mineral ores. The sastras had integrated the knowledge of many conventional disciplines like chemistry, materials science, metallurgy and Ayurveda. These materials were widely used in the manufacture of aircraft in ancient India. Some of them can be used in low cost solar energy generation systems needed for India.

Dr. Roberto Pinotti, an Italian scientist, presented a paper on 'Aeronautics in ancient India' in the World Space Conference conducted at Bangalore. He told the conference delegates that those aircraft were similar to modern jet-propelled aeroplanes. He agreed that they represent the most complex and sophisticated designs.

Some of them used radars and imaging technology instrumentation.

• Vimana Aircraft of Ancient India and Atlantis (Lost Science Series), David Hatcher Childress, Ivan T. Sanderson, January 1992.

• Vedic Physics: Scientific Origin of Hinduism, Raja Ram Mohan Roy

• The Secret Teachings of the Vedas, Stephen Knapp

• Ancient Indian Aircraft Technology in The Anti-Gravity Handbook (Lost Science), David Hatcher Childress

The Anti-Gravity Handbook - by David 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.

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, pulled 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 elsewhere (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" (orAtlantean") air ship. 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. The so-called "Rama Empire" of Northern India and Pakistan developed at least fifteen thousand years ago on the Indian sub-continent 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 Samara Sutradhara 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 Bharadvajy 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 (sorry, no street address). Mr. 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. Bharadvajy the Wise refers to no less than 70 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 Mahabarata, 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 undeciphered, has also been found in one other place in the world.

Easter Island

Writing on Easter Island, called Rongo-Rongo writing, is also undeciphered, and is uncannily similar to the Mohenjodaro script. Was Easter Island an air base for the Rama Empire's Vimana route? (At the Mohenjo-Daro Vimana-drome, as the passenger walks down the concourse, he hears the sweet, melodic sound of the announcer over the loudspeaker, "Rama Airways flight number seven for Bali, Easter Island, Nazca, and Atlantis is now ready for boarding. Passengers please proceed to gate number..") in Tibet, no small distance, and 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 "ahnihotra- vimana" 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 morewar-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, Mahabarata 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.

Furthermore, at Mohenjo-Daro, a well planned city laid on a grid, witha 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, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Confucius, 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 Alexan

der 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 centre 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.

Undoubtedly, some are from the Military Governments of the world, and possibly even from other planets. Of course, many UFO sightings are "swamp, gas, clouds, hoaxes, and hallucinations, while there is considerable evidence that many UFO sightings, especially "kidnappings" and the like, are the result of what is generally called "telepathic hypnosis." One common thread that often runs between "Alien kidnappings," "sex with aliens," and other "close encounters of a third kind" is a buzzing in the ears just before the encounter. According to many well informed people, this is a sure sign of telepathic hypnosis.

Vimana Wikipedia

Ancient Nuclear Weapons? Another Aspect of the Ancient Indian Astronaut Connection

Colin Mulligan

original source | fair use notice

Summary: Is it really possible that the ancient Indians had the capacity to deploy devastating nuclear weapons against their enemies?

IS IT REALLY POSSIBLE THAT THE ANCIENT INDIANS HAD THE CAPACITY TO DEPLOY DEVASTATING NUCLEAR WEAPONS AGAINST THEIR ENEMIES? MOREOVER, IS IT REALLY POSSIBLE, AS MANY UFOLOGISTS CLAIM, THAT AWESOMELY POWERFUL NUCLEAR WEAPONS WERE ACTUALLY GIVEN TO THE ANCIENT INDIAN WARRIORS BY EXTRA-TERERSTRIALS, HIGHLY ADVANCED SPACEMEN FROM OTHER PLANETS? WELL, PASSAGES FROM ANCIENT INDIAN NATIONAL EPICS CERTAINLY APPEAR TO BE EVIDENCE OF SUCH ASTONISHING CLAIMS….

It is in ancient Indian epic poems such as such The Mahabarata and The Ramayana that we can read what appear to be references to an otherwise relatively primitive people having the capacity to wield highly destructive nuclear weapons. Not surprisingly it is as a direct consequence of such compelling passages that many UFOlogists like Erich Von Daniken and W. R. Drake (See for I.E. According to The Evidence – Souvenir, 1977 and Gods & Spacemen In The Ancient East - Sphere, 1976 ), have argued that the highly advanced capacity to use (and misuse) nuclear weaponry must have being handed down to these ancient people by the Gods or, in other words, highly-advanced extra-terrestrial spacemen. How else, these proponents of ancient astronauts say, could such an ancient people manage to develop the extremely advanced technological status necessary to make such complex and destructive weaponry that could ‘scorch the universe’ and make ‘inauspicious winds’ blow? Surely even the crude but ultimately terribly destructive nuclear device dropped on Hiroshima demanded an highly advanced science to develop and deliver it, they say. Reading through the various passages of The Ramayana and The Mahabarata with an eye to references of destructive nuclear type weapons certainly does lend itself to believing such claims, too. The evidence does appear to be highly compelling. For instance on p.383 of the Drona Parva we come across the following lines which certainly could be construed as evidence of the loathsome effects of detonating a nuclear weapon of some sorts: “Encompassed by them (bowmen)…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. The mace of adamantine strength, hurled like Indra’s thunder by Indra himself, crushed, O King, thy soldiers in battle.

And it seemed to fill…the whole earth with a loud noise. And blazing forth in splendour, that fierce mace inspired thy sons with fear. Beholding that mace of impetuous course and endowed with lightening flashes coursing towards them, thy warriors fled away uttering frightful cries. And at the unbelievable sound …of that fiery mace, many men fell down where they stood and many car (vimana or flying vehicle) warriors also fell down from their cars.” As Drake says on p.49 of Gods And Spacemen In The Ancient East (Sphere, 1976), we are startled here by these lines which bear an “Uncanny resemblance to future wars, when our earth’s capitals may be blasted with bombs of anti-matter launched from space-satellites” .

According to Indian tradition The Mahabarata, a fabulously rich verse epic, was first collected together by Vyasa, probably an incarnation of the God Vishnu. It was first recited by one Vaicampayana and, at least in its present form, is reckoned to date from around the 4th century BC to around the 4th century AD. Like The Ramayana, which is reckoned to have emerged at around the time when The Mahabarata was taking its final shape, The Mahabarata is made up of fables, parables, essays, poetry and prose from the earliest of times. Interestingly, too, as some proof of its importance and relevance to many people today still, in July 1985 it was produced by the renowned Peter Brook in Avignon (See: p.113, Sacred Writings Of World Religions, Chambers, 1992). Though eclectic in style, throughout The Mahabarata runs the story of the long war between the Kauravas and the Pandavas. Interestingly, too, for our purposes here, during the epic we are told of a terrible battle during which Asvatthaman, cornered by Pandavas in a forest, launches a terrible weapon which is said to be capable of destroying an entire world.

Astonishingly, even though the all powerful Krishna deflects the missile from reaching its goal, Asvatthaman still manages to direct it instead at the Pandava women, the children they are carrying, and will carry in later years. On p.677 of the Drona Parvawe we can read more about the devastating effects of Asvatthaman wielding his awesome ‘Agneya’ weapon: “The sun seemed to turn around. The universe scorched with heats seemed to be in a ever. The elephants and other creatures of the land scorched by the energy of weapon, ran in fright, breathing heavily and desirous of protection against that terrible force…” Also in the very same passage: “A thick gloom suddenly shrouded the… host. All points of the compass also were enveloped by that darkness. Rakshashas and Vicocha crowding together uttered fierce cries. Inauspicious winds began to blow.” All in all such descriptive passages amount to compelling and frightening stuff. As Drake says on p.49 of Gods And Spacemen In The Ancient East (Sphere, 1976): “Arjuna and his companions (our warrior heroes in The Mahabarata) appear(ed) to possess an arsenal of diverse, sophisticated nuclear weapons, equal to, perhaps surpassing, the missiles of the Americans and Russians today”. Von Daniken also seems to agree. It is difficult not to think of Hiroshima, he says, when reading passages like the following from The Mahabarata and cited on P. 164 of his book According To The Evidence (Souvenir, 1977): “The heavens cried out, the earth bellowed an answer, lightening flashed forth, fire flamed upwards, it rained down death. The brightness vanished, the fire was extinguished. Everyone who was struck by the lightening was turned to ashes”. And again from the same source: “It was a ghastly sight to see. The corpses of the fallen were so mutilated they no longer looked like human beings. Never before have we seen such an awful weapon, and never before have we heard of such a weapon”. Although, of course, these days we have seen and heard about such awful weapons and, moreover, the terrifying effects that such awful weapons cause when detonated. For didn’t the media relay the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to awesomely horrific effect? Reading through the above passages it would obviously be foolhardy to simply dismiss outright the idea that the ancient Indian warriors did possess some terrible weapons, possibly even of a nuclear type. But perhaps it could be considered an equal oversimplification to admit that the ancient Indian warriors did undoubtedly possess such weapons also. The argument still stubbornly remains as to whether such ancient writings are actually based in fact or simply meant to be interpreted symbolically. All of which means, of course, that the highly contestable question of whether the ancient Indians were really given such awesome nuclear weapons by spacemen, ancient astronauts from other planets, must remain so. It seems, at this point, that we either do or do not believe. It appears to all boil down to a simple matter of faith. Perhaps though, this said, there is actually something else, a little more substantial even, that we are able to take away from our brief sojourn through the ancient Indian epics . Namely a (reinforced?) belief that peace must always be mankind’s ultimate goal. For certainly, whether rooted in truth or merely symbolic, the explicitly shocking descriptions of death and destruction to be found in, say, The Mahabarata are undeniably terrifying and, as such, give grave forewarning to all nations of the world of the importance of steering a path of non-violence. To this particular end, when we hear today about India’s newly (newly?) acquired nuclear capabilities or, say, American President George Bush’s proposed ‘Son Of Star Wars’ Nuclear Missile Defence Programme, we should certainly be very much on the alert. Should we admit that the ancient Indian epics can be interpreted as poetic lessons, we can consider ourselves duly warned against expanding rather than depleting the world’s nuclear stockpiles.

