Monday, October 16, 2000
Secrets of the Vimana: The Ancient Legends
By- Richard Shand Richard Shand is a baby boomer, born in a small town on the Canadian prairies, Three Hills, Alberta on May 17, 1947, now settled in the US. Richard is a retired computer consultant. He has also developed commercial pages for the Web and art and stories for CD ROMS. He is also an aspiring screenplay writer with a partner well placed in the TV industry. |
 |
(1) An Overview of the Literature
"In various kinds of Asian and South Asian texts, we find references to flying machines and aerial vehicles. Chinese and Indian stories tell of peoples or individual artisans who constructed devices for travelling through the air. The stories take many different forms, including quite fanciful romances. Others present a picture of inventors taking pains to understand the basic principles of flight, and crafting machines of wood to achieve this goal."
- Dr. Benjamin B. Olshin, "Mechanical Mythology: Private Descriptions of Flying Machines as Found in Early Chinese, Korean, Indian, and Other Texts" (draft copy)
The word vimana is purportedly derived from vamana: "he who is able at three strides to take measure of the entire earth and heavens."
"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."
- Richard L. Thompson, Alien Identities, Ancient Insights into Modern UFO Phenomena
"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 Bhagasvatam, 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')."
- 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."
- 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.)
"Taoist tales often tell of adepts or immortals flying through the air. The xian were immortals capable of flight under their own divine power. They were said to be feathered, and a term that has been used for Taoist priests is yu ke, meaning 'feathered guest'. The fei tian, which might be translated as 'flying immortals', also appear in early tales, adding to the numbers of airborne beings in the Chinese mythological corpus."
"The Chinese tales of fei che, flying vehicles, exhibit the first understanding, perhaps, that humans would fly only with some kind of technological apparatus. A hymn written in the second century B.C. speaks of deity appearing in chariots drawn by flying dragons."
- Dr. Benjamin B. Olshin, "Mechanical Mythology: Private Descriptions of Flying Machines as Found in Early Chinese, Korean, Indian, and Other Texts" (draft copy)
(2) The Mahabharata
"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, Ancient Insights into Modern UFO Phenomena
"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."
- Mahabharata
"The Mahabharata, a poem of vast length and complexity, achieved its present form in the second century A.D."
- Reader's Digest Mysteries of the Unexplained
"It is significant that Salva asked for a vehicle that could not be destroyed by Devas, Asuras, Gandharvas, Uragas or Raksasas. These are all powerful races of humanoid beings that were openly active on the earth or in its general environs in Salva's time, and so naturally he wanted to be able to defend himself against them.
"Salva's vehicle is described as an iron city, and thus it must have been metallic in appearance nd quite large....Many Vedic vimanas are described as flying cities, and one is reminded of the very large 'mother-ships' that are sometimes discussed in UFO reports."
- Richard L. Thompson, lien Identities, Ancient Insights into Modern UFO Phenomena
"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
"An Air Force RB-47, equipped with electronic countermeasure (ECM) gear and manned by six officers, was followed by an unidentified object for a distance of well over 700 mi. and for a time period of 1.5 hr., as it flew from Mississippi, through Louisiana and Texas and into Oklahoma. The object was, at various times, seen visually by the cockpit crew as an intensely luminous light, followed by ground-radar and detected on ECM monitoring gear aboard the RB-47. Of special interest in this case are several instances of simultaneous appearances and disappearances on all three of these physically distinct 'channels', and rapidity of maneuvers beyond the prior experience of the air crew."
- July 17, 1957 sighting reported in the journal Astronautics and Aeronautics
"It is significant that Salva dropped such things as snakes, stones, and tree trunks from his vimana. There is no mention of bombs, and it would seem that even though Salva possessed a remarkable flying machine, he did not have the kind of aerial weapons technology used in World War II. He did, however, have a quite different technology, which could be used to affect the weather and produce whirlwinds, thunderbolts, and hailstones."
- Richard L. Thompson, Alien Identities, Ancient Insights into Modern UFO Phenomena
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 Mahabharata
Later, when Saubha becomes invisible, Krishna relates:
"I quickly laid on an arrow, which killed by seeking out sound, to kill them...All the Danavas [troops in Salva's army] who had been screeching lay dead, killed by the blazing sunlike arrows that were triggered by sound."
-The Mahabharata
"But the Saubha itself has escaped the attack, and at last Krishna hurls against it his 'favorite fire weapon', a discus having the shape of the 'haloed sun'. Severed in two by the impact, the aerial city falls down.
"Salva himself is killed, and with his death this episode of The Mahabharata comes to an end."
- Reader's Digest Mysteries of the Unexplained
In another episode the fearful Agneya weapon, "a blazing missile of smokeless fire" is unleashed by the hero Adwattan.
"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 croaked 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."
"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 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..."
- The Mahabharata
"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."
"Futhermore, 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! "
- D. Hatcher Childress, "Ancient Indian Aircraft Technology"
In The Anti-Gravity Handbook
There is another account of such a weapon:
"Cuka, flying on board a high-powered vimana, hurled on to the triple city 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 the splendor... When the vimana returned to Earth, it looked like a splendid block of antimony resting on the ground."
- Mausola Purva
Credits
 Start a discussion on this article
|
