Return of the Vimanas—Detailed Descriptions of Aircraft from Ancient India
Report Topics:
- Hindu literature on the operation of mercury-powered jet engines
- Evidence of high speed and high altitude flights in ancient India
- Descriptions of Vimana flying craft from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata
- Details of mechanical flight operations given in the Vymanika Shastra
- The successful building and launching of a model Vimana in 1895
Full Report:
Without a doubt the most detailed descriptions of flight made ages ago are found in several ancient Sanskrit texts from India, among them the Samarangana Sutradhara. It is a collection of writings compiled by the sage-king Bhoja in the eleventh century, but which in the original date back into unknown antiquity, considered ancient even at that time.
Chapter 31 in the Samarangana contains 230 stanzas that describe aspects of craft construction and flight mechanics in a way above and beyond what the laws of chance would have permitted had the work only been the product of someone’s imagination. Most curious are descriptions in the texts of mercury engines having a heating apparatus of iron underneath:
“In the flying craft four strong containers of mercury must be built into the interior. When these are heated by controlled fire from the iron containers the craft possesses thunder-power through the mercury. The iron engines must have properly welded joints to be filled with mercury and when fire is conducted to the upper part it develops power with the roar of a lion.
“By means of the energy latent in mercury, the driving whirlwind is set in motion and the traveler sitting inside the vehicle may travel in the air to such a distance as to look like a pearl in the sky.”
It is interesting that the element mercury had a special place in the science of the Ancients and of the alchemists of medieval Europe. The British nuclear physicist Edward Neville da Costa Andrade, in a speech delivered at Cambridge in July, 1946, noted that the famed discoverer of the laws of gravitation, Sir Isaac Newton, knew something about the secret of mercury. Quoting Lord Atterbury, a contemporary of Newton, Andrade remarked:
“Modesty teaches us to speak of the ancients with respect, especially when we are not very familiar with their works. Newton, who knew them practically by heart, had the greatest respect for them, and considered them to be men of genius and superior intelligence who had carried their discoveries in every field much further than we today suspect, judging from what remains of their writings. More ancient writings have been lost than have been preserved, and perhaps our new discoveries are of less value than those that we have lost.”
Andrade continued, quoting Newton:
“Because of the way by which mercury may be impregnated, it has been thought fit to be concealed by others that have known it, and therefore may possibly be an inlet to something more noble, not to be communicated without immense danger to the world.”
What it is about mercury that could be of “immense danger” we do not know. Yet it seems apparent that the Ancients were well aware of the practical application of mercury.
In the 1970’s Soviet explorers excavating a cave near Tashkent in the Uzbek S. S. R. discovered a number of conical ceramic pots, each carefully sealed and each containing a single drop of mercury. A description and illustrations were published in several Russian scientific periodicals. There is no clue to what these mercury containers were used for, but they must have been highly treasured and used for something that is beyond our present understanding and technology. It was a secret that was found, used and preserved by a select few—only to be lost again to this day.
As a last note on this subject, modern researchers have discovered a peculiar relationship between mercury and sound. The substance and its vapor are excellent conductors of electricity as well as amplifiers of sound waves. In particular, ultrasonic has the ability to disperse mercury contained within a reaction vessel or boiler. High-frequency sound waves can produce bubbles in liquid mercury, and when the frequency of the bubbles grows to match that of the sound, the bubbles implode and release a sudden burst of heat. Is this the secret behind mercury propulsion in the ancient Vimanas?
In a far earlier work, the Arthasastra of Kautilya, dating from the 3rd century B.C.E., mention is made of various tradesmen called Saubhikas (“those that know the art of flying”) who were “pilots conducting vehicles into the sky.” In another early work, the Vedic Satapatha Brahmana, a ship is described called the Agnihotra which was powered with two types of fires—ahavaniya and garhapatya—which when combined in a specific mixture allowed the craft to be steered heavenward.
In the Rig Veda Samhita are depicted the winged ships of the mysterious Asvin peoples, who used their vehicles to rescue people in trouble. Three movements were ascribed to these craft—ascending, cruising and descending—and by such means the Asvins could rise up to the Surya-mandala or Solar Regions, and even into the Naksatra-mandala or Stellar Regions, as well as travel throughout the Regions of the Sea and the Earth.
The Rig Veda designated the flying ships as Ratha, and depicted them as possessing a very high speed. This aerial vehicle was triangular, large, three-tiered, and was piloted by three tribandhura or pilots. It had three wheels, was made of three kinds of metal, having long nails or rivets attached to it, and had three types of propellant. It soared like a bird and came down to earth with great sound.
The general configuration of the craft was shown as triangular, with a central cabin measuring on average about nine by nine feet, enough room to accommodate seven or eight passengers including the pilots.
