Aeroplanes In Ancient India

Discussion in 'Eastern Philosophy' started by kmguru, Mar 21, 2004.

  1. Crimson_Scribe Thespian Registered Senior Member

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    Is it quite possible that these descriptions are descriptions of the possible, rather than the existing? One will remember Da Vinci's diagrams that were never fully realized.
     
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  3. Thersites Registered Senior Member

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    Very different proceedures. Both vague, the "ancient" one so vague as to be meaningless.


    In short, there isn't any evidence for it and, as you say, little cause for confidence.

    or if they ever existed, or, perhaps, were created later as ancient texts.

    Yet none of these ancient texts, it seems, refer to other, simpler and more reliable engines. None of these texts explain how these engines and aeroplanes actually worked.

    There might. The moon might be made of green cheese, but it would be wiser to use more probable hypotheses.
    Who indeed? But don't raise your hopes too high.

    there are levels of likelihood to events. It is less foolish to follow the level of probability.

    EH?
     
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  5. anu Banned Banned

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    Thersites

    Very different proceedures. Both vague, the "ancient" one so vague as to be meaningless.

    both? ion engines are a fact of life. as you said..Go to a relevant engineering book and it will show how an ion engine works. there is nothing vague about it

    In short, there isn't any evidence for it and, as you say, little cause for confidence.

    you seem.... over eager

    or if they ever existed, or, perhaps, were created later as ancient texts.

    you mean forgeries? how interested are you in this? are you willing to make the investment and find out for yourself? the vedas however are a reality. they exist. the references included in the topic post are not mere conjecture. there might be errors in translation but i would imagine there are numerous versions available.

    Yet none of these ancient texts, it seems, refer to other, simpler and more reliable engines. None of these texts explain how these engines and aeroplanes actually worked.

    how do you know there are no references? are you a historian or are you merely going by the info presented in this thread?

    i would find a 5000 yr old internal engine combustion engine just as fantastic as the mercury powered engine. the expectations of a complete preservation of all historical texts is rather absurd.

    There might. The moon might be made of green cheese,

    THE SANTA CLAUS GAMBIT: This trick consists of lumping moderate claims or propositions together with extreme ones. If you suggest, for example, that Sasquatch can't be completely ruled out from the available evidence,the skeptic will then facetiously suggest that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny can't be "completely" ruled out either.

    but it would be wiser to use more probable hypotheses.Who indeed? But don't raise your hopes too high.

    hopes? what the fuck do you think is riding on this? how would the truth or falsity of these claims affect any real change? do you fucking think i have money on this? i suggest you back the fuck off, maggot!

    there are levels of likelihood to events. It is less foolish to follow the level of probability.

    ahh, i see it is appearances that concern you. no problem.
     
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  7. Thersites Registered Senior Member

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    I didn't say ion engines are "a fact of life" actually. A relevant engineering book may tell you how an ion engine works and how to build one. Neither of the extracts- ancient or modern- you cited did.

    Eh? Over sceptical, by your standards, perhaps, but over eager for what?

    If they still exist and you know they exist, why did you say: "I do not have access to these texts. one wonders if they are still in existence"? There is a long history of pious forgeries: I'm not very bothered about whether these are part of it, but it is an interesting and entertaining topic.

    I am, of course, going by the info on this thread. However, if there was any such evidence then almost certainly you or someone else would have presented it elsewhere.

    An internal combustion engine is much easier to make and use than an ion engine, therefore a society that could produce an ion engine would be likely to have made and supplied info on internal combustion engines first. Given that there would be much more written material on internal combustion engines the probability is that such material would be much more likely to survive.

    Not at all. I have lumped together several equally improbable claims. I know nothing of sasquatches, but 5000 year old ion engines, the moon being made of green cheese, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny all have about the same level of probability.

    Well, something is riding on this. Possibly your vanity and egotism, possibly other matters, but something that gets you a little worked up.

    No, it is evidence and probability that concern me. I have no problem with that. Do you?
     
  8. kmguru Staff Member

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    11,757
    If the ancient technology was advanced and people who passed the knowledge directly from one person to another (as there may not be any written material due to ice age or whatever - then after several generations, the detail words could have been replaced by then used simpler words to convey meaning. Then of course we lose the accuracy of the technical spec.

    This is a speculation only....

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  9. anu Banned Banned

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    wise move! i think disclaimers ought to be de rigueur around here lest some maniacal debunker springs out of the foliage and bushwhacks your ass!
     