Clearly, if nothing else, it can be interpreted that as Bhisma sought a general reconciliation at the end of The Mahabarata, so must we be resolved on reconciliation in all our global relations today, too.

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Vimanas

http://www.hinduwisdom.info/Vimanas.html

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 Mahabaratha and various Sankrit 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.

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"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." - Aldous Huxley (1894-1963). For more refer to chapter on Quotes1_20).

"Don't let your minds be cluttered up with the prevailing doctrine." - Alexander Fleming (1881-1955).

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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.

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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).

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Introduction

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).

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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 Sanskrit and War in Ancient India. Also Refer to Vymanika Shashtra - Aeronautical Society of India.

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Some Puranic accounts of Air-Chariots

The Arthasastra of Kautilya (c. 3rd century B.C.) mentions amongst various tradesmen and technocrats the Saubhikas as ' pilots conducting vehicles in the sky'. Saubha was the name of the aerial flying city of King Harishchandra and the form 'Saubika' means 'one who flies or knows the art of flying an aerial city.' Kautilya uses another significant word 'Akasa Yodhinah', which has been translated as 'persons who are trained to fight from the sky.' The existence of aerial chariots, in whatever form it might be, was so well-known that it found a place among the royal edicts of the Emperor Asoka which were executed during his reign from 256 B.C. - 237 B. C. The Vaimanika Shastra (Hindi edn) refers to about 97 works and authorities of yore of which at least 20 works deal with the mechanism of aerial Flying Machine, but none of these works is now traceable. The Yuktikalpataru of Bhoja includes a reference to aerial cars in verses 48-50 and a manuscript of the work belonging to the Calcutta Sanskrit College dated at 1870 A.D. We are thus in possession of some manuscript material and from the above it appears that there were Vimanas or aircrafts in ancient India and they followed the route over the western sea i.e. Arabian Sea - Africa - Atlantic ocean - Latin America/Mexico, this being the shortest route. Some ships also might have followed this route, but most of the cargo ships, however, had to follow the longer route over the Pacific ovean via Indonesia - Polynesia - Latin America/Mexico because of the favorable trade winds and the equatorial currents which made the navigation easier.

And if the ancient Indians could perhaps boast of some form of air travel the Nazca lines of Peru acquire an added significance. Not only the scriptural references of aircrafts and the routes of navigation, even some base landing sites might have possibly been found in the tangled outlines and figures in the Pampas of Nazca. Maria Reiche, a German scientist, through her life-long dedication studied these seriously, preserved them from destruction and publicised them before the world. The huge figures which are visible from the sky might have helped the ancient pilots (Sauvikas) of India to land in Peru.

(For more information please refer to Chapters on Pacific, Suvarnabhumi, War in Ancient India, Hindu Scriptures and Seafaring in Ancient India).

(Artwork courtesy of The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International, Inc. www.krishna.com).

The Nazca lines of Peru seem to be landing signal for the air chariots of pre-Colobian times. There are several references in Sanskrit texts about the Indian Vimanas carrying kings and dignitaries to pataldesa. Ramayana describes Ravana's flight from Varunalaya (Borneo) to Rasatala (Peru).

Prof. D. K. Kanjilal analyses the legend of the Matsya Purana (chapters 129) in his Vimana in Ancient India in the following words:

"Behind the veil of legend and scientific truth comes out that three flying-cities were made for and were used by the demons. Of these three, one was in a stationary orbit in the sky, another moving in the sky and one was permanently stationed in the ground. These were docked like modern spaceships in the sky at particular time and at fixed latitude/longitudes. Siva's arrow obviously referred to a blazing missile fired from a flying satellite specially built for the purpose and the brunt spaceship fell in the Indian ocean. Vestiges of onetime prosperous civilization destroyed in battles only flicker through these legends.

These references sharply point to the use of some kind of aerial flying vehicles known as Vimana apart from mechanical contrivances, armoured cars, various types of missiles etc. These references sounding queer and unscientific even in recent past have been approximated to the present-day technology through the innovation of highly sophisticated weapons and of the space-satellites like Mariner, Vostok, Soyuz, Aryabhatta etc. These facts require more than a passing notice.

The flying vehicles were firstly designated Ratha (vehicle or carriage) in the Rig Veda.

Vimanas possessed a very high speed. This aerial vehicle was triangular, large, 3-tier uneven and was piloted by at least three persons (tribandhura). It has three wheels which were probably withdrawn during aerial flight. In one verse the chariot is said to have three columns. It was generally made of anyone of the three kinds of metals, gold, silver or iron but the metal which usually went into its make up according to the Vedic text was gold. It looked beautiful. Long nails or rivets were attached to it. The chariot had three types of fuel. Possessing very fast speed, it moved like a bird in the sky soaring towards the Sun and the Moon and used to come down to the earth with great sound.

(source: The Indians And The Amerindians

- By Dr. S. Chakravarti p.141-146). Also Refer to Vymanika Shashtra - Aeronautical Society of India.

References from Ancient Literature

According to Professor Dileep Kumar Kanjilal in his book, Vimana in Ancient India:

In addition to the Vaimanika Shashtra, the Samarangana Sutradhara and the Yuktikalpataru of Bhoja, there are about 150 verses of the Rig Veda, Yajurveda and the Atharvaveda, a lot of literary passages belonging to the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Puranas, the Bhagavata and the Raghuvamsa and some references of the darma Abhijnanasakuntalam of Kalidasa, the Abimaraka of Bhasa, the Jatalas. the Avadhana Literature and of the Kathasaritsagara and a number of literary works contained either references to graphic aerial flight or to the mechanism of the aerial vehicles used in old ages in India.

In the Ramayana both the words "Vimana" and "Ratha" have been used:

• Kamagam ratham asthaya

...nadanadipatim (3. 35. 6-7). He boarded the aerial vehicle with Khara which was decorated with jewels and the faces of demons and it moved with noise resembling the sonorous clouds.

• You may go to your desired place after enticing Sita and I shall bring her to Lanka by air.. So Ravana and Maricha boarded the aerial vehicle resembling a palace (Vimana) from that hermitage.

• Then the demoness brought the Puspaka aerial vehicle and placed Sita on it by bringing her from the Ashoka forest and she was made to see the battle field with Trijata.

• This aerial vehicle marked with Swan soared into the sky with loud noise.

Reference to Flying vehicles as Vimana occur in the Mahabharata in about 41 places of which the air attack of Salva on Krisna's capital Dwaraka deserve special notice. The Asura king Salva had an aerial flying machine known as Saubha-pura in which he came to attack Dwaraka. He began to shower hails, and missiles from the sky. As Krishna chased him he went near the sea and landed in the high seas. Then he came back again with his flying machine and gave a tough fight to Krishna staying about one Krosa (about 4,000 ft) above the ground level. Krishna at last threw a powerful ground-to-air weapon which hit the plane in the middle and broke it into pieces. The damaged flying machine fell into the seas. This vivid description of the air attack occurs in the Bhagavata also. We also come across the following references to missiles, armaments, sophisticated war-machines and mechanical contrivances as well as to Vimanas in Mahabharata.

For more on Ramayana, refer to chapters Glimpses XIX, Hindu Scriptures, Dwaraka, War in Ancient India, Survarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor.

The inscriptions of emperor Asoka are by far the most authentic records in support of the existence of aerial flying vehicles which are mentioned as Vimana. The existence of aerial chariots in whatever form it might be was so well-known that it found a place among the royal edicts of the Emperor Asoka which were executed during his reign from 256 B.C.- 237 B.C.

Vatsyana in his Kama Sutra referred to mechanical contrivances in their origin among 64 ancilliary Sciences.

