The myths of the Indus valley: the Vimanas
Several 5,000-year-old Hindu and Tibetan epic texts minutely describe mysterious fiery chariots, the Vimanas, flying through the skies over the Indus Valley. These extraordinary flying machines carried fearsome weapons and were piloted by gods and demigods who had descended on an Earth chosen as a battlefield.
"Vimana" in Sanskrit and "Viamanam" in Pali literally mean "measuring a course", or "flying chariot". These mysterious wooden or metal boats were made by applying techniques now lost and were able to fly by exploiting a particular form of "etheric" vibratory energy, called "Vril".
"The first Vimanas", says W. Scott Elliott in his book "History of Atlantis", written ten years before the Wright brothers made their first flight:
"were made of wood; the boards were extraordinarily thin, treated with a substance which gave a resistance similar to that of leather, without increasing its weight, so as to ensure the necessary combination of resistance and strength.When the metal was used, it was generally an alloy of two white metals and one red. A thin sheet of this product was stretched over the strong structure of the airboat, hammered into the desired shape and electrically welded. In this way, the outer surface of the Vimanas appeared seamless and perfectly smooth and the chariots shone in the dark as if coated with luminous paint.
Their generator was a heavy metal case terminated in two large hoses, through which power flowed to the far end of the ship, and if need be, there were eight supplementary hoses, fixed fore and aft, which they had double openings pointing vertically, both upwards and downwards.
On takeoff, the valves of the eight downward-pointing tubes were opened while the others were closed. The current emitted through these tubes exerted such a pressure on the earth that it lifted the boat upwards. The maximum achievable speed was close to 150 km/h and the flight path, which was never straight, but always in the form of long waves, constantly changed altitude, approaching and moving away from the earth".
Elliot had learned this information from ancient Asian documents and Indians, copies of which exist kept in oriental museums and libraries.
Vimanas are also described in Hindu epics. In one of these, the Ramayana of Valmiki (epic text in 50,000 verses composed in the 5th century B.C.), the detailed description of the Vimana is reminiscent in all respects of our modern rockets.
In it we read:
"The shining Vimana radiated a flaming glow. Flaming like a crimson fire flew the winged chariot of Ravana. It was like a comet in the sky."
The thunderous device taking off was cloaked in a strong luminosity.
"God Bhima flew in his Vimana shining like the sun and by the sound of lightning. Two suns could be believed to shine in the sky, and the sky itself was brightened violently."
In another epic text, the Mahabharata, we read:
"We saw in the sky something that looked like a luminous cloud, like the flames of a burning fire... From this mass emerged an enormous dark Vimana which launched flaming projectiles. It approached to the ground with incredible speed, throwing wheels of fire. This caused an uproar; horses and war elephants and thousands of soldiers were killed by the explosions. And the Vimana pursued the army for a while, before disappearing".
And the Ramayana, in the sixth chapter known as the "book of the Yuddhacanda" tells of a fight between two gods, Rama and Ravana, with
"fiery darts thrown by Vimana moved by horses from whose limbs sparks came out".
Air combat was therefore one of the prerogatives of flying chariots. In one section of the Mahabharata, called Drona Parva, these powerful divine ships are described in detail, with symbols that betray the amazement and wonder of the layman at being faced with an incomprehensible technology.
"The mind is the ground that supports the Vimana"
it is written
"and speech is the track on which to proceed. All discourses and all sciences are gathered in it, and also the Vedic Sound Vashat. And the syllable Om in front of that chariot makes it extraordinarily beautiful. When it moves, its roar fills all the cardinal points."
This description, apparently incomprehensible, can be traced back to another ancient Tibetan tradition about the existence of a magical flying cube, called "Duracapalam" thanks to which the Tibetan mystics, reciting certain prayers, they could move to any part of the earth.
The priestly caste, responsible for writing another ancient Sanskrit text, the "Samaranga Sutradhara", expresses itself thus:
"The details of the manufacture of the Vimana are kept secret for safety, not for ignorance. They are not mentioned because one should know well which, if they were publicly disclosed, would be misused."
This reticence in disclosing details, analogous to the fear of "modern" American authorities in revealing the technological secrets of spy planes with stealth technology, explains the sometimes purely technical, sometimes obscure and indecipherable language.
"Strong and durable must be the body, like a large flying bird, of light material. Inside must be placed the mercury engine, with underneath the iron appliance for heating. By means of the latent force of mercury, which sets the apex in motion, a man sitting within it can travel in the sky, in a marvelous way, covering great distances. Similarly, using the processes described, one can build a Vimana as large as the temple of the moving god....Four strong mercury containers are to be built into the inner structure. When heated by the controlled fire of the iron containers, the Vimana develops the force of thunder through the mercury. And immediately it becomes like a gray pearl in the sky.