  10. everneo Re-searcher Registered Senior Member

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    Those vimanas, astras (missiles) were all activated by mantras (passwords). Once the passwords were validated the machines were activated, such was the techniques used. No one knows the detailed design of them except those who presented them to the humans.

    Disclaimer : this is my own fantacy. it might not be so infact.
     
  11. kmguru Staff Member

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    11,757
    Actually mantras could be considered as voice commands to a computer. That is because, if one translates any Sanskrit mantra, you can find straight commands. Some mantras over the years have been added with flowery language and a lot of salutations, as if later generation just added them....

    As we develop new technologies such as nano technology, wi-fi, computers, voice commands, etc - they seem to be described in the ancient texts. Could be just co-incidence, but who knows!
     
  12. anu Banned Banned

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    215
    Thersites

    I didn't say ion engines are "a fact of life" actually. A relevant engineering book may tell you how an ion engine works and how to build one. Neither of the extracts- ancient or modern- you cited did.

    note the period. it is my statement. it is the 2nd sentence where i paraphrase you. again, do not assume the ancients archive and preserve as we currently do.

    Eh? Over sceptical, by your standards, perhaps, but over eager for what?

    no, one can never be too skeptical but one can be most certainly be eager enough to debunk that logic is thrown out in order to make ones case. allow me to demonstrate

    Not at all. I have lumped together several equally improbable claims. I know nothing of sasquatches, but 5000 year old ion engines, the moon being made of green cheese, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny all have about the same level of probability.

    *green cheese" the composition of the moon has been demonstrated by exploration of surface and a examination of its constituents. do you deny this? walk into to a museum. they probably have moon rocks lying around - zero likelihood

    *Easter Bunny: if there is anything the biological sciences can say with absolute certitude. it would be that mammals do not lay eggs - zero likelihood

    *Santa Claus: the origin of the myth....Saint Nicholas a bishop of Byzantine Anatolia , modern-day Turkey , famous for generous gifts to the poor. myth/the feast is called ' sinterklaas feest', it celebrates the birthday of sinterklaas during sinterklaasavond ("sinterklaas's evening") :- 99% probability

    :the fanciful spin...On Christmas eve, he rides in his flying sleigh (pulled by reindeer ) from house to house to give presents to children. During the rest of the year he lives at the North Pole , in Finnish Lapland , or Dalecarlia in Sweden (traditions vary) together with his wife, Mrs. Claus, and his elves who serve as his toy production staff. - zero likelihood

    do you get it? your comparisons can all be falsified. it is impossible rather than improbable. can you to do the same to the ion engine? in any case this intrigues me. lets consider precedents for this kind of thing. ie: ancient references subsequently verified by a scientific investigation perhaps mr rabon can chip in?

    If they still exist and you know they exist, why did you say: "I do not have access to these texts. one wonders if they are still in existence"? There is a long history of pious forgeries: I'm not very bothered about whether these are part of it, but it is an interesting and entertaining topic.

    pardon. there are numerous bodies of work. some are extant. others are incomplete or not present at all. the Vymanika Shastra, the Arthasastra of Kautilya are not part of the vedas. they are independant of it and of a much later date. as to the forgeries, i am in agreement. one must always be wary. as to access, india is not really renowned for her "library of congress." the sad truth might be that some of these books lie in tattered remains in a shack that passes for a used book store

    I am, of course, going by the info on this thread. However, if there was any such evidence then almost certainly you or someone else would have presented it elsewhere.

    i think you give us too much credit. there are no specialists here. in my case, if the info is not online, it might as well not exist. (heh)

    An internal combustion engine is much easier to make and use than an ion engine, therefore a society that could produce an ion engine would be likely to have made and supplied info on internal combustion engines first. Given that there would be much more written material on internal combustion engines the probability is that such material would be much more likely to survive.

    yes, i agree. i am however interested in notion of "technological leaps." instances where the traditional form of scientific progress is not the case. ie: from a to f. there are a few scenarios. one, the child prodigy. the kid has the knowledge without it being taught. two, the knowledge is imparted from outside sources. for instance, the adoption of wireless tech by a society. the infrastructure for land lines and the knowhow is not present. imagine how it may appear to a historian or archeologist of the future .

    this of course leads to another consideration which is quite common in these cases. namely, the technology is not local. it came from without. ie: aliens. in order to explore this particular hypothesis, one must consider other probabilities. ie: life outside our solar system, evidence for visitations etc

    Well, something is riding on this. Possibly your vanity and egotism, possibly other matters, but something that gets you a little worked up.

    it is just the accusation. it is common tactic employed by the debunkers. you want to believe! ones mental condition is suddenly the issue. i get very impatient with this tactic. use at your own risk

    No, it is evidence and probability that concern me. I have no problem with that. Do you?

    not at all. i sense sincerity. welcome to sciforums

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  13. kmguru Staff Member

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    Mantra means - a formula, ma means stem or kernel. Modern meaning outside of a prayer (wish) would be a root command...