The Arthasastra of Kautilya (3rd century B.C), a treatise mainly dealing with political economy but containing information on kindred scientific topics re

fers to a class of mechanic known as Saubhika..."

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A discussion regarding the existence of and the use of flying vehicles in ancient India naturally waits for an advanced state of knowledge in cosmogony. A close and careful study of the Vedic literature shows that it was not just a collection of primeval poetry but a varied literature of a powerful and dynamic society where the people had the knowledge of cloud and vapor, of the season and of the monsoon, of the different types of wind, of the expanse of the sky, of the strength of the wind blowing at high speed and so on. Three types of cloud have been referred to in the Rig Veda (1.101.4). which also states that smoke and vapor surcharged with water turn into cloud. Formation of vapor through heat and the subsequent formation of cloud has been referred to in the Vedas. Indian meteorological concepts thus date back to the age of the Rig Veda.

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Dileep Kumar Kanjilal concludes that: "With the passage of time and due to various changes of catastrophes the machines went out of use so that the secrets of its make-up and flying were equally lost. That the discontinuity of technical knowledge of a particular science within the known period of history is not an impossible factor has been shown by the inability to explore the nature of the rustless iron of the pillar of Chandraketu now fixed in Delhi. Hiuentzang, the Chinese pilgrim in the 7th century A.D. referred to 7 story palaces of which no evidence now remains. Sir P. C. Roy had shown that during the period from 1509 B.C. up to the end of the 3rd century B.C.E. methods for the large scale production of metals like gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, lead and mercury and of alloys like brass, bronze, and those of gold and silver with baser materials were known. Large varieties of mineral ores, gems, and precious stones have been described in detail by Kautilya.

Knowledge of the fermentation process also reached a fairly advanced state. With a highly developed state of civilization flourishing in art, culture, literature, history, medicine, alchemy, chemistry, physics, mathematics, astronomy, and astrology, geology, trade, commerce, shipbuilding, and agriculture it is natural to think that some sort of flying vehicles as attested by literary references was in all probability known. From the time of Panini upto the time of Bhoja we come across references to the great universities of Taxila, Valabhi, Dhar, Ujjain and Visala etc. The annals of history inform us that the depredations of the foreign tribes began as early as the 2nd century A.D. From two centuries later came succeeding waves of attacks of other foreign hordes like the Arabs, Turks and Afghans. All the well known universities and other centers of learning like the temples, the Viharas and the Bhandaras containing books and other priceless treasures of the Indian heritage had to stand the fire and fury of the marauders. In the dark firmament of devastation and uncertainty a silver lining was, however, seen in the efforts of King Bhoja in the 12th century, when he tried to compile the Sanskrit texts. Glimpses of old heritage survived only in the memory of the people and in stray literary evidences. State patronization for Indian Hindu cultural enterprises in the Turk-Afghan/Islamic period was a misnomer."

The original designation of the flying machine was "Ratha" which gave way for the term "Vimana". The Samarangana Sutradhara unequivocally suggested that the design of the plane was imitated to construct palaces. It was built by the Rbhus for the Gods. Gods as pointed out by Sayana came from remote space in the sky above and the obvious conclusion is that Gods as newcomers on the earth from outer space brought in this technology. The texts of the Rig Veda ranging from the 1st-10th Manadal refers to aerial flying machines as Ratha. In the Yajurveda which is considered chronologically later than the Rg Veda followed by other Brahmanas, the name "Vimanas" occurs. These vehicles were multi-shaped. But the triangular or quadrangular pattern survived owing to their practical utility. Puspaka the aerial vehicel survived in use because of its practical usefulness. In the Vedic texts the configuration of the machines has been broadly shown as triangular. The inside area as it can be gathered from the text was about 9 ft X 9 ft. = 81 sq. ft capable of accommodating 7/8 persons. In a triangular delta wing type this can be easily be made conical to give it greater feasibility and maneuverability.

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The descriptions of the flying aerial cities in the Mahabharata seem to indicate a higher degree of scientific achievement and technical skill as the flying cities moved high up above the region of the clouds and very probably in the exosphere region. We have earliest temple design in a seal of the Harmika-sira temple built by King Hubiska at Buddha Gaya of the 1st century B.C.E. which is a rectangular based conical construction. The Virupaksa Temple of Pattakada, of 740 A.D. has a long rectangular base developed into a tapering square or hectagonal construction upwards imitate the Trivistapa type. The overall structural similarity of the temples with a modern helicopter gives overt cognizance to the Samarangana Sutradhara that temples were designed after the models of the flying machines. Even the giant Konaraka temple which resembles the ch

ariot of Surya (Sun God) was of octagonal pattern on large rectangular base measuring 100 ft X 100 ft. X 100 ft. "

(source: Vimana in Ancient India - By Dileep Kumar Kanjilal Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar Calcutta 1985 p. 11-99). For more information, refer to chapter on Hindu Culture).

For more refer to chapters on Sanskrit and War in Ancient India. Also Refer to Vymanika Shashtra - Aeronautical Society of India.

For more on Ramayana, refer to chapters Glimpses XIX, Hindu Scriptures, Dwaraka, War in Ancient India, Survarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor.

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Here is a survey of some fascinating articles and quotes:

"One time while King Citaketu was traveling in outer space on a brilliantly effulgent airplane given to him by Lord Vishnu, he saw Lord Siva..." "The arrows released by Lord Siva appeared like fiery beams emanating from the sun globe and covered the three residential airplanes, which could then no longer be seen."

Srimad Bhagavatam, Sixth Canto, Part 3.

"The so-called ‘Rama Empire’ of Northern India and Pakistan developed at least fifteen thousand years ago on the Indian sub-continent 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...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’)." (source: D. Hatcher Childress, "Ancient Indian Aircraft Technology" In The Anti-Gravity Handbook )

" 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." - Mahavira of Bhavabhuti (A Jain text of the eighth century culled from older texts and traditions)

"The Vedas, ancient Hindu poems, thought to be the oldest of all the Indian texts, describe vimanas of various shapes and sizes: the ‘ahnihotra-vimana’ with two engines, the ‘elephant-vimana’ with more engines, and other types named after the kingfisher, ibis and other animals." (source: D. Hatcher Childress, "Ancient Indian Aircraft Technology" In The Anti-Gravity Handbook )

"Now Vata’s chariot’s greatness! Breaking goes it, And Thunderous is its noise, To heaven it touches, Makes light lurid [a red fiery glare], and whirls dust upon the earth."

Rig-Veda (Vata is the Aryan god of wind). In the Vedic literature of India, there are many descriptions of flying machines that are generally called vimanas. These fall into two categories: (1) manmade craft that resemble airplanes and fly with the aid of birdlike wings, and (2) unstreamlined structures that fly in a mysterious manner and are generally not made by human beings. The machines in category (1) are described mainly in medieval, secular Sanskrit works dealing with architecture, automata, military siege engines, and other mechanical contrivances. Those in category (2) are described in ancient works such as the Rg Veda, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, and the Puranas, and they have many features reminiscent of UFOs." "There are ancient Indian accounts of manmade wooden vehicles that flew with wings in the manner of modern airplanes. Although these wooden vehicles were also called vimanas, most vimanas were not at all like airplanes. The more typical vimanas had flight characteristics resembling those reported for UFOs, and the being associated with them were said to possess powers similar to those presently ascribed to UFO entities. An interesting example of a vimana is the flying machine which Salva, an ancient Indian king, acquired from Maya Danava, an inhabitant of a planetary system called Taltala."

Richard L. Thompson, Alien Identities "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 the city parks."

The Mahabharata

There is this account by the hero Krishna that is suggestive of more modern weapons. As he takes to the skies in pursuit of Salva: "His Saubha clung to the sky at a league’s length...He threw at me rockets, missiles, spears, spikes, battle-axes, 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 compass."

"The airplane occupied by Salva was very mysterious. It was so extraordinary that sometimes many airplanes would appear to be in the sky, and sometimes there were apparently none. Sometimes the plane was visible and sometimes not visible, and the warriors of the Yadu dynasty were puzzled about the whereabouts of the peculiar airplane. Sometimes they would see the airplane on the ground, sometimes flying in the sky, sometimes resting on the peak of a hill and sometimes floating on the water. The wonderful airplane flew in the sky like a whirling firebrand - it was not steady even for a moment." Bhaktivedanta, Swami Prabhupada, Krsna (Artwork courtesy of The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International, Inc. www.krishna.com).