However, if this iron engine with properly welded joints is filled with mercury, and fire is carried to the top, it develops power like the roar of a lion... Now here are some of the main qualities of the air chariot: it can be invisible, carry passengers, be made small and compact, move silently (if sound is to be used there must be great flexibility of all moving parts which must be built to perfection); it must last a long time; must be well covered; it must not get too hot, too stiff or too soft; can be moved by melodies and rhythms"
In 1993 Richard L. Thompson, a mathematics graduate from Cornell University in the USA presented a scientific re-reading of the Hindu Vedic texts at the International Congress of Astronautics in Bangalore.
"It is important to clarify
said Thompson
that in the ancient Vedic society the aerial vehicles, in Sanskrit Vimana, were known by all. They could be machines made of gross physical energy or of subtle and transcendental energy.Human beings did not build machines similar, but they received them from more advanced beings, the Gods".
One of the many episodes that drew the scholar's attention to the presence of a Vimana is found in the epic text Bhagavata Purana, which narrates the fight of King Salva against the god Krishna. Salva was intent on destroying Dvaraka, the city of God, and for this purpose he had procured a Vimana, thanks to the help of a certain Maya Danava, qualified as "inhabitant of a planetary system called Talatala".
"The plane Salva occupied was very mysterious"
the text reports.
"It was so extraordinary that sometimes it appeared as if many airplanes were flying in the sky at the same time, sometimes it was as if there were none. Sometimes the plane was visible, sometimes it was not; the warriors of the Yadu dynasty were baffled by the movements of the strange aircraft. Sometimes they saw it on the ground, sometimes it appeared in the sky, sometimes it was stationary on the top of a hill, sometimes it floated on the surface of the water. The wonderful aircraft flew in the sky like a whirling ember without stopping one moment".
(Note: the translator of these passages is A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who seems to have seen nothing physical in them, only mystical metaphors).
Salva's vehicle is described as an iron city, so it must have had a metallic look and large size. The Vedic Vimanas are often described as flying cities, i.e. objects of enormous size.
In the most important Vedic texts called Puranas (comprising three religious works composed between the 6th century B.C and the 9th century A.D., the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and the Bhagavata Purana) it is claimed that as many as 8 million other forms of life live in the universe, from the simplest, plant and animal, to the most complex. Of the 400,000 human races, the earthlings would represent the least powerful group, according to the Vedic texts. And this would explain why the demigods of the Puranas have no scruples in exploiting the earth as a battlefield and passageway, committing all kinds of atrocities, such as the destruction of entire cities with weapons that today we would not hesitate to define as "atomic". The main responsibles for these presumed alien interferences, recurring in all the Puranas, are particularly beings called "Devas", inhabitants of the mysterious "kingdom of Svargaloka".
"Organized according to a military hierarchy"
comments Thompson
"the Devas are concerned with politics and warfare, and their battles against lesser forces sometimes affect the lives of Earthlings."
The Vimana were used as real fighter-bombers, and their destructive power was enormous. In the Drona Parva, a book of the Mahabarata, there is the description, reported by an eyewitness, of the results obtained by a weapon called Agneya, launched from a Vimana against a land army:
"A blazing missile which possessed the splendor of smokeless fire was Suddenly, a thick darkness enveloped the armies. All the points of the compass were suddenly engulfed in darkness. Terrible winds began to blow. Clouds roared in the upper atmosphere, raining blood. The elements themselves seemed confused. The sun seemed to spin on itself. The world, scorched by the heat of that weapon, seemed in the grip of a fever. The elephants, burned by the energy of that weapon, they fled in terror, looking for a shelter that would defend them from that terrible force. Even the water warmed up, and the creatures that lived in the water seemed to burn. The enemies fell as burned by a devastating fire. Huge elephants, burned by that weapon, fell from all sides. Others, burned, ran to and from, and trumpeted terrifyingly in the burning forest. The steeds and chariots, scorched by the energy of that weapon, looked like the stumps of trees consumed in a forest fire. Thousands of carts fell on all sides. Then the darkness hid all the army..."
A similar description in many ways appears in another section of the Mahabharata, the Mausola Parva, where it is narrated of another mysterious divine weapon launched by the Vimanas, and whose effects are extraordinarily reminiscent of those produced by a nuclear explosion:
"It was a iron, a gigantic messenger of death that incinerated all enemies. The bodies devoured by fire were unrecognizable. The survivors lost their hair and nails, pottery shattered without apparent cause, the feathers of birds turned white. After a few hours all the food was poisoned. The lightning disintegrated into a fine powder."
Something similar occurs in another episode, which featured the divine Gurka (or Cukra), who from his own Vimana
"...a shiny block of antimony, he threw a weapon from which, after the explosion, smoke of blinding whiteness rose, ten thousand times brighter than the sun. It reduced the stricken city to ruins and ashes."
The same effects of these devices so similar to nuclear bombs are described in the Ramayana, in the episode in which the god Hanuman attacks the kingdom of Danda, the ancient Sri Lanka (probably the city of Mohenjo-Daro), throwing
"a more dazzling with a thousand suns. Men and animals that were not incinerated on the spot died in a thousand torments".