The Hindu epic poem the Ramayana spoke of a great flying chariot called the Vimana, from the Sanskrit word vamana, meaning “that which in three strides can take measure of the entire earth and heavens.” The craft was portrayed as “an aerial and excellent car going everywhere at will, that car resembling a bright cloud in the sky,” which had the ability to “rise up into the higher atmosphere.”
Some of these vehicles were also said to have large windows, and were double-decked with many compartments and excellent seats.
The Vimana came in different sizes, some called the Ahnihotra-Vimana having two engines, and others named the Ganesha-Vimana mounted with still more engines and having a larger payload.
One description reads:
“An aerial chariot, the Pushpaka, conveyed many people to the capital city. There the sky was full of stupendous flying machines, at night reflected in the city lights with a yellowish glare.”
The Pushpaka appears to have been utilized primarily for commercial purposes. Every day it flew cargo from ancient Ceylon to Ayodhaya, a distance of about 1,800 miles. Making two stops aong the way, this larger but slower form of the Vimana took nine hours to make the flight, which means it was traveling over 200 miles an hour.
In other locations in the Ramayana the Vimanas were further portrayed appearing as a comet flying overhead. In the Mahavira Charita the hero Rama and his wife Sita, voyaging in the Vimana of Vishishara, notice that they are so high that they could see the stars appearing in the daytime. Other texts portray the Vimana in flight having “flutes and drums following after it,” reminding us of the high-pitched whine and low rumblings of a modern jet engine taking off. The fact that the sounds are described as “following after” the craft is an observation that could only be made if the Vimana had the ability to travel faster than the speed of sound.
In another Hindu epic poem, the Mahabharata, an individual pilot named Asura Maya was said to possess a Vimana measuring twelve cubits in circumference, with four strong wheels for landing. Another flyng hero, Bhima, owned a Vimana that was “resplendent as the sun and loud as thunder, and shown like a flame in the night sky of summer. When this winged chariot rose up, all the heavens brightened.”
Another description noted:
“The Vimana had all necessary equipment. It could not be overcome. It radiated light and reverberated with a deep rumbling sound. Its beauty captivated the minds of all those who beheld it.”
A particularly powerful vehicle was depicted in the Mahabharata in the following manner:
“Indra’s Vimana imbued with great radiance and driven by the powers of matali (?), divided the clouds and illuminated the sky, filling it with its roar. Propellers furnished with wheels, working with atmospheric expansion, produced sounds loud as the roar of great masses of clouds. The Vimana moved with such speed that the eye could scarcely follow it.”
Modern Sanskrit scholar Professor D. K. Kanjilal from West Bengal, who has done exhaustive research on the various Vimana texts, gave this condensed description of one form of craft:
“Apart from the three pilots, it could accommodate about 7 or 8 people, and was probably amphibious, because it could come down safely at sea and then return to the shore. The flying vehicle as it moved on the earth left marks of its wheels. It had scheduled flights, three in the day and three at night. There is a graphic description of the aerial vehicle belonging to the Maruts. The buildings trembled, trees and small plants were uprooted by the violent wind, the caves in the hills were resounded, and the sky seemed to be torn asunder, or churned, owing to the great speed and the loud noice of the vehicle.”
In the Lomaka Jataka are descriptions of flying craft made from four different metals that also had the ability to plunge to the bottom of the sea. In the tenth century collection of works called the Kathasaritsagata, a giant-sized Vimana was portrayed that had four separate mechanical constructions allowing it to move on land, in the air, in water, and through extreme heat or fire. The craft could travel 2,000 miles without stopping. One of these owned by King Naravahanadutta carried up to a thousand people.
However, according to still other Sanskrit sources, eventually the misuse of Vimanas for aerial warfare in the Great Bharata War caused the prehistoric civilization of Rama and other epic heroes to be lost, along with the technical knowledge of flight itself.
One of the most fascinating works from the unknown past that dealt with a forgotten knowledge of the technology of flying, is the Sanskrit work, the Vymanika Shastra. The story behind this work began in 1885 when B. Suryanarain Rao, a publisher in Madras, met the venerable sage and intellectual Brahmin Pandit Sabbaraya Sastry. In Sastry’s possession were the manuscripts of Mararshi Bhadwaji who years before had spent most of his life collecting the traditions and records of ancient sciences, gleaned from oral traditions and written down upon books of birch backs and palm leaves at least a thousand years old. Even so, the knowledge and written words took the form of commentaries on still older scientific treatises going back many millennia before.
Rao was so impressed by this vast accumulation of forgotten wisdom that he urged Sastry to begin compiling the materials into a single volume.
In 1911, Rao published the first portions in a magazine entitled Bhowthika Kala Nidhi—Treasure House of Physical Science—and between 1918 and 1923 the full-length book, the Vymanika Shastra, was completed.