India had a Superior Civilization India may have had a superior civilization with possible contacts with extraterrestrial visitors, and the flying devices called 'Vimanas' described in ancient Indian texts may underl ine their possible connections with today's aerospace technology, an Italian scientist told the World Space Conference here today. Dr. Roberto Pinotti asked the delegates to examine in detail the Hindu texts instead of dismissing 'all the Vimana descriptions and traditions as mere myth.' "The importance of such studies and investigations could prove to be shocking for today's man because the existence of flying devices beyond mythology can only be explained with a forgotten superior civilization on earth," he said. Pointing out that Indian Gods and heroes fought in the skies using piloted vehicles with terrible weapons. Dr. Pinotti said they were similar to modern jet propelled flying machines. 32 secrets: He said certain descriptions of the Vimanas seemed 'too detailed and technical in nature to be labeled as myth.' He cited various texts to show there were 32 secrets relating to the operation of Vimanas, some of which could be compared to modern day use of radar, solar energy and photography. Quoting from 'Vymanika Shastra' he said the ancient flying devices of India were made from special heat absorbing metals named 'Somaka, Soundalike and Mourthwika.' He said the text also discussed the seven kinds of mirror and lenses installed aboard for defensive and offensive uses. The so-called 'Pinjula Mirror' offered a sort of 'visual shield' preventing the pilots from being blinded by 'evil rays' and the weapon 'Marika' used to shoot enemy aircraft 'does not seem too different from what we today called laser technology,' he said.

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According to the Italian expert, the 'principles of Page 1 propulsion as far as the descriptions were concerned, might be defined as electrical and chemical but solar energy was also involved. For instance, the 'Tripura Vimana' mentioned in 'Vymanika Shastra' was a large craft operated by 'motive power generated by solar rays,' Dr. Pinotti said, adding 'its elongated form was surely much closer to that of a modern blimp.' Sophisticated design: According to Dr. Pinotti, the huge 'Shakuna Vimana' described in the text 'might be defined as a cross between a plane and a rocket of our times and its design might remind one of today's space shuttle.' 'Surely, it expresses the most complex and sophisticated aeronautical design among all the other descriptions of Vimanas mentioned in the 'Vymanika Shastra,' he said. He described the author of the treatise 'Vymanika Shastra' as a man 'attempting to explain an advanced technology.' Dr. Pinotti, who has made an exhaustive study of the history of Indian astronautics, said another text, Samaraanganasutraadhaara had 230 stanzas devoted to the principles of building Vimanas and their use in peace and war. He said ancient Aryans knew the use of the element 'fire' as could be seen from their 'Astra' weapons that included Soposamhara (flame belching missile), Prasvapna (which caused sleep) and four kinds of Agni Astras that traveled in sheets of flame and produced thunder. He said the car that was supposed to go up to Suryamandal (solar system) and the Naksatramandala (stellar system) cannot be dismissed as a myth because of the 'technical nature' of its description. Dr. Pinotti said depictions of space travel, total destruction by incredible weapons and the fact that Vimanas resembled modern unidentified flying objects would suggest that India had a 'superior but forgotten civilization.' 'In the light of this, we think it will be better to examine the Hindu texts' and subject the descriptive models of Vimanas to more scientific scrutiny,' he said.- Jerry W. Decker.........Ron Barker...........Chuck Henderson - Vangard Sciences/KeelyNet

(source: http://www.asiafinest.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t27067.html).

Ancient Writings tell of UFO visit in 4,000 B.C. Contributed by John Burrows http://www.asiafinest.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t27067.html 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.

Ramayana murals from the Royal palace, Cambodia.

For more on Ramayana, refer to chapters Glimpses XIX, Hindu Scriptures, Dwar

aka, War in Ancient India, Survarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor.

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For example, there is a passage in the Ramayana which reads: The Puspaka car that resembl

es 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 invisiblein 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 factly, 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 ashesthe 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:

The Bhagavad Gita has influenced great Americans from Thoreau to Oppenheimer. Its message of letting go of the fruits of one’s actions is just as relevant today as it was when it was first written more than two millennia ago.

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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 containsover 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 arethe 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 beenconverted 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 Chan drigarh 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 tocounteract 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 ofinvisibility" and "garima"; "how to become as heavy as a mountain of lead."Naturally, Indian scientists did not take the texts very seriously, but thenbecame more positive about the value of them when the Chinese announced that they were including certain parts of the data for study in their spaceprogram! 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 atrip to the moon in a Vihmana (or "Astra"), and in fact details a battle on the moon with an "Asvin" (or Atlantean") airship. This is but a small bit ofrecent evidence of anti-gravity and aerospace technology used by Indians. To really understand the technology, we must go much further back in time. The so-called "Rama Empire" of Northern India and Pakistan developed at leastfifteen thousand years ago on the Indian subcontinent and was a nation of manylarge, 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 wasruled by "enlightened Priest-Kings" who governed the cities.

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

For more on Ramayana, refer to chapters Glimpses XIX, Hindu Scriptures, Dwaraka, War in Ancient India, Survarnabhumi and Sacred Angkor.

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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:

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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? (At the Mohenjo- Daro Vimana-drome, as the passenger walks down the concourse, he hears the sweet, melodic sound of the announcer over the loud speaker," Rama Airways flight number seven for Bali, Easter Island, Nazca, and Atlantis is now ready for boarding. Passengers please proceed to gate number..") in Tibet, no small distance, and 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, conveysmany people to the capital of Ayodhya. The sky is full of stupendousflying-machines, dark as night,but picked out by lights with a yellowishglare." The Vedas, ancient Hindu poems, thought to be the oldest of all theIndian 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 Indiantexts 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 noancient 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 manoeuvering 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-Vailixbattle 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 analysing 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. Also refer to Vymanika Shashtra - Aeronautical Society of India.

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 Sauba 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 coaked 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.

The Indian Vimana - http://www.realshades.com/mystic/mysteries/myst-vimana-01.html

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Fly the Friendly skies in Air India Vimanas (excerpts) By David Hatcher Childress.

Nearly every Hindu and Buddhist in the world - hundreds of millions of people has heard of the ancient flying machines referred to in the Ramayana and other texts as vimanas. Vimanas are mentioned even today in standard Indian literature and media reports. An article called “Flight Path” by the Indian journalist Mukul Sharma appeared in the major newspaper The Times of India on April 8, 1999 which talked about vimanas and ancient warfare:

According to some interpretations of surviving texts, India’s future it seems happened way back in the past. Take the case of the Yantra Sarvasva, said to have been written by the sage Maharshi Bhardwaj.

This consists of as many as 40 sections of which one, the Vaimanika Prakarana dealing with aeronautics, has 8 chapters, a hundred topics and 500 sutras.

In it Bhardwaj describes vimana, or aerial aircrafts, as being of three classes:

1. those that travel from place to place;

2. those that travel from one country to another;

3. those that travel between planets.

Of special concern among these were the military planes whose functions were delineated in some very considerable detail and which read today like something clean out of science fiction. For instance, they had to be:

Impregnable, unbreakable, non-combustible and indestructible capable of coming to a dead stop in the twinkling of an eye; invisible to enemies; capable of listening to the conversations and sounds in hostile planes; technically proficient to see and record things, persons, incidents and situations going on inside enemy planes; know at every stage the direction of the movement of other aircraft in the vicinity; capable of rendering the enemy crew into a state of suspended animation, intellectual torpor or complete loss of consciousness; capable of destruction; manned by pilots and co-travelers who could adapt in accordance with the climate in which they moved; temperature regulated inside; constructed of very light and heat absorbing metals; provided with mechanisms that could enlarge or reduce images and enhance or diminish sounds.

Notwithstanding the fact that such contraption would resemble a cross between an American state-of-the-art Stealth Fighter and a flying saucer, does it mean that air and space travel was well known to ancient Indians and aeroplanes flourished in India when the rest of the world was just learning the rudiments of agriculture? Aerial battles and chases are common in ancient Hindu literature.

What did these airships look like? The ancient Mahabharata speaks of a vimana as “an aerial chariot with the sides of iron and clad with wings.” The Ramayana describes a vimana as a double-deck, circular (cylindrical) aircraft with portholes and a dome. It flew with the “ speed of the wind”, and gave forth a “melodious sound”.

The ancient Indians themselves wrote entire flight manuals on the care and control of various types of vimanas. The Samara Sutradhara is a scientific treatises dealing with every possible facet of air travel in a vimana. There are 230 stanzas dealing with construction, take-off, cruising for thousands of miles, normal and forced landings, and even possible collusions with birds!

Would these texts exist (they do) without there being something to actually write about? Traditional historians and archaeologists simply ignore such writings as the imaginative ramblings of a bunch of stoned, ancient writers.

Says Andrew Tomas, " The Samara Sutradhara, which is a factual type of record, treats air travel from every angle…If this is the science fiction of antiquity, then it is the best that has ever been written.”

In 1875, the Vaimanika Shastra, a fourth century BC text written by Maharshi Bhardwaj, was discovered in a temple in India. The book dealt with the operation of ancient vimanas and included information on steering, precautions for long flights, protection of the airships from storms and lightning, and how to switch the drive to solar energy, or some other “free energy” source, possibly some sort of “gravity drive.” Vimanas were said to take off vertically or dirigible. Bharadwaj the Wise refers to no less than 70 authorities and 10 experts of air travel in antiquity. These sources are now lost.

