21. VIMANAS

Evidence of unexplained ancient aircraft can be found across the planet especially in areas where major civilizations once thrived. Physical evidence of alien intervention in human history is undeniable. Ancient Astronaut Theory seeks to explain alien presence in the past linked with Ancient Aircraft and purported landing strips, especially in areas like India (Vimanas), Egypt, and Mesoamerica. Pictographs and megalithic monuments describe human interaction with these entities, allowing those in our timeline to piece together what happened in the past that shapes out destiny today as humanity evolves beyond this consciousness hologram.

A vimana is a word with several meanings ranging from temple or palace to mythological flying machines described in Sanskrit epics. References to these flying machines are commonplace in ancient Indian texts, even describing their use in warfare. As well as being able to fly within Earth's atmosphere, vimanas were also said to be able to travel into space and travel underwater.

Descriptions in the Vedas and later Indian literature detail vimanas of various shapes and sizes:

- In the Vedas: the Sun and Indra and several other Vedic deities are transported by flying wheeled

chariots pulled by animals, usually horses (but the Vedic god Pusan's chariot is pulled by goats).

- The "agnihotra-vimana" with two engines. (Agni means fire in Sanskrit.)

- The "gaja-vimana" with more engines. (Gaja means elephant in Sanskrit.)

- Other types named after the kingfisher, ibis, and other animals.

The word comes from Sanskrit and seems to be vi-mana = 'apart' or 'having been measured". The word also means a part of a Hindu temple. The meaning of the word likely changed in this sequence:

- An area of land measured out and set apart to be used for sacred purposes.

- Temple

- A god's palace

- In the Ramayana: the demon-lord Ravana's flying palace called Pushpaka.

- In later Indian writings: other flying vehicles, and sometimes as a poetic word for ordinary ground

vehicles.

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.

In the Ramayana there is a passage in the Ramayana which reads:

"The Pushpaka chariot 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."

"Pushpaka" is Sanskrit for "flowery". It is the first flying vimana mentioned in Hindu mythology (as distinct from gods' flying horse-drawn chariots). It is also called Pushpaka Vimana.

The special characteristic of this vehicle is, "Whatever may be the number of people sitting in it, always there will be one more seat vacant i.e., If N people sit, There will be (N+1) seats". It was basically a vehicle that could soar the skies for long distances. It shows that even in ancient times, people were curious about flight and might have tried to design flying vehicles.

Pushpaka was originally made by Maya for Kubera, the God of wealth, but was later stolen, along with Lanka, by his half-brother, the demon king Ravana.

The core epic of the Mahabharata mentions no vimanas, but vimanas often occur in the large amount of matter which was added to the Mahabharata corpus later. One example is that the Asura Maya had a Vimana measuring twelve cubits in circumference, with four strong wheels.

The Mahabharata is a veritable gold mine of information relating to conflicts between gods who are said to have settled their differences apparently using weapons as lethal as those we have now. Apart from 'blazing missiles', the poem records the use of other deadly weapons. 'Indra's Dart' (Indravajra) 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 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 a swift and powerful vimana (fast aircraft) hurled a single projectile (rocket) charged with the power of the Universe (nuclear device). An incandescent column of smoke and flame, as bright as ten thousand suns, rose with all its splendor. 

It was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death, which reduced to shes the entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas. The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. 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.” — The Mahabharata

Some say 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-Vailixi 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.

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 (Literally, "controller of the battlefield"), 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 mercury 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."

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In 1952, a G.R. Josyer, founder of the “International Academy of Sanskrit Research,” came forward to unveil a previously unknown text at an event exhibition of rare Sanskrit manuscripts. The text was called the Vaimānika Śāstra, meaning “The Science of Aeronautics,” supposedly dictated between the years of 1918 to 1923 to a  G. Venkatachala Sharma by the mystic Pandit Subbaraya Shastry, who said the information had come to him in flashes and dreams, and considered himself the earthly conduit of the information from the real author, the ancient sage Maharshi Bharadwaja, itself claimed to be thousands of years old and put out there freely for “the benefit of all of mankind.” The mysterious text itself was devoted to the vimānas, which were the fantastical flying chariots, thrones, carts, palaces, and other vehicles of the gods mentioned in ancient Sanskrit epics, but which according to this manuscript were actually advanced flying machines far predating any known airplanes. 

He claimed that the manuscripts were several thousands of years old, compiled by ancient rishis, Bharadwaja, Narada and others, dealing, not with the mysticism of ancient Hindu philosophy of Atman or Brahman, but with more mundane things vital for the existence of man and progress of nations both in times of peace and war. 

One manuscript dealt with Aeronautics, construction of various types of aircraft for civil aviation and for warfare. Mr. Josyer showed some types of designs and drawing of a helicopter-type cargo-loading plane, specially meant for carrying combustibles and ammunition, passenger aircraft carrying 400 to 500 persons, double and treble-decked aircraft. Each of these types had been fully described.

