VIMANA

[Srinivas Prasad]

                              ANCIENT AIRCRAFT

Our resident MUFON psychologist and hypnotherapist, Dr. Ruth Hover, and her
husband took a trip to the pyramids and temples of Egypt. In the temple at
Abydos, she photographed a wall panel in a section where an overlaying
panel with Egyptian heiroglyphics crumbled and fell, revealing an older
panel beneath it. This older panel, shown below, contains embossed images
of what appear to be ancient aircraft.

                       A Mysterious Flying Cylinder?

A small model of what has been called a "glider" plane was found in a
museum in Cairo. Its body was just over 6" long and its wingspan was a
little over 7". Made of light sycamore wood, it would glide a short
distance when thrown by hand. Other models of aircraft have been found in
Egypt and South America. One of them bears a striking resemblance to a
modern delta-winged jet! More will be added later. Read below about the
ancient aircraft of India.

ANCIENT VIMANA AIRCRAFT

Contributed by John Burrows

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 Ravan; 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 Mahabharatra, an ancient Indian poem of enormous length, we learn
that an individual named Asura Maya had a Vimana measuring twelve cubits in
circumference, with four strong wheels. The poem is a veritable gold mine
of information relating to conflicts between gods who settled their
differences apparently using weapons as lethal as the ones we are capable
of deploying. Apart from 'blazing missiles', the poem 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 splendour. It was the
unknown weapon, the Iron Thunderbolt, a gigantic messaenger 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 similiar reports in other ancient
civilizations. The after-affects 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 etter, as it caused
their hair and nails to fall out.

Perhaps the most disturbing and challenging, information about these
allegedly mythical Vimanas in the ancient records is that there are some
matter-of-fact records, describing how to build one. In their way, the
instructions are quite precise.

In the Sanskrit Samarangana Sutradhara, it is written:

"Strong and durable must the body of the Vimana be made, like a great
flying bird of light material. Inside one must put the mercury engine with
its iron heating apparatus underneath. By means of the power latent in the
mecrcury which sets the driving whirlwind in motion, a man sitting inside
may travel a great distance in the sky. The movements of the Vimana are
such that it can vertically ascend, vertically descend, move slanting
forwards and backwards. With the help of the machines human beings can fly
in the air and heavenly beings can come down to earth."

The Hakatha (Laws of the Babylonians) states quite unambiguously: "The
privilege of operating a flying machine is great. The knowledge of flight
is among the most ancient of our inheritances. A gift from 'those from upon
high'. We received it from them as a means of saving many lives."

More fantastic still is the information given in the ancient Chaldean work,
The Sifrala, which contains over one hundred pages of technical details on
building a flying machine. It contains words which translate as graphite
rod, copper coils, crystal indicator, vibrating spheres, stable angles,
etc. Ancient Indian Aircraft Technology >From The Anti-Gravity Handbook by
D. Hatcher Childress

Many researchers into the UFO enigma tend to overlook a very important
fact. While it assumed that most flying saucers are of alien, or perhaps
Governmental Military origin, another possible origin of UFOs is ancient
India and Atlantis. What we know about ancient Indian flying vehicles comes
from ancient Indian sources; written texts that have come down to us
through the centuries. There is no doubt that most of these texts are
authentic; many are the well known ancient Indian Epics themselves, and
there are literally hundreds of them. Most of them have not even been
translated into English yet from the old sanskrit.

The Indian Emperor Ashoka started a "Secret Society of the Nine Unknown
Men": great Indian scientists who were supposed to catalogue the many
sciences. Ashoka kept their work secret because he was afraid that the
advanced science catalogued by these men, culled from ancient Indian
sources, would be used for the evil purpose of war, which Ashoka was
strongly against, having been converted to Buddhism after defeating a rival
army in a bloody battle. The "Nine Unknown Men" wrote a total of nine
books, presumably one each. Book number was "The Secrets of Gravitation!"
This book, known to historians, but not actually seen by them dealt chiefly
with "gravity control." It is presumably still around somewhere, kept in a
secret library in India, Tibet or elsewhere (perhaps even in North America
somewhere). One can certainly understand Ashoka's reasoning for wanting to
keep such knowledge a secret, assuming it exists.