Vimanas were kept in Vimana Griha, or hanger, were said to be propelled by a yellowish-white-liquid, and were used for various purposes. Airships were present all over the world. The plain of Nazca in Peru is very famous for appearing from the high altitude to be a rather elaborate, if confusing airfield. Some researchers have theorized that this was some sort of Atlantean outpost. It is worth nothing that Rama Empire had its outposts: Easter Island, almost diametrically opposite to Mohenjo-daro on the globe, astonishingly developed its own written language, an obscure script lost to the present inhabitants, but found on tablets and other carvings. This odd script is found in only one other place in the world: Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa.

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Aerial Warfare in Ancient India

The ancient Indian epics go into considerable detail about aerial warfare over 10,000 years ago. So much detail that a famous Oxford professor included a chapter on the subject in a book on ancient warfare!

According to the Sanskrit scholar V.R.Ramachandran Dikshitar, the Oxford Professor who wrote “War in Ancient India 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 characterized 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, aeroplanes and other flying machines, a great change has come over our ideas on the subject.”

Says Dr. Dikshitar, “ …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. We owe much to the energetic scientists and researchers who plod persistently and carry their torches deep down into the caves and excavations of old and dig out valid testimonials pointing to the misty antiquity of the wonderful creations of humanity.”

Dikshitar mentions that in Vedic literature, in one of the Brahmanas, occurs the concept of a ship that sails heavenwards. “The ship is the Agniliotra of which the Ahavaniya and Garhapatya fires represent the two sides bound heavenward, and the steersman is the Agnihotrin who offers milk to the three Agnis. Again, in the still earlier Rg Veda Samhita we read that the Asvins conveyed the rescued Bhujya safely by means of winged ships. The latter may refer to the aerial navigation in the earliest times.”

Commenting on the famous vimana text the Vimanika Shastra, he says:

“ In the recently published Samarangana Sutradhara of Bhoja, a whole chapter of about 230 stanzas is devoted to the principles of construction underlying the various flying machines and other engines used for military and other purposes. The various advantages of using machines, especially flying ones, are given elaborately. Special mention is made for their attacking visible as well as invisible objects, of their use at one’s will and pleasure, of their uninterrupted movements, of their strength and durability, in short of their capability to do in the air all that is done on earth. After enumerating and explaining a number of other advantages, the author concludes that even impossible things could be effected through them. Three movements are usually ascribed to these machines, ascending, cruising, thousands of miles in the atmosphere and lastly descending. It is said that in an aerial car one can mount to the Surya-mandala, travel throughout the regions of air above the sea and the earth. These cars are said to move so fast as to make a noise that could be heard faintly from the ground. Still some writers have expressed a doubt and asked “Was that true?” But the evidence in its favor is overwhelming.

(source: Technology of the Gods: The Incredible Sciences of the Ancients p 147 - 209). For more refer to chapter on Sacred Angkor

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Has the World Ended Before?

Charles Berlitz (1914 - 2003) author of several books, including The Bermuda Triangle, was the grandson of the founder of the world-famous Berlitz schools, wrote:

"If atomic warfare were actually used in the distant past and not just imagined, there must still exist some indications of a civilization advanced enough to develop or even to know about atomic power. One does find in some of the ancient writings of India some descriptions of advanced scientific thinking which seemed anachronistic to the age from which they come.

The Jyotish (400 B. C) echoes the modern concept of the earth's place in the universe, the law of gravity, the kinetic nature of energy, and the theory of cosmic rays and also deals, in specialized but unmistakable vocabulary, with the theory of atomic rays. And what was thousands of years before the medieval theologians of Europe argued about the number of angels that could fit on the head of a pin. Indian philosophers of the Vaisesika school were discussing atomic theory, speculating about heat being the cause of molecular change, and calculating the period of time taken by an atom to traverse its own space. Readers of the Buddhist pali sutra and commentaries, who studied them before modern times, were frequently mystified by reference to the "tying together" of minute component parts of matter; although nowadays it is easy for a model reader to recognize an understandable description of molecular composition."

(source: Doomsday 1999 - By Charles Berlitz p. 123-124).

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: Path

ways 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 quick silver 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?

For more refer to chapter on Sacred Angkor

Chariots of The Gods

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Erich Von Daniken author of the International Bestseller book, Chariots of The Gods, writes:

" For example, how did the chronicler of the Mahabharata know that a weapon capable of punishing a country with a twelve years' drought could exist? And powerful enough to kill the unborn in their mothers womb? This ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata, is more comprehensive than the Bible, and even at a conservative estimate its original core is at least 5,000 years old. It is well worth reading this epic in the light of the present day knowledge.

We shall not be surprised when we learn in the Ramayana that Vimanas, i.e. flying machines, navigated at great heights with the aid of quicksilver and a great propulsive wind. the Vimanas could cover vast, distances and could travel forward, upward and downward. Enviably maneuverable space vehicles!.

This quotation comes from the translation by N. Dutt in 1891: "At Rama's behest the magnificent chariot rose up to a mountain of cloud with a tremendous din.." We cannot help noticing that not only is a flying object mentioned again but also that the chronicler talks of a tremendous din.

Here is another passage from the Mahabharata: "Bhisma 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." ( C.Roy 1899).

Even imagination needs something to start off. How can the chronicler give descriptions that presuppose at least some idea of rockets and the knowledge that such a vehicle can ride on a ray and cause a terrifying thunder?

Certain numerical data in the Mahabharata are so precise that one gets the impression that the author was writing from first-hand knowledge. Full of repulsion, he describes a weapon that could kill all warriors who wore metal on their bodies. If the warriors learned about the effect of this weapon in time, they tore off all the metal equipment they were wearing, jumped into a river, and washed everything they were wearing, and everything they had come in contact with very thoroughly. Not without reason, as the author explains, for the weapons made the hair and nails fall out. Everything living, he bemoaned, became pale and weak.

The Mahabharata says: "Time is the seed of the Universe."

In the Samarangana Sutradhara whole chapters are

devoted to describing airships whose tails spout fire and quicksilver.

A passage from the Mahabharata is bound to make us think:

"It was as if the elements had been unleashed. The sun spun round. Scorched by the incandescent heat of the weapon, the world reeled in fever. Elephants were set on fire by the heat and ran to and fro in a frenzy to seek protection from the terrible violence. The water boiled, the animals died, the enemy was mown down and the raging of the blaze made the trees collapse in rows as in a forest fire. The elephants made a fearful trumpeting and sank dead to the ground over a vast area. Horses and war chariots were burnt up and the scene looked like the aftermath of a conflagration. Thousands of chariots were destroyed, then deep silence descended on the sea. The winds, began to blow and the earth grew bright. It was a terrible sight to see. The corpses of the fallen were mutilated by the terrible heat so that they no longer looked like human beings. Never before have we seen such a ghastly weapon and never before have we heard of such a weapon. (C. Roy 1889).

(source: Chariots of The Gods - By Erich Von Daniken p. 56 - 60). For more on Mahabharata, refer to chapter on Hindu Scriputres, War in Ancient India and Yantras).

Vymaanika Shaastra Aeronautics of Maharshi Bharadwaaja - By G. R. Josyer (excerpts)

Rahasyagnyodhikaaree - Sutra 2.

"The pilot is one who knows the secrets"

Bodhaanada: Scientists say that there are 32 secrets of the working of the Vimaana. A pilot should acquaint himself thoroughly with them before he can be deemed competent to handle the aeroplane. He must know the structure of the aeroplane, know the means of its take off and ascent to the sky, know how to drive it and how to halt it when necessary, how to maneuver it and make it perform spectacular feats in the sky without crashing. Those secrets are given in "Rahashya Lahari" and other works by Lalla and other masters, are are described thus:

"The pilot should have had training in maantrica and taantrica, kritaka and antaraalaka, goodha or hidden, drishya and adrishya or seen and unseen, paroksha and aparoksha, contraction and expansion, changing shape, look frightening, look pleasing, become luminous or enveloped in darkness, deluge or pralaya, vimukha, taara, stun by thunderstorm din, jump, move zig-zag like serpent, chaapala, face all sides, hear distant sounds, take pictures, know enemy maneuver, know direction of enemy approach, stabdhaka or paralyse, and karshana or exercise magnetic pull.

These 32 secrets the pilot should learn from competent preceptors and only such a person is fit to be entrusted with an aeroplane, and not others.

Some of these secrets are:

1. Goodha: As explained in 'Vaayutatva-Prakarana', by harnessing the powers, Yaasaa, Viyaasaa, Prayaasaa in the 8th atmospheric layer covering the earth, to attract the dark content of the solar ray, and use it to hide the Vimana from the enemy.

2. Drishya: By collision of the electric power and wind power in the atmosphere, a glow is created, whose reflection is to be caught in the Vishwa-Kriya-drapana or mirror at the front of the Vimana, and by its manipulation produce a Maaya-Vimana or camouflaged Vimana.

