Vimanas belong to myth

"When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything." — G.K. Chesterton

Ever since there have been scientific gadgets there have been pseudo-scientific-gadgets, also known as fantasy science or science fiction.

Now there is a failure of human imagination that it commits anachronistic thinking when imagining the past. This is where history and science fiction merge. Ancient Astronauts, a series on the History Channel, is a fine example of anachronistic thinking -- reading modern thinking about technology into the past.

anachronism: an act of attributing a custom, event, or object to a period to which it does not belong.

The machine age of the past 250 years has given much life to fantasizing about the ancient past in images derived from our present world, and even our present fiction.

Everything now unexplainable about the past, is explained in terms of machines projected into the past.

Indians are no different. Some 'modern' thinking Indians have their own anachronistic science fiction. They too read machines like our own into their ancient myths to 'explain' them.

A case in point is the vimanas of Indian mythology. Vimanas were palaces that flew, often carrying gods, especially Rama. Note that many things fly in ancient myth. Angels, cherubim, sprites, harpies, fairies, Pegasus, Hermes (the messenger god) with his winged ankles, Zeus in his chariot seen as the sun, and even Olympus can be seen as flying in the clouds. Ezekiel 10:9-10 tells us “And when I looked, behold the four wheels by the cherubim, one wheel by one cherub, and another wheel by another cherub and the appearance of the wheels was as the color of abery."

Imagine explaining all these in terms of our modern machines -- anachronistically.

Vimana flying palace

First of all a vimana is a flying palace or chariot described in Hindu texts and Sanskrit epics which was controlled by the mind. The Pushpaka Vimana of the demon king Ravana is the most quoted example of a vimana. Vimanas are also mentioned in Jain texts.

In keeping with the human frailty of projecting modern machines onto ancient mythic images, some Indians (and now western 'ancient astronaut theorists') have 'explained' vimanas as mechanical flying machines. The most quoted source of this is the Vaimānika Shāstra, written 1918–1923, and said to be channeled. The said-author, Subbaraya Shastry (1866–1940), gave the image below for his vimana flying machine.

Vaimānika Shāstra vimana illustration, drawn in Bangalor 1923

Note that this illustration directed by author Subbaraya Shastry in 1923 looks an awful lot like other imaginary images of how flying machines would look during this period.

Compare to the images below of pre-flight imaginings of what it would take to fly. Note the propeller, and the fins. And most importantly the common image of the contraption being built upon a boat shape, extremely common early thinking on flight.

These images were common to the era shortly preceding the book's appearance, which incidentally was only first discovered in 1952. In 1974 a study by aeronautical and mechanical engineering at the Indian Institute of Science concluded that the aircraft described in the text were "poor concoctions" and that the author showed a complete lack of understanding of aeronautics.

According to the Vyamanika Shastra, here are the ingredients you will need to make a vimana aircraft.

Two parts of satva, 2 parts of shundilaka, one part of eagle bone, 5 parts of mercury, 2 parts of the foot-nails of sinchoranee, 6 parts of mica, 5 parts of red lead, 8 parts of pearl dust, 18 parts of the eyeballs of sowmyaka fish, one part burning coal, 8 parts of snake's slough, 3 parts of eyepigment, 6 parts of maatrunna, 10 parts of granite sand, 8 parts of salts, 4 of lead, 2 parts of seafoam, 3 parts of white throated eagle's skin, 7 parts of bamboo salt, 5 parts of vyraajya or white keg tree bark, these ingredients should be purified, and weighed, and filled in a beaked crucibleand placed in the furnace called chandodara and subjected to a 800 degree heat, and when dulyliquified, should be poured into the funnel of the kara-darpana yantra or hand-mirror mould. The result will be an excellent mirror in which will be reproduced minute details of the phenomenaoutside.

Next

Then get a Jyotirmukha or flame-faced lion's skin, duly cleaned, add salt, and placing in the vesselcontaining spike-grass acid, boil for 5 yaamas or 15 hours. Then wash it with cold water. Then take oils from the seeds of jyothirmukhee, or staff-tree, momordica charantia, and pot herb, in theproportion of 3, 7, and 16, and mix them in a vessel, add 1/64 part of salt. The skin should beimmersed in this oil and kept for 24 days in solar heat. It will get a scarlet sheen. The skin shouldbe cut to the size of the top opening of the vessel cylinder, with 5 openings in it. Cover the cylinder with the skin with bolts. All the 5 vessels should be similarly covered, and placed in the 5 selectedcentres on the peetha. Then 16 drona measures of asses' urine, 16 linka measures of minedcharcoal, 3 linkas of salt, 2 linkas of snake-poison, and 2 linkas of copper, should be filled in thevessel on the eastern side.

You will also need cow's urine, elephant's urine, and camel's urine. (source)

Today, vimanas are a popularly equated with ancient astronaut theories.

Giorgio Tsoukalos, History Channel's ancient astronaut guy

Ask yourself why the mainstream media so desperately wants you to believe this nonsense. People of the Bronze Age in all cultures had no problem imagining things that flew.

And the Bronze Age people of India were no different.

Birds fly, clouds glide through the air, and, in ancient thought, the celestial bodies traversed through the sky. To project machines and technology upon ancient imaginings of winged creatures and flying chariots and temples is a naive projection of our thinking upon the past, and betrays gross historical and theological incompetence.