Ashoka was also aware of devastating wars using such advanced vehicles and
other "futuristic weapons" that had destroyed the ancient Indian "Rama
Empire" several thousand years before. Only a few years ago, the Chinese
discovered some sanskrit documents in Lhasa, Tibet and sent them to the
University of Chandrigarh to be translated. Dr. Ruth Reyna of the
University said recently that the documents contain directions for building
interstellar spaceships! Their method of propulsion, she said, was "anti-
gravitational" and was based upon a system analogous to that of "laghima,"
the unknown power of the ego existing in man's physiological makeup, "a
centrifugal force strong enough to counteract all gravitational pull."
According to Hindu Yogis, it is this "laghima" which enables a person to
levitate.

Dr. Reyna said that on board these machines, which were called "Astras" by
the text, the ancient Indians could have sent a detachment of men onto any
planet, according to the document, which is thought to be thousands of
years old. The manuscripts were also said to reveal the secret of "antima";
"the cap of invisibility" and "garima"; "how to become as heavy as a
mountain of lead." Naturally, Indian scientists did not take the texts very
seriously, but then became more positive about the value of them when the
Chinese announced that they were including certain parts of the data for
study in their space program! This was one of the first instances of a
government admitting to be researching anti-gravity.

The manuscripts did not say definitely that interplanetary travel was ever
made but did mention, of all things, a planned trip to the Moon, though it
is not clear whether this trip was actually carried out. However, one of
the great Indian epics,the Ramayana, does have a highly detailed story in
it of a trip to the moon in a Vimana (or "Astra"), and in fact details a
battle on the moon with an "Asvin" (or Atlantean") airship. This is but a
small bit of recent evidence of anti-gravity and aerospace technology used
by Indians.

To really understand the technology, we must go much further back in time.
The so-called "Rama Empire" of Northern India and Pakistan developed at
least fifteen thousand years ago on the Indian subcontinent and was a
nation of many large, sophisticated cities, many of which are still to be
found in the deserts of Pakistan, northern, and western India. Rama
existed, apparently, parallel to the Atlantean civilization in the mid-
Atlantic Ocean, and was ruled by "enlightened Priest-Kings" who governed
the cities,

The seven greatest capital cities of Rama were known in classical Hindu
texts as "The Seven Rishi Cities." According to ancient Indian texts, the
people had flying machines which were called "Vimanas." The ancient Indian
epic describes a Vimana as a doubledeck, circular aircraft with portholes
and a dome, much as we would imagine a flying saucer. It flew with the
"speed of the wind" and gave forth a"melodious sound." There were at least
four different types of Vimanas; some saucer shaped, others like long
cylinders ("cigar shaped airships"). The ancient Indian texts on Vimanas
are so numerous, it would take volumes to relate what they had to say. The
ancient Indians, who manufactured these ships themselves, wrote entire
flight manuals on the control of the various types of Vimanas, many of
which are still in existence, and some have even been translated into
English.

The Samara Sutradhara is a scientific treatise dealing with every possible
angle of air travel in a Vimana. There are 230 stanzas dealing with the
construction, take-off, cruising for thousand of miles, normal and forced
landings, and even possible collisions with birds. In 1875, the Vaimanika
Sastra, a fourth century B.C. text written by Bharadvajy the Wise, using
even older texts as his source, was rediscovered in a temple in India. It
dealt with the operation of Vimanas and included information on the
steering, precautions for long flights, protection of the airships from
storms and lightning and how to switch the drive to "solar energy" from a
free energy source which sounds like "anti-gravity." The Vaimanika Sastra
(or Vymaanika-Shaastra) has eight chapters with diagrams, describing three
types of aircraft, including apparatuses that could neither catch on fire
nor break. It also mentions 31 essential parts of these vehicles and 16
materials from which they are constructed, which absorb light and heat; for
which reason they were considered suitable for the construction of Vimanas.

This document has been translated into English and is available by writing
the publisher: VYMAANIDASHAASTRA AERONAUTICS by Maharishi Bharadwaaja,
translated into English and edited, printed and published by Mr. G.
R.Josyer, Mysore, India, 1979 (sorry, no street address). Mr. Josyer is the
director of the International Academy of Sanskrit Investigation, located in
Mysore. There seems to be no doubt that Vimanas were powered by some sort
of "anti-gravity." Vimanas took off vertically, and were capable of
hovering in the sky, like a modern helicopter or dirigible. Bharadvajy the
Wise refers to no less than 70 authorities and 10 experts of air travel in
antiquity.