    Perhaps similar to the incantation in Babylon 5 of the technomaze....
     
  14. anu Banned Banned

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    Maharshi Bharadvaja

    ' Seer of the sacred-formula ' (Mantradrasta) Vedic -Sage, well-versed in the Aeronautics (Vimana-Vidya), wise professor, Maharshi Bharadvaja is said to be the author of books such as Yantra Sarvasva (Complete Mechanics), Amsu Tantra (System of Sun beams) and Akasa-Sastra (scientific treatise on Space). In Yantra-Sarvasva the mechanism concerning the construction of an aeroplane has been explained in accordance with aeronautics and the steps in the process of such a construction are described. In the section dealing with the mechanism of an aeroplane (Vaimanika-Prakarana) a list of twenty five ancient books on aeronautics together with the names of the earlier Acharyas of the science has been given, from which it is known that in ancient India construction and flying of the aeroplanes was fully known. Maharshi Bharadvaja had his famous Gurukul (residential teaching institute) in Prayag near the Sangama (confluence of rivers Ganga ,Yamuna and; Sarasvat )

    http://www.hssworld.org/homepage/html/boudhik/ekatmata_stotra/SHLOKA_27.html


    "European scholarship regards human civilization as a recent progression starting yesterday with the Fiji islander, and ending today with Rockefeller, conceiving ancient culture as necessarily half savage culture." It is a superstition of modern thought that the march of knowledge has always been linear." "Our vision of "prehistory" is terribly inadequate. We have not yet rid our minds from the hold of a one-and-only God or one-and-only Book, and now a one-and-only Science." *(Shri Aurobindo Ghosh, - 1872-1950)

    Vymanika Shastra Rediscovered
     
    Last edited: Jul 10, 2004
  15. Persol I am the great and mighty Zo. Registered Senior Member

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    5,946
    Such as? I'm sure you can make connections, but they are tenious at best.
     
  16. anu Banned Banned

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    ancient shit concerning aircraft

    *INDIA

    One excellent example is the 3,000 year old Vymanika Shastra, meaning “The Science of Aeronautics”. It has been translated by G.R. Josyer, director of the International Academy of Sanskrit research in Mysore, India. The translation, “Aeronautics, a Manuscript From the Prehistoric Past”, was published in book form by Coronation press, Mysore, in 1973.

    *EGYPT

    In 1898 a small 6 inch model plane, with fuselage, wings and tail, was discovered in a tomb near Saqqara, Egypt, It was dated to approximately 200 BC.

    The model was sent to the Cairo Museum of Antiquities. Here it was catalogued as Special register No. 6347 Room 22, and then it was promptly forgotten. At the time of its discovery, modern aviation did not exist. Rediscovered in the museum’s storerooms in 1969, it was found to fly perfectly as a glider, though there are indications it may have originally possessed a propulsion mechanism at the tail. The design is highly sophisticated.
    It has been claimed that the Egyptians never made a model of anything unless it was used in real life. At least 14 other model aircraft have been found in Egyptian tombs.

    *S AMERICA

    *Ancient models resembling modern jet planes have been discovered in tombs in Costa Rica, Venezuela and Colombia. They possess delta wings, engine housing, a cockpit, windshield, flanged tail and elevators. These models have passed aerodynamic tests. Some have two sets of wings.

    These are displayed in the Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago), the Museum of Primitive Art (New York), the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History (Washington, D.C.) and in Bogota, Colombia.

    evidence

    more

    images
     
    Last edited: Jul 10, 2004
  17. kmguru Staff Member

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    11,757
    While the all the talk about Vimanas in ancient texts, and the possibility exists that there may be advanced civilization that perished in a natural or artificial catastrophe - I still remain a skeptic for a simple reason.

    We have been digging underground in most areas of the world and have not found anything hightech yet - not even in antartica.

    On the otherhand because of that very reason, there is a better possibility that the vