Fwd: Ancient Hindus could navigate the air

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Ancient Hindus could navigate the air

By Shachi Rairikar

" 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. Olcott in a lecture in Allahabad, in

1881.

The Rig 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—a vehicle that operates on ground and in water (Rig Veda

9.14.1); tritala—a vehicle consisting of three storeys (Rig Veda

3.14.1); trichakra ratha—a three-wheeled vehicle designed to operate

in air (Rig Veda 4.36.1); vaayu ratha—a gas or wind-powered chariot

(Rig Veda 5.41.6); vidyut ratha—a vehicle that operates on power

(Rig Veda 3.14.1).

Ancient Sanskrit literature is full of descriptions of flying

machines—vimanas. From the many documents found, it is evident that

the scientist-sages Agastya and Bharadwaja had developed the lore of

aircraft construction.

The Agastya Samhita gives Agastya's descriptions on two types of

aeroplanes. The first is a chchatra (umbrella or balloon) to be

filled with hydrogen. The process of extracting hydrogen from water

is described in elaborate detail and the use of electricity in

achieving this is clearly stated. This was considered

to be a primitive type of plane, useful only for escaping from a

fort when the enemy had set fire to the jungle all around. Hence the

name agniyana. The second type of aircraft mentioned is somewhat on

the lines of the parachute. It could be opened and shut by operating

chords. This aircraft has been described as vimanadvigunam, i.e. of

a lower order than the regular aeroplane.

The process of extracting hydrogen from water is described in

elaborate detail and the use of electricity in achieving this is

clearly stated.

Aeronautics or Vaimaanika Shastra is a part of Yantra Sarvasva of

Bharadwaja. This is also known as Brihadvimaana Shastra. Vaimaanika

Shastra deals with aeronautics, including the design of aircraft,

the way they can be used for transportation and other applications,

in detail. The knowledge of aeronautics is described in Sanskrit in

100 sections, eight chapters, 500 principles and 3,000 shlokas.

Great sage Bharadwaja explained the construction of aircraft and

the way to fly it in air, on land, on water and use the same

aircraft like a submarine. He also described the construction of war-

planes and fighter aircraft.

Vaimaanika Shastra explains the metals and alloys and other required

material, which can make an aircraft imperishable in any condition.

Planes which will not break (abhedya), or catch fire (adaahya) and

which cannot be cut (achchedya) have been described. Along with the

treatise, there are diagrams on three types of aeroplanes—Sundara,

Shukana and Rukma.

The aircraft is classified into three types—Mantrika, Tantrika and

Kritaka, to suit different yugas or eras. In krita yuga, it is said,

Dharma was well established. The people of that time had the

divinity to reach any place using their ashtasiddhis. The aircraft

used in treta yuga are called Mantrika vimana, flown by the power of

hymns (mantras). Twenty-five varieties of aircraft including

Pushpaka vimana belong to this era. The aircraft used in dwapara yuga

were called Tantrika vimana, flown by the power of tantras. Fifty-

six varieties of aircraft including Bhairava and Nandaka belong to

this era. The aircraft used in kali yuga, the on-going yuga, are

called Kritaka vimana, flown by the power of engines. Twenty-five

varieties of aircraft including Sundara, Shukana and Rukma belong to

this era.

Bharadwaja states that there are 32 secrets of the science of

aeronautics. Of these, some are astonishing and some indicate an

advance even beyond our own times. For instance, the secret of para

shabda graaha, i.e. a cabin for listening to the conversation in

another plane, has been explained by elaborately describing an

electrically worked sound-receiver that did the trick.

Manufacture of different types of instruments and putting them

together to form an aircraft are also described.

It appears that aerial warfare was also not unknown, for the

treatise gives the techniques of shatru vimana kampana kriya, and

shatru vimana nashana kriya, i.e. shaking and destroying enemy

aircraft, as well as photographing enemy planes, rendering their

occupants unconscious and making one's own plane invisible.

In Vastraadhikarana, the chapter describing the dress and other

material required while flying, talks in detail about the

clotheswear for both the pilot and the passenger separately.

Ahaaraadhikarana is yet another section exclusively dealing with the

food habits of a pilot. This has a variety of guidelines for pilots

to maintain their health through strict diet.

Bharadwaja also provides a bibliography. He had consulted six

treatises by six different authors previous to him and he gives

their names and the names of their works in the following order:

Vimana Chandrika by Narayanamuni; Vyoma Yana Mantrah by Shaunaka;

Yantra Kalpa by Garga; Yana Bindu by Vachaspati; Kheta

Yaana Pradeepika by Chaakraayani; Vyoma Yaanarka Prakasha by Dundi

Natha.

As before Bharadwaja, after him too there have been Sanskrit writers

on aeronautics and there were four commentaries on his work. The

names of the commentators are Bodh Deva, Lalla, Narayana Shankha and

Vishwambhara.

Vaimaanika Shastra explains the metals and alloys and other required

material, which can make an aircraft imperishable in any condition.

Evidence of existence of aircraft are also found in the Arthashastra

of Kautilya (c. 3rd century b.c.). Kautilya 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 Emperor Asoka and

which were executed during his reign from

256-237 b.c.

It is interesting to note that the Academy of Sanskrit Research in

Melkote, near Mandya, had been commissioned by the Aeronautical

Research Development Board, New Delhi, to take up a one-year study

on `Non-conventional Approach to Aeronautics', on the basis of

Vaimaanika Shastra. As a result of the research, a glass-like

material which cannot be detected by radar has been developed by

Prof. Dongre, a research scholar of Benaras Hindu University. A

plane coated with this unique material cannot be detected using

radar.

But perhaps the most interesting thing about the Indian science of

aeronautics and Bharadwaja's research in the field was that they

were successfully tested in actual practice by an Indian over a 100

years ago. In 1895, full eight years before the Wright Brothers'

first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, USA, Shivkar Bapuji

Talpade and his wife gave a thrilling demonstration flight on

Chowpatty beach in Mumbai.

An even more astonishing feature of Talpade's aircraft was the power

source he used—an ion engine. The theory of the ion engine has been

credited to Robert Goddard, long recognised as the father of liquid-

fuel rocketry. It is claimed that in 1906, long before Goddard

launched his first modern rocket, his imagination had conceived the

concept of an ion rocket. But the fact is that not only had the idea

of an ion engine been conceived long before Dr Goddard, it had

also been materialised in the form of Talpade's aircraft.

Talpade, a resident of Mumbai, was an erudite scholar of Sanskrit

literature, especially of the Vedas, an inventor and a teacher in

the School of Arts. His deep study of the Vedas led him to construct

an aeroplane in conformity with the descriptions of the aircraft

available in the Vedas and he displayed it in an exhibition arranged

by the Bombay Art Society in the Town Hall. Its proving the

star attraction of the exhibition encouraged its maker to delve

deeper into the matter and see if the plane could be flown with the

aid of mercurial pressure.

For, the one hundred-and-ninetieth richa (verse) of the Rig Veda and

the aeronautical treatise of Bharadwaja mention that flying machines

came into full operation when the power of the sun's rays, mercury

and another chemicals called naksha rasas were blended together.

This energy was, it seems, stored in something like an accumulator

or storage batteries. The Vedas refer to eight different engines in

the plane and Bharadwaja adds that they

are worked by electricity.

Talpade carried on his research along these lines and constructed an

aeroplane. In his experiments he was aided by his wife, also a deep

scholar of the Vedic lore, and an architect-friend. The plane

combined the constructional characteristics of both Pushpaka and

Marut Sakha, the sixth and eighth types of aircraft described by

Bharadwaja. It was named Marut Sakha meaning " friend of

the wind " .

With this plane, this pioneer airman of modern India gave a

demonstration flight on the Chowpatty beach in Mumbai in the year

1895. The machine attained a height of about 1,500 feet and then

automatically landed safely. The flight was witnessed, among many

others, by Shri Sayajirao Gaekwad, the Maharaja of Baroda

and Justice Govind Ranade and was reported in the Kesari, a leading

Marathi daily newspaper. They were impressed by the feat and

rewarded the talented inventor.

Unfortunately, Talpade lost interest in things after his wife's

death, and after his own death in 1917 at the age of 53, his

relatives sold the machine to the Rally Brothers, a leading British

exporting firm then operating in Mumbai. Thus, the first ever

attempt at flying in modern India, undertaken and made successful

by an Indian, in a plane of Indian manufacture and built to Indian

scientific specifications, slid into the limbo of oblivion.

(The writer can be contacted at shachi_rairikar@h...)

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