Yet Rao was unable to find a suitable publisher, and after Sastry’s death in the 1930’s, nothing more was done to see that the manuscript got the attention it deserved. Finally, in 1951, Sastry’s grandson, Sri Venkatrama Sastry of Mysore, presented the material to the newly formed International Academy of Sanskrit Research, who took an immediate interest in it.
Over the next year scholar G. R. Josyer, the Academy’s director, headed a team to translate the work into English. It was no small undertaking, for the Vymanika is almost six thousand lines long, arranged in three thousand verses which are lucid but highly technical, with several interspersed sections almost totally untranslatable because they name chemical compounds, pieces of machinery, engineering applications and the like which have no modern equivalents.
The language of the work is also very old. The American Oriental Society later identified the script as Classical Sanskrit, dating between the third and seventh centuries A.D., with some elements of wording and grammar showing that some portions either date back or were copied from texts far more ancient.
The original Mysore translation was published in 1952, and though only a limited number of editions exist, the Vymanika Shastra stands as a unique look at the true science and technology of the Ancients.
In the first Sutra or section of chapter One, the Vimana craft is described in general terms.
In the second Sutra the pilots are said to require knowledge of the “32 secrets of the workings” of the craft.
According to the lost work entitled Rahasyalahari, these secrets and their manipulations were determined by understanding energies which are “hidden, seen and unseen,” that are subject to “contraction and expansion” and can “become luminous or enveloped in darkness.” By using these mysterious energies the pilot in his Vimana craft may “stun by thunderous din, jump, move zigzag, hear distant sounds, take pictures, know enemy maneuvers, know the direction of enemy approach, paralyze and exercise magnetic pull.”
In the third Sutra the pilots are revealed as having extremely intimate knowledge of the Earth’s atmosphere, including lines of travel at specific altitudes, along which the Vimana moved:
“According to Shownaka, the regions of the sky are five, named Rekhaapathha, Mandala, Kakshya, Shakti and Kendra. In these five atmospheric regions, there are 5,198 air ways traversed by the Vimanas of the Seven Lokas or worlds. Dhundinaatha and the Valameeki Ganita state that Rekha has 738 air routes, Mandala has 282 air routes, Kakshya has 293 air routes, Shakti has 113 air routes, and Kendra has 382 air routes.”
The fourth Sutra refers to five major “whirlpools” of energy in the northern hemisphere that pilots are warned to fly through with caution, corresponding to the five northern points of magnetic anomalies in the Earth’s old Crystal grid system. These “whirlpools,” the Sage Bharadwaji observed, were created by the interaction of the Earth energies, wind, solar rays and temperature influxes.
Sutras six through twelve deal specifically with the clothing of the Vimana pilots, the diet they were instructed to eat and the times of day and the seasons certain foods were to be consumed. The texts in these sections demonstrate that the Ancients had a deep understanding of the subtle inter-relationships and inter-actions the energies of the cosmos, the Earth, and human life, and specifically the effects of materials and the ingestion of food had on the vibratory frequencies of the body. As one example is this excerpt:
“According to the Pata-samskara Ratnakara, silk, cotton, moss, hair, mica, leather, are to be purified by 25 processes, washed with mica-saturated water, and spun into yarn as prescribed by Galava. Then fibers from the ketaki flower palm, arka or swallow wort of madar, sun flower, coconut and jute, should be purified 8 times as prescribed and by 19 processes, spun into yarn, and woven into cloth. As prescribed by Agnimitra on handing the cloth to the pilot to wear, they should be conferred benediction, given a protective amulet and then sent out with cheers. It will ward off negative influences, promote fitness and health of mind, and improve their strength, energy and competence.”
Another portion of the text states:
“The 10 forces in the aerial atmosphere, colliding with the 1/16th force of the watery sky in the seventh region, at the full-new moon conjunctions, produce maleficent effects. The beneficent effects are during the full moon period, and the maleficent effects during the new moon period. 25 maleficent poisonous forces known as Bhedinee, tend to paralyze the pilot’s physical efficiency. That is avoided by altering their food according to the seasons. So says the sage Shatatapa.”
Beginning with the thirteenth Sutra, the treatise turns its attention to the technical aspects of the Vimana craft itself. Chapter Two is devoted to describing the metal mixing process, and the instruments used for their manufacture.
Chapter Three is a short study of the various types of mirrors used by the Vimana pilot, one of which—the Rowdee-darpana mirror—sounds very much like a laser weapon, for its depicted as having the power to “liquefy everything it flashes against.” In combat, “Samaohana-kriya-kanda says by a mixing or rowdree and solar rays an evil force called maraka is generated, and impelled by the solar electricity, it destroys the enemy planes.”