These sources are now lost. Vimanas were kept in a Vimana Griha, a kind of
hanger, and were sometimes said to be propelled by a yellowish-white
liquid, and sometimes by some sort of mercury compound, though writers seem
confused in this matter. It is most likely that the later writers on
Vimanas, wrote as observers and from earlier texts, and were understandably
confused on the principle of their propulsion. The "yellowish- white
liquid" sounds suspiciously like gasoline, and perhaps Vimanas had a number
of different propulsion sources, including combustion engines and even
"pulse-jet" engines. It is interesting to note, that the Nazis developed
the first practical pulse-jet engines for their V-8 rocket "buzz bombs."
Hitler and the Nazi staff were exceptionally interested in ancient India
and Tibet and sent expeditions to both these places yearly, starting in the
30's, in order to gather esoteric evidence that they did so, and perhaps it
was from these people that the Nazis gained some of their scientific
information!

According to the Dronaparva, part of the Mahabarata, and the Ramayana, one
Vimana described was shaped like a sphere and born along at great speed on
a mighty wind generated by mercury. It moved like a UFO, going up, down,
backwards and forwards as the pilot desired. In another Indian source, the
Samar, Vimanas were "iron machines, well-knit and smooth, with a charge of
mercury that shot out of the back in the form of a roaring flame." Another
work called the Samaranganasutradhara describes how the vehicles were
constructed. It is possible that mercury did have something to do with the
propulsion, or more possibly, with the guidance system. Curiously, Soviet
scientists have discovered what they call "ageold instruments used in
navigating cosmic vehicles" in caves in Turkestan and the Gobi Desert. The
"devices" are hemispherical objects of glass or porcelain, ending in a cone
with a drop of mercury inside.

It is evident that ancient Indians flew around in these vehicles, all over
Asia, to Atlantis presumably; and even, apparently, to South
America.Writing found at Mohenjodaro in Pakistan (presumed to be one of the
"Seven Rishi Cities of the Rama Empire") and still undeciphered, has also
been found in one other place in the world: Easter Island! Writing on
Easter Island, called Rongo-Rongo writing, is also undeciphered, and is
uncannily similar to the Mohenjodaro script. Was Easter Island an air base
for the Rama Empire's Vimana route? (At the Mohenjo- Daro Vimana-drome, as
the passenger walks down the concourse, he hears the sweet, melodic sound
of the announcer over the loudspeaker,"Rama Airways flight number seven for
Bali, Easter Island, Nazca, and Atlantis is now ready for boarding.
Passengers please proceed to gate number..") in Tibet, no small distance,
and speaks of the "fiery chariot" thus: "Bhima flew along in his car,
resplendent as the sun and loud as thunder... The flying chariot shone like
a flame in the night sky of summer ... it swept by like a comet... It was
as if two suns were shining. Then the chariot rose up and all the heaven
brightened."

In the Mahavira of Bhavabhuti, a Jain text of the eighth century culled
from older texts and traditions, we read: "An aerial chariot, the Pushpaka,
conveys many people to the capital of Ayodhya. The sky is full of
stupendous flying-machines, dark as night,but picked out by lights with a
yellowish glare." The Vedas, ancient Hindu poems, thought to be the oldest
of all the Indian texts, describe Vimanas of various shapes and sizes: the
"ahnihotravimana" with two engines, the"elephant-vimana" with more engines,
and other types named after the kingfisher, ibis and other animals.

Unfortunately, Vimanas, like most scientific discoveries, were ultimately
used for war. Atlanteans used their flying machines, "Vailixi," a similar
type of aircraft, to literally try and subjugate the world, it would seem,
if Indian texts are to be believed. The Atlanteans, known as "Asvins" in
the Indian writings, were apparently even more advanced technologically
than the Indians, and certainly of a more war-like temperament. Although no
ancient texts on Atlantean Vailixi are known to exist, some information has
come down through esoteric, "occult" sources which describe their flying
machines.

Similar, if not identical to Vimanas, Vailixi were generally "cigar shaped"
and had the capability of manoeuvering underwater as well as in the
atmosphere or even outer space. Other vehicles, like Vimanas, were saucer
shaped, and could apparently also be submerged.According to Eklal Kueshana,
author of "The Ultimate Frontier," in an article he wrote in 1966, Vailixi
were first developed in Atlantis 20,000 years ago, and the most common ones
are "saucer shaped of generally trapezoidal cross- section with three
hemispherical engine pods on the underside." "They use a mechanical
antigravity device driven by engines developing approximately 80,000 horse
power." The Ramayana, Mahabarata and other texts speak of the hideous war
that took place, some ten or twelve thousand years ago between Atlantis and
Rama using weapons of destruction that could not be imagined by readers
until the second half of this century.

