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.
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.
"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).
***
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
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.