3. Vimukha: As mentioned in "Rig-hridaya", by projecting the force of Kubera, Vimukha and Vyshawaanara poison powder through the third tube of the roudree mirror and turning the switch of the air mechanism, produce wholesale insensibility and coma.

4. Roopaakarshana: By means of the photographic yantra in the Vimana to obtain a television view of things inside an enemy's plane.

5. Stabdhak: By projecting apasmaara poison fume smoke through the tube on the north side on the Vimana, and discharging it with stambhana yantra, people in enemy planes will be made unconscious.

6. Chaapla: On sighting an enemy plane, by turning the switch in the force center in the middle section of the Vimana, a 4087 revolutions an hour atmospheric wave speed will be generated, and shake up the enemy plane.

7. Parashabda Graahaka: As explained in the "Sowdaaminee Kalaa: or science of electronics, by means of the sound capturing yantra in the Vimana, to hear the talks and sound in enemy planes flying in the sky.

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According to Shownaka, the regions of the sky are 5, named, Rekhaapathaha, Mandala, Kakshaya, shakti and Kendra. In these 5 atmospheric regions, ther are 5,19,800 air ways traversed by Vimanas of the Seven Lokas or worlds, known as Bhooloka, Bhuvarloka, Suvarloka, Maholoka, Janoloka, Tapoloka and Satyaloka. Dhundinaatha and "Valalmeeki Ganita" state that Rekha has 7,03,00,800 air routes. Mandala has 20,08,00200 air routes, Kakshya has 2,09,00,300 air routes, Shakti has 10,01,300 air routes, and Kendra has 30,08,200 air routes.

It discusses what kind of food to eat, clothing to wear, metals for vimanas, purification of metals, deals with mirrors and lenses which are required to be installed in the vimaanas, mechanical contrivances or yantras and protecting and different types of vimaanas.

(source: Vymaanika Shaastra Aeronautics of Maharshi Bharadwaaja - By G. R. Josyer International Academy of Sanskrit Research 1973).

Also Refer to Vymanika Shashtra - Aeronautical Society of India.

Stealth bomber from shastra

A glass-like material based on technology found in an ancient Sanskrit text that could ultimately be used in a stealth bomber (the material cannot be detected by radar) has been developed by a research scholar of Benaras Hindu University.

Prof M A Lakshmithathachar, Director of the Academy of Sanskrit Research in Melkote, near Mandya, told Deccan Herald that tests conducted with the material showed radars could not detect it. “The unique material cannot be traced by radar and so a plane coated with it cannot be detected using radar,” he said.

The academy had been commissioned by the Aeronautical Research Development Board, New Delhi, to take up a one-year study, ‘Non-conventional approach to Aeronautics,’ on the basis of an old text, Vaimanika Shastra, authored by Bharadwaj.

Though the period to which Bharadwaj belonged to is not very clear, Prof Lakshmithathachar noted, the manuscripts might be more 1,000 years old. The project aims at deciphering the Bharadwaj’s concepts in aviation. However, Prof Lakshmithathachar was quick to add that a collaborative effort from scholars of Sanskrit, physics, mathematics and aeronautics is needed to understand Bharadwaj’s shastra.

The country’s interest in aviation can be traced back over 2,000 years to the mythological era and the epic Ramayana tells of a supersonic-type plane, the Pushpak Vimana, which could fly at the speed of thought.

Nine planetary deities.

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“The shastra has interesting information on vimanas (airplanes), different types of metals and alloys, a spectrometer and even flying gear,” the professor said. The shastra also outlines the metallurgical method to prepare an alloy very light and strong which could withstand high pressure.

He said Prof Dongre of BHU had brought out a research paper Amshubondhini after studying Vaimanika Shastra and developed the material. “There have been sporadic efforts to develop aeronautics in the country’s history. There has never been a holistic approach to it. Vaimanika Shastra throws up many interesting details that can benefit Indian aviation programme,” the director added.

Prof Lakshmithathachar rubbished the tendency among certain scholars to discount such ancient Sanskrit texts and said, “Why would our scholars want to cheat future generations? Unless it was important, nothing was written in the old days. The fact that there exists manuscripts indicates the significance.”

The academy has also embarked on other projects including ‘Indian concept of Cosmology’ with Indian Space Research Organisation, ‘Iron & Steel in Ancient India — A Historical Perspective’ with the Steel Authority of India Limited, and ‘Tools & Technology of Ancient India.’

(source: Stealth bomber from shastra - deccan herald November 2, 02).

For more refer to chapters on Sanskrit and War in Ancient India. Also Refer to Vymanika Shashtra - Aeronautical Society of India.

Ancient nuclear blasts - By Alexander Pechersky

The great ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata, contains numerous legends about the powerful force of a mysterious weapon.

The archaeological expedition, which carried out excavations near the Indian settlement of Mohenjo-Daro in the beginning of the 1900s, uncovered the ruins of a big ancient town. The town belonged to one of the most developed civilizations in the world. The ancient civilization existed for two or three thousand years. However, scientists were a lot more interested in the death of the town, rather than in its prosperity. Researchers tried to explain the reason of the town's destruction with various theories. However, scientists did not find any indications of a monstrous flood, skeletons were not numerous, there were no fragments of weapons, or anything else that could testify either to a natural disaster or a war. Archaeologists were perplexed: according to their analysis the catastrophe in the town had occurred very unexpectedly and it did not last long.

Scientists Davneport and Vincenti put forward an amazing theory. They stated the ancient town had been ruined with a nuclear blast. They found big stratums of clay and green glass. Apparently, archaeologists supposed, high temperature melted clay and sand and they hardened immediately afterwards. Similar stratums of green glass can also found in Nevada deserts after every nuclear explosion.

A hundred years have passed since the excavations in Mohenjo-Daro. The modern analysis showed, the fragments of the ancient town had been melted with extremely high temperature - not less than 1,500 degrees centigrade. Researchers also found the strictly outlined epicenter, where all houses were leveled. Destructions lessened towards the outskirts. Dozens of skeletons were found in the area of Mohenjo-Daro - their radioactivity exceeded the norm almost 50 times.

The great ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata, contains numerous legends about the powerful force of a mysterious weapon. One of the chapters tells of a shell, which sparkled like fire, but had no smoke. "When the shell hit the ground, the darkness covered the sky, twisters and storms leveled the towns. A horrible blast burnt thousands of animals and people to ashes. Peasants, townspeople and warriors dived in the river to wash away the poisonous dust."

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Modern people divide the day into 24 hours, the hour - into 60 minutes, the minute - into 60 seconds. Ancient Hindus divided the day in 60 periods, lasting 24 minutes each, and so on and so forth. The shortest time period of ancient Hindus made up one-three-hundred-millionth of a second.

(source: Ancient nuclear blasts and levitating stones of Shivapur - By Alexander Pechersky - pravda.ru.com). For more refer to chapter on Aryan Invasion Theory and Advanced Concepts and Hindu Cosmology. Also Refer to Vymanika Shashtra - Aeronautical Society of India.

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Did Man Reach The Moon Thousands Of Years Ago? - By John Winston

Indications of the reality of ancient space travel do come from widely separated parts of the world. Written and oral tradition is widespread - and, it seems, reliable.

There is a tendency in scientific circles nowadays to regard ancient documents and even mythology and folklore - as sources of history. Anthony Roberts expresses it this way: "Legends are like time-capsules that preserve their contents through ages of ignorance." In regard to some of the chronicles cited hereafter, internal evidence will carry its own proofs of authenticity. My first source is an old manuscript described by James Churchward, the English scholar who wrote decades before people spoke of artificial satellites and spaceships.

1 - INDIA: Vehicles that could revolve around the earth (i.e., satellites): "Their fuel is drawn from the air in a very simple and cheap way. The motor is something like a modern turbine: it works from one chamber to another and does not stop or stall unless switched off. If nothing happens it continues to function. The ship in which it is built could revolve as long as it liked around Earth, only falling when the parts of which it is made were burnt up.

2 - INDIA: Philosophers and scientists who orbited the earth "below the moon and above the clouds" are spoken of in the ancient Surya Siddhanta.

Giant satellites made of shiny metal and turning about an axis are described in detail in ancient Sanskrit texts, right down to their dimensions and interiors, as well as smaller craft that fly between them and the earth.

The Mahabharata describes "two storey sky chariots with many windows, ejecting red flame, that race up into the sky until they look like comets . . . to the regions of both the sun and the stars."

Other references speak of:

* Pushan sailing in golden ships across the ocean of the sky

* Garuda (a celestial bird) carrying Lord Vishnu in cosmic journeys

* Aerial flights "through the region of the sky firmament which is above the region of the winds"

* The Ancients of Space Dimensions.

(source: Did Man Reach The Moon Thousands Of Years Ago? - By John Winston - rense.com). For more refer to chapter on Hindu Scriptures and Advanced Concepts and Hindu Cosmology. Also Refer to Vymanika Shashtra - Aeronautical Society of India.

