Dear Fairfield Lifers,
Here's another eye-opening essay - some wild assertions and mind-boggling
possibilities about how different the past may have been than the history
that we've been taught - possibilities about flying machines, space travel,
nuclear weapons (and beyond)... Food for thought. Might help with let-
ting go of the paradigm of history that we've imbibed and our whole culture
is immersed in.
Enjoy
Michael
Ancient Flying Machines - Vimanas
Contributed by John Burrows
Slightly edited by Michael Dean Goodman
The vedic tradition of India tell us that we are now in the fourth age [yuga]
of mankind - part of a never-ending cycle of flavors of time lasting about 4.3
million years per cycle. The vedas call these four ages: "The Golden Age" [sat
yuga - lasting 1.7 million years, where the average length of life is 100,000
years], "The Silver Age" [treta yuga - lasting 1.3 million years, where the
average length of life is 10,000 years], "The Bronze Age" [dvapara yuga -
lasting 864,000 years, where the average length of life is 1000 years], and
"The Iron Age" [kali yuga - lasting 432,000 years, where the average length of
life is roughly 100 years].
The Vimanas
The Ramayana, part of the Itihasas of the vedic tradition, 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 (a humming
noise?). Ancient Indian texts on vimanas are so numerous it would take several
books to relate what they have to say. The ancient Indians themselves wrote
entire flight manuals on the control of various types of vimanas, of which
there were basically four: the shakuna vimana, the sundara vimana, the rukma
vimana and the tripura vimana.
* The secret of constructing aeroplanes, which will not break, which cannot be
cut, will not catch fire, and cannot be destroyed.
* The secret of making planes motionless.
* The secret of making planes invisible.
* The secret of hearing conversations and other sounds in enemy planes.
* The secret of receiving photographs of the interior of enemy planes.
* The secret of ascertaining the direction of enemy planes approach.
* The secret of making persons in enemy planes lose consciousness.
* The secret of destroying enemy planes.
Sanskrit texts are filled with references to gods who fought battles in the
sky using vimanas equipped with weapons as deadly as any we can deploy in
these more enlightened times. For example, there is a passage in the Ramayana
which reads: The puspaka car that resembles the Sun and belongs to my brother
was brought by the powerful 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.
In the Mahabharata, another aspect of the Itihasas, an ancient vedic text of
enormous length, we learn that an individual named Asura Maya had a vimana
measuring twelve cubits in circumference, with four strong wheels. The text is
a veritable gold mine of information relating to conflicts between gods who
settled their differences apparently using weapons as lethal as the ones
[nuclear] that we are capable of deploying.
Apart from 'blazing missiles', the text records the use of other deadly
weapons. 'Indra's Dart' operated via a circular 'reflector'. When switched on,
it produced a 'shaft of light' which, when focused on any target, immediately
'consumed it with its power'.
In one particular exchange, the hero, Krishna, is pursuing his enemy, Salva,
in the sky, when Salva's vimana, the Saubha, is made invisible in some way.
Undeterred, Krishna immediately fires off a special weapon: "I quickly laid on
an arrow, which killed by seeking out sound".
Many other terrible weapons are described, quite matter of 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 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-effects of this Iron Thunderbolt have an ominously recognizable
ring. Apparently, those killed by it were 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 ancie