The ancient Mahabharata, one of the sources on Vimanas, goes on to tell the
awesome destructiveness of the war: "...(the weapon was) a single
projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent
column of smoke and flame as bright as the thousand suns rose in all its
splendour... An iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death, which
reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas.... the
corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. The hair and nails fell
out; pottery broke without apparent cause, and the birds turned white....
after a few hours all foodstuffs were infected.... to escape from this
fire, the soldiers threw themselves in streams to wash themselves and their
equipment..." It would seem that the Mahabharata is describing an atomic
war! References like this one are not isolated; but battles, using a
fantastic array of weapons and aerial vehicles are common in all the epic
Indian books. One even describes a Vimana-Vailix battle on the Moon! The
above section very accurately describes what an atomic explosion would look
like and the effects of the radioactivity on the population. Jumping into
water is the only respite.

When the Rishi City of Mohenjodaro was excavated by archaeologists in the
last century, they found skeletons just lying in the streets, some of them
holding hands, as if some great doom had suddenly overtaken them. These
skeletons are among the most radioactive ever found, on a par with those
found at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ancient cities whose brick and stonewalls
have literally been vitrified, that is-fused together, can be found in
India, Ireland, Scotland, France, Turkey and other places. There is no
logical explanation for the vitrification of stone forts and cities, except
from an atomic blast.

Futhermore, at Mohenjo-Daro, a well planned city laid on a grid, with a
plumbing system superior to those used in Pakistan and India today, the
streets were littered with "black lumps of glass." These globs of glass
were discovered to be clay pots that had melted under intense heat! With
the cataclysmic sinking of Atlantis and the wiping out of Rama with atomic
weapons, the world collapsed into a "stone age" of sorts, and modern
history picks up a few thousand years later Yet, it would seem that not all
the Vimanas and Vailixi of Rama and Atlantis were gone. Built to last for
thousands of years, many of them would still be in use, as evidenced by
Ashoka's "Nine Unknown Men" and the Lhasa manuscript.

That secret societies or "Brotherhoods" of exceptional, "enlightened" human
beings would have preserved these inventions and the knowledge of science,
history, etc., does not seem surprising. Many well known historical
personages including Jesus, Buddah, Lao Tzu, Confucious, Krishna,
Zoroaster, Mahavira, Quetzalcoatl, Akhenaton, Moses, and more recent
inventors and of course many other people who will probably remain
anonymous, were probably members of such a secret organization. It is
interesting to note that when Alexander the Great invaded India more than
two thousand years ago, his historians chronicled that at one point they
were attacked by "flying,fiery shields" that dove at his army and
frightened the cavalry. These "flying saucers" did not use any atomic bombs
or beam weapons on Alexander's army however, perhaps out of benevolence,
and Alexander went on to conquer India.It has been suggested by many
writers that these "Brotherhoods" keep some of their Vimanas and Vailixi in
secret caverns in Tibet or some other place is Central Asia, and the Lop
Nor Desert in western China is known to be the centre of a great UFO
mystery. Perhaps it is here that many of the airships are still kept, in
underground bases much as the Americans, British and Soviets have built
around the world in the past few decades. Still, not all UFO activity can
be accounted for by old Vimanas making trips to the Moon for some reason.

End of John Burrow's contribution.

>From NEXUS New Times (Dec 1996):

An article in this magazine reveals that unknown alloys have been revealed
in ancient palm leaf manuscripts. The writer and Sanskrit scholar
Subramanyam Iyer has spent many years of his life deciphering old
collections of palm leaves found in the villages of his native Karnataka in
southern India.

One of the palm leaf manuscripts they intend to decipher is the Amsu
Bodhini, which, according to an anonymous text of 1931, contains
information about the planets; the different kinds of light, heat, color,
and electromagnetic fields; the methods used to construct machines capable
of attracting solar rays and, in turn, of analysing and separating their
energy components; the possibility of conversing with people in remote
places and sending messages by cable; and the manufacture of machines to
transport people to other planets! END OF REPORT