Chapter Four focuses on the power sources of the Vimana, which are said to be seven in number and are the combination of energies of the environment. Sutra one states:
“There are seven sources of power of the Vimana—fire, earth, air, sun, moon, water and sky. The seven kinds of power are named udgama, panhjara, solar head absorber, alien force absorber, solar electric dozen, kuntinee, and primary force.”
Five of these powers were combined together in the yantra or dynamo called Sadyojata, and this was responsible for the levitation and propulsion of the craft.
Chapter Five describes the various “mechanical contrivances” of the Vimana, their positions in the craft, their production and their uses. One device, called the “electric yantra,” used a crystal, solar energy and mercury for taking photographs.
In another portion, details are given for the manufacture of what appears to be a solar collector for powering various electrical instruments aboard the Vimana. According to Dr. Ronald P. Anjard, who has done extensive research on the ancient text, this mysterious mirror appears to have been part of a general power system of the Vimana. As he observed from the treatise, the craft operated by the power generated by solar rays using “electric crystals.”
This description is followed by two pages of other directions ending with the words, “thereby electricity could be spread all through the Vimana.”
Throughout the remaining text of Chapter Five—by far the longest of the treatise—are repeated references to the utilization of the energies of the sun, moon, planets, stars, the Earth, the mind, sound, crystal vibrations, atmospheric electricity, and still subtler forces which permeate the Solar system and beyond. The energies the texts say were employed even included aspects of nature and the Earth we can only begin to imagine. One manufacturing process, for example, described the use of, “badaba sound from the sky, life-giving aspects of water, the fire of air from the atmosphere, the echoing quality of stones and the splitting quality from solar rays.”
Everywhere in these texts the compilers and collectors of the work can be seen as trying to remain as faithful as possible in copying and translating the ancient words, yet on the other hand they are at a loss as to the exact interpretation or application of what the texts are describing. Significantly, even though more than a century has passed since the texts were first brought together and studied, we today can fair no better at a complete understanding, for the technical phrasings and terms depicting advanced processes and energies employed belong to a science still as yet several steps beyond ours today.
The Sixth and last Chapter of the Vymanika Shastra is perhaps the most revealing, for it recounts the historical development of the Vimana, and places it within the context of the passing of several World Ages, each with their own civilization.
The earliest remembered World Age was the Krita Yuga, a time when men did not need machines, but exercised direct mental control of the forces of the Earth and nature—the Golden Age.
After the end of the Golden Age, however:
“Men’s minds became dense, and the conception of Vedic truths, and anima and other supersensory powers, became scarcer. Therefore, by the corrosion of dharma or righteousness, men lost the power of flying in the sky at the speed of wind, and thus for traveling in the sky, propagated the art of manufacturing Vimanas.”
Of these, the first two types of craft—the mantrikas and tantrikas—were imbued with words of power, sound, chants and vibrations of the forces of nature. A third type—the kritikas—used primarily physical forms of energy: solar power, electricity, wind, petroleum, hot air and the like.
With the end of Treta Yuga and the commencement of the present Kali Yuga World Age, the energies of the mantrika and tantrika vehicles were forgotten, and Vimanas became only of the kritika type. As Indian researcher Kanjilal concluded:
“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 was equally lost. Such discontinuity of technical knowledge of a particular science within the known period of history is not an impossible factor.”
Author and investigator of anomalous artifacts from the past, Richard Mooney, agreed with this assessment:
“The collapse of a technologically superior civilization would have left little time for salvaging anything but essentials. The survivors may have salvaged curtained needed devices, among them a few aircraft, which would have been required to maintain contact with other survivors. In the course of time, it would have become more and more difficult to keep such machines in working order. Parts would wear out, sources of fuel and power would fail. If the technology is destroyed, the capacity for manufacturing machine parts or even making the right metals will no longer exist. In the end all that would be left would be a memory of strange dart-shaped flying things in which people once traveled through the sky. Ages later, who would believe such fantastic stories?”
That these various Sanskrit descriptions are not the result of imagination, but are based on very real technical and scientific principles, was demonstrated in 1895, when the feasibility of flight, based on the ancient Hindu scientific texts, was demonstrated in India eight years before the Wright brothers took off at Kitty Hawk. In that year a scholar named Shivkar Bapuji Talpade built an unmanned model with a mercury engine as described in the ancient treatises, which he named the Marutsakthi, or “Power of Air.“
In Bombay before a large audience made up of local authorities and political figures, Talpade successfully launched his craft to an altitude of 1,500 feet. Unfortunately, the scholar’s vehicle crashed, and he was unable to afford to rebuild it. Eventually Talpade died in 1916, in relative obscurity.
Yet the event was recorded by the newspaper Kesari, as well as by local chronicler Ratnakar Mahajan. Historian Evan Koshtka believed the experimental flight was significant enough to describe Talpade as the “first creator of a modern aircraft.”
[Copyright 2009. Joseph Robert Jochmans. All Rights Reserved.]