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High-Tech Vedic Culture

Like it or not, the Vedic cosmological treatises are loaded with references to aircraft and devastating weapons. There is no way to ignore the plain fact. Yet, most Indology experts have managed to do just that. How do you overlook or trivialize these innumerable descriptions? It is impossible to escape them unless your mind is already made up to reject them. Discard them you must, because mainstream academia will not consider that humans in remote antiquity could have been advanced – not to mention expert – in a technology far more subtle than the crudities we are proud of today. Remember, even a simple concept like intelligent life on other planets still raises eyebrows at the academy.

Vedic technology does not resemble our world of nuts and bolts, or even microchips. Mystic power, especially manifest as sonic vibration plays a major role. The right sound – vibrated as a mantra, can launch terrible weapons, directly kill, summon beings from other realms, or even create exotic aircraft.

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Air Vimana

Aircraft in the Vedic literature are generally referred to as Vimanas. Especially throughout the Mahabharata, Bhagavata Purana, and the Ramayana, these flying devices appear.

The Vimanas described in the Vedas are generally of four types:

• Single or two-passenger aircraft;

• Huge airships for interplanetary pleasure trips;

• Huge military aircraft for warfare;

• Self-sufficient flying cities (‘space stations”) for indefinite stay in space.

The third canto of the Bhagavata Purana presents a lengthy account of the yogi Kardama Muni’s aeronautical adventures. With his mystic power, he produced an aerial-mansion type of vimana and took his wife Devahut on a pleasure tour of the universe. His airship was virtually a flying palace, replete with every possible luxury.

“He traveled in that way through the various planets, as the air passes uncontrolled in every direction. Coursing through the air in that great and splendid aerial mansion, which could fly at his will, he surpassed even the demigods.” (Shrimad Bhagavatam 3.21.41).

The Vedic epic of Ramayan provides details of a majestic aerial mansion vimana.

Hanuman saw in the middle of that residential quarter the great aerial-mansion vehicle called Pushpaka-vimana, decorated with pearls and diamonds, and featured with artistic windows made of refined gold.

“It was a very big machine, almost like a big city, and it could fly so high and at such a great speed that it was almost impossible to see

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" None could gauge its power nor effect its destruction….it was poised in the atmosphere without support. It had the capacity to go anywhere. It stood in the sky like a milestone in the path of the sun. It could fly in any direction that one wanted. It had chambers of remarkable beauty…Knowing the intentions of the master, it could go anywhere at high speed.”

In both the Mahabharata and the Bhagavata Purana, we get an account of a huge military aircraft belonging to a hostile enemy named Shalva. The parallels with modern UFO reports are inescapable. Here is a summary of the Vedic version:

“It was a very big machine, almost like a big city, and it could fly so high and at such a great speed that it was almost impossible to see; so there was no question of attacking it. It appeared to be almost covered in darkness, yet the pilot could fly it anywhere and everywhere. Having acquired such a wonderful airplane, Shalva flew it to the city of Dwaraka, because his main purpose in obtaining the airplane was to attack the city of the Yadus, toward whom he maintained a constant feeling of animosity.

The airplane occupied by Shalva was very mysterious. It was so extraordinary that sometimes many airplanes would appear to be in the sky, and sometimes there were apparently none. Sometimes the plane was visible and sometimes not visible, and the warriors of the Yadu dynasty were puzzled about the whereabouts of the peculiar airplane. Sometimes they would see the airplane on the ground, sometimes flying in the sky, sometimes resting on the peak of a hill, and sometimes floating on the water. The wonderful airplane flew in the sky like a whirling firebrand – it was not steady even for a moment.”

Page after page of modern UFO reports put forward the same characteristics: glowing luminescence, logic-defying movements, as well as sudden appearances and disappearances.

Sanskritist J. A. B. Van Buitenen also saw relevant parallels in Shalva account. Renowned in academia for his scholarly notated rendition of the Mahabharata, van Buitenen comments on the eventual destruction of Shalva’s aircraft and its personnel by Krishna:

“Here we have an account of a hero who took these visiting astronauts for what they were: intruders and enemies. The aerial city is nothing but an armed camp….no doubt a spaceship. The name of the demons is also revealing: they were Nivatakavacas, “clad in airtight armor,” which can hardly be anything but spacesuits.”

The Mahabharata also challenges us with the exploits of self-sufficient cities stationed in outer space. Depending on no other planet or physical locale for support, these space stations, as we can call them, cruised in space indefinitely. Arjuna, the hero of the Mahabharata, attacked a space station named Hiranyapura, peopled by dangerous entities of the malefic Daitya races.

Eluding Arjuna’s pursuit, the space city abandoned its position in outer space and took shelter of Earth. Resembling the reported behavior of modern UFO, the besieged flying city attempted to escape underwater. It also fled underground. Arjuna was able to follow the Daitya space station wherever it tried to escape on Earth. Then, as the city took off for outer space again, he blasted it – breaking it apart. When debris and bodies fell to the Earth, the Mahabharata describes that Arjuna landed to make sure no survivors were hiding amidst the wreckage.

(source: Searching for Vedic India – By Devamrita Swami p. 473 - 480).

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Disdain and Fantasies?

Claim Indologists Eurocentrism at its best

A L Basham in his book, The Wonder that Was India: “ The arms of ancient India were not appreciably different from those of early civilizations. Efforts have been made by some scholars, not all of them Indian, to show that firearms and even flying machines were known, but this is certainly not the case. The one clear reference to firearms occurs in Sukra, which is late medieval, and the passage in question is probably an interpolation of Mughal times. The mysterious and magical weapons of the Epics, slaying hundreds at a blow and dealing fire and death all around them, must be the product of the poet’s imagination. “

(source: The Wonder that Was India - By A L Basham p. 132 - 133). For more refer to chapter on Sacred Angkor

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Dare we admit that the ancient Vedic people regarded flight as an ordinary part of their life? To an open mind, the many references would seem to justify that conclusion.

Mysteries from Forgotten Worlds Charles Berlitz (1914 - 2003) grandson of the man who founded the famous Berlitz language schools and author of several books has written:

"There is, however, another semi-historical indication of catastrophic destruction initiated and caused by man or gods acting like men, which is recorded in the Mahabharata, sometimes called the Illiad of ancient India (but over eight times as long as Homer) and therefore more comprehensive and also explicit in detail. The Mahabharata is essentially a huge compendium of religious teachings, customs, history and legends concerning the gods and heroes of ancient India. The Hindu classic preserves bits of information from an older world that are not only picturesque but sometimes rather alarming.

When western students first began to study and comment on the Mahabharata during the period of British rule in India, certain detailed references to ancient air ships (Vimanas) including even how to construct them and how they were powered, mater of fact descriptions of controlled fire power in warfare, rockets, and even the “arrow of unconsciousness” (mohanastra) which rendered armies helpless.

Early scholars customarily considered these references, decades before the invention of airplanes or poison gas, as poetic hyperbole and were accustomed in the words of V Ramachandra Dikshitar, “…to glibly characterize everything in this literature as imagination and summarily dismiss it as unreal…”

Students of the Victorian era would, of course, have little understanding or feeling of coincidence in descriptions of “two story sky chariots with many windows” blazing with red flames “that race up into the sky until they look like comets,” or ships that “soared into the air to the regions of both the sun and the stars.”

Some of these descriptions may have been enigmatical to scholars of the last century who read and translated them but they are not especially mysterious or hard to understand to almost anyone alive today or who may still be alive in an uncertain future. The following excerpts from the Mahabharata and the Ramanyana are startlingly familiar to us in spite of the thousands of intervening years, telling of:

"A single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and flame, as bright as ten thousand Suns, arose in all its splendor… "

…it was unknown weapon, 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. Their hair and nails fell out; pottery broke without any apparent cause, and the birds turned white. After a few hours, all foodstuff were infected.

And especially the following:

…to escape from this fire the soldiers threw themselves in streams to wash themselves and all their equipment….

The destruction of the enemy army by the “iron thunderbolt” (certainly a more logical name than the “Fat Man” dropped on Nagasaki) is described in the following excerpt from the

Samsaptaka-Badha Parva of the Drona Parva in an effective and poetic manner:

….The Vayu (the presiding deity of that mighty weapon) bore away crowds of Samsaptakas with steeds and elephants and cars and weapons, as if these were dry leaves of trees…Borne away by the wind O King, they looked highly beautiful like flying birds…flying away from trees….”

And again, in the Naryamastra Mokshana Parva (Drona Parva), reference is made to the “Agneya Weapon” incapable of being resisted by the very gods.