The text styles itself as sort of a treatise on ancient Indian flying machines, giving exhaustive descriptions, diagrams, and illustrations of aerodynamics, propulsive devices, materials, and metallurgy, as well as the definition of an airplane, what a pilot is and their duties, aerial routes, food, clothing, metals, metal production, mirrors and their uses in wars, varieties of machinery, and others. The text goes into great depth on a variety of different flying vehicles. For instance, there is the Shakuna Vimana, which is shaped like a bird, measures 80 by 56 feet in dimension, and is crafted from a super-light, advanced alloy called raja loha. There is the Sundara Vimana, a giant cylindrical cone that utilizes steam and vaporized oil for energy production and is equipped with five gas engines, electrical tube wheels, and lifting fans. The Rukma Vimana is a massive, 5-tiered construct that has a 100 or 1000-foot base dimension, a 20-foot height, and an 80-foot cone height and operates on solar power. Another is the Tripura Vimana, which can move in air, on land, or through water, and which is fashioned of a fire-resistant alloy.

Every single one of these outlandish contraptions is explained in great technical detail, with elaborate illustrations of their inner workings and designs, meticulous recipes for their fuels and alloys, and it all really boggles the mind that any of this could come from thousands of years ago, as claimed. Yet the Vaimānika Śāstra became very popular immediately upon release, being translated into Hindi in 1959 and then English in 1973. Of course, considering that this information and the bizarre designs were claimed to be thousands of years old, its public reveal immediately drew the attention of UFOlogists and ancient astronaut theorists, who studied the Vaimānika Śāstra with great interest and fascination. However, the work has also drawn its share of criticism. One of the main problems with all of this is that, although the information is claimed to be from mystic ancient sources and a great sage, it was more or less released in modern times by the self-professed medium Pandit Subbaraya Shastry, who then left it to his son, Shri Venkatrama Shastry, after which it found its way into the collection of Josyer. However, Shastry has been claimed to have been a humble, honest man who never intended for his work to get out into the public eye, and he never took personal credit for any of it. It doesn’t seem as if it was an intentional hoax perpetrated by Shastry, although it might have been by his son. However, this is probably the least of the worries the veracity of this text has.

The proponents for the veracity of the texts will point out that the Vaimānika Śāstra is incomplete, and that these missing parts might fill in the blanks, as well as that these would be highly advanced machines beyond our understanding. We are left with these supposed ancient texts, given to us by a seer and medium, unleashed upon the world to try and explain these mysterious machines of the gods but coming up lacking by modern scientific standards. Whatever one makes of them, they add to the rich history of texts purporting to have secret ancient knowledge, which will always have a particular allure and effect on the imagination, whether they are real or not.

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India, according to Dr. V. Raghavan, retired head of the Sanskrit department of India's prestigious University of Madras, was alone in playing host to extraterrestrials in prehistory. Dr. Raghavan contends that centuries-old documents in Sanskrit (the classical language of India and Hinduism) prove that aliens from outer space visited his nation.

"Fifty years of researching this ancient works convinces me that there are livings beings on other planets, and that they visited earth as far back as 4,000 B.C., "

"In the Mahabharata (writings), there is a notion of divine lighting and ray weapons, even a kind of hypnotic weapon. And in the Ramayana (writings), there is a description of Vimanas, or flying machines, that navigated at great heights with the aid of quicksilver and a great propulsive wind. "These were space vehicles similar to the so-called flying saucers reported throughout the world today.

At Rama`s behest, the magnificent chariot rose up to a mountain of cloud with a tremendous din.` Another passage reads: `Bhima flew with his Vimana on an enormous ray which was as brilliant as the sun and made a noise like the thunder of a storm." In the ancient Vymanika-Shastra (science of aeronautics), there is a description of a Vimana: "An apparatus which can go by its own force, from one place to place or globe to globe." Dr. Raghavan points out, "The text`s revelations

become even more astounding. Thirty-one parts-of which the machine consists-are described, including a photographing mirror underneath.

The text also enumerates 16 kinds of metal that are needed to construct the flying vehicle: `Metals suitable, lighare 16 kinds. `But only three of them are known to us today. The rest remain

untranslatable."

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 Chandigarh 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 "antigravitational" 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 antigravity. The manuscripts did not say definitely that interplanetary travel was evermade but did mention, of all things, a planned trip to the Moon, though it is not clear whether this trip was actually carried out.

(*Laghima - Laghima is derived from the word laghu, which translates from Sanskrit as small or light. This means the ability to make one's body light. Flying and levitation are the other powers obtained from Laghima.)

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

to 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 double  deck, 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").

There are 230 stanzas dealing with the construction, take-off, cruising for thousands 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 Bharadwaj 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.

Bharadwaj the Wise refers to no less than seventy 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 Mahabharata, 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 Samarangana Sutradhara 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 "age old 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 un deciphered, has also been found in one other place in the world: Easter Island! Writing on Easter Island, called Rongo-Rongo writing, is also un deciphered, 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."

Easter Island

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 (Submarine type  maybe). 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, Mahabharata 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.

One even describes a Vimana-Vailixi 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 stone walls 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.

Furthermore, 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.

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 "flyingsaucers" 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 center 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. Unknown alloys have been revealed in the 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 methodsused 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!