Meteors flashed down from the firmament…A thick gloom suddenly shrouded the host. All points of the compass were enveloped by that darkness…Inauspicious winds began to blow…the sun seemed to turn round, the universe, scorched with heat, seemed to be in a fever. The elephants and other creatures of the land, scorched by the energy of that weapon, ran in flight….The very waters being heated, the creatures residing in that element began to burn..hostile warriors fell down like trees burnt down in a raging fire- huge elephants burnt by that weapon, fell down on the earth…uttering fierce cries …others (s) scorched by the fire ran hither and thither, as in the midst of a forest conflagration, the steeds…and the cars (chariots) also burnt by the energy of that weapon looked…like the tops of trees burnt in a forest fire…”

The after effects to the earth, one might infer, noted by some ecologist of prehistory:

…winds dry and strong and showering gravel blew from every side…Birds began to wheel making circles…The horizon on every side seemed to be covered with fog. Meteors – showering blazing coals fell on the earth from the sky…The Sun’ disk…seemed to be always covered with dust…Fierce circles of light were seen every day around both the sun and the moon…A little while after the Kuru king, Yudhishshira heard of the wholesale carnage of the Vrishnis in consequence of the iron bolt…(Mausala Parva).

Even a prayer to the Creator has come down to us, imploring divine intercession to stop the effects of the “final” weapon:

“….O illustrious one – let the threefold universe – the future, the Past and the Present exist. From thy wrath a substance like fire has sprung into existence; even now blistering hills, trees and rivers and all kinds of herbs and grass in the mobile and immobile universe is being reduced to ashes! (Abhimanyu Badha Parva).

A most unusual excerpt from the Mausala Parva contains an oddly modern reminder relative to limitation, destruction and disposal of deadly missiles:

“…an iron bolt through which all the individuals in the race of the Vrishnis and Andhakas became consumed into ashes…a fierce iron bolt that looked like a gigantic messenger of death…In great distress of mind the King caused that iron bolt to be reduced into fine powder. Men were employed, O King, to cast that powder into the sea…”

Scientific marvels or prophecies were simply noted and recorded as they found them, without any attempt at corroboration or thought that they might be re-examined in the light of actually having occurred by future generations.

Historical deja vu?

An early Hindu works, the Surya Siddhanta, describes the earth as a planet with overtones of relativity:

“…Everywhere on the sphere men think their own place to be on top. But since it is a sphere in the void, why should there be an above and an underneath?”

Ancient records in India show a familiarity with most parts of the world, even including such exotic and distant places as Ireland.

Some of the Vedic and Buddhist texts of ancient India, moreover, contain descriptions of linkages of particles of entity, which we can now understand in terms of the atomic theory and molecular interrelation although before access or re-access to this knowledge these passages sounded like pure mystification.

The Indian writer and yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda (1893 -1952) pointed out in 1945 (Year 1 of the Atomic Era) that a system of Hindu Philosophy, the Vaisesika, is derived from the Sanskrit word visesas, which can be translated as “atomic individuality.” According to preserved records in Sanskrit, an Indian named Aulukya, in the 8th century B.C was expounding, in his own words, what clearly seems to be such unexpectedly modern scientific theory as the atomic nature of matter, the spatial expanses between atoms in their own systems, the relativity of time and space, the theory of cosmic rays, the kinetic nature of all energy, the law of gravitation as inherent in “earth” atoms, heat being the cause of molecular change.

(source: Mysteries from forgotten worlds – Charles Berlitz p. 46 - 212 - 216).

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Soaring Through Ancient Skies

The writing of ancient India are perhaps the richest in tales of aviation. The Mahabharata, an epic tells of an "aerial chariot", with the sides of iron and clad with wings,"

The Hindu Samara Sutradhara, a 11th century AD collection of texts dating back to antiquity holds a wealth of information on flight, treating many aspects of aircraft design and even advising on the proper clothing and diet for pilots.

"The aircraft which can go by its own force like a bird is called a Vimana," runs one passage. "The body must be strong and durable and built of light wood, shaped like a bird in flight with wings outstretched. Within it must be placed the mercury engine, with its heating apparatus made of iron underneath."

The text goes on to describe "the energy latent in mercury" at some length; unfortunately, though, it offers little information on how that energy was utilized.

The Ramayana, the great Indian epic describes a double decked circular aircraft with portholes and a dome – a configuration reminiscent of 20 th century flying saucer reports. Fueled by a strange yellowish white liquid, the craft was said to travel at the "speed of wind" attain heights that made the ocean look like "a small pool of water" and stop and hover motionless in the sky.

(source: Feats and Wisdom of the Ancients - Time Life Books p.29).

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Large Symbols Like Peruvian Signs Found on Gujarat Hillside Vadodara, Gujarat, India.

August 6, 2006: Geologists have discovered a striking archaeological feature on a hillock in the Kutch district of the western Indian state of Gujarat. This feature is shaped like the Roman numeral VI. Each arm of this feature is a trench that is about two meters wide, two meters deep and more than 100 meters long. The feature has evoked the curiosity of archaeologists because such signs have mostly been observed so far in Peru. The team, led by Dr RV Karanth, a former professor of geology at the Maharaja Sayajirao University in Vadodara, Gujarat, has been involved in a palaeoseismological study of the Kutch region for the past 11 years Palaeoseismology involves the study of sediments, landforms and other geological evidence of past earthquakes to unravel their history and determine the nature and occurrence of present-day earthquakes. This feature was discovered at a hillock 3km from the sleepy oasis township of Khavda, which is also known as the gateway to the Rann of Kutch, an extensive salt marsh of western India and southeast Pakistan between the Gulf of Kutch and the Indus river delta. Dr. Karanth says such trenches have not been noticed elsewhere in the region. Archaeologists, he says, can now pursue further research. Geometric lines and animal shapes etched into the desert plain by people of the Nazca civilisation (AD 1-700) of Peru are well known. "But such signs on hill-slopes have not been reported from Peru," says Dr. Karanth. He says that one of the prominent explanations given for the Peruvian features is that they may have been constructed to make astronomical observations and calculations. "The Tropic of Cancer passes through Kutch. So if this structure is man-made, it is likely that the slope of the hillock was utilized for making certain astronomical calculations in the past," explains the geologist. Interestingly, there are numerous indications to suggest that Harappans were well-versed in astronomy. The straight streets of that time were oriented in the cardinal directions - east, west, north and south. Linkages between ancient Harappan scripts and latter Vedic texts also suggest that Harappan priest-astronomers tracked the progress of various planets and mapped the sky. Dr. Karanth has also discovered ruins of a fort-wall, houses, storage tank and a temple on the hilltop.

(source: Large Symbols Like Peruvian Signs Found on Gujarat Hillside - bbcnews.co.uk). For more refer to chapter on India on Pacific Waves.

Also refer to Vedic India and the Primordial Tradition - in chapter Glimpses XIX Did You know?

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Oppenheimer and Atom bomb in modern times

Only seven years after the first successful atom bomb blast in New Mexico, Dr. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) Scientist, philosopher, bohemian, and radical. A theoretical physicist and the Supervising Scientist of the Manhattan Project, who was familiar with ancient Sanskrit literature, was giving a lecture at Rochester University. During the question and answer period a student asked a question to which Oppenheimer gave a strangely qualified answer: Student: Was the bomb exploded at Alamogordo during the Manhattan Project the first one to be detonated? Dr. Oppenheimer: "Well -- yes. In modern times, of course. Charles Berlitz goes on to quote a number of passages from the Mahabharata that describe the impact of a weapon that I suspect must be the brahmaastra, although he neither names the weapon nor

cites those sections of the text from which his quotations are drawn (he lists Protap Chandra Roy's translation of 1889 in his bibliography):...a single projectile Charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and flame As bright as ten thousand Suns Rose in all its splendor......it was an unknown weapon, 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. Their 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...

One is reminded of the yet unknown final effect of a super-bomb when we read in the Ramayana of a projectile:

...So powerful that it could destroy The earth in an instant - A great soaring sound in smoke and flames... And on it sits Death...

(source: Doomsday 1999 - By Charles Berlitz p. 118-122). For more on Oppenheimer, refer to Quotes 21-40).

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The Discovery of Dwaraka

Discovered in 1981, the well-fortified township of Dwaraka extended more than half a mile from the shore and was built in six sectors along the banks of a river before it became submerged. The findings are of immense cultural and religious importance to India. Among the objects unearthed that proved Dwarka's connection with the Mahabharata epic was a sea engraved with the image of a three-headed animal. The epic mentions such a seal given to the citizens of Dwarka as a proof of identity when the city was threatened by King Jarasandha of the powerful Magadh kingdom (now Bihar). The foundation of boulders on which the city's walls were erected proves that the land was reclaimed from the sea about 3,600 years ago. The epic has references to such reclamation activity at Dwarka. Seven islands mentioned in it were also discovered submerged in the Arabian Sea.

Why is that the rediscovery of Dwaraka has not attracted the same degree of attention in the West, as that of ancient Troy by Heinrich Schliemann?

(Note: Please refer to Chapter on Dwaraka. For information on Lost city found off Indian coast, refer to chapter on Glimpses III).

For more refer to chapter on Sacred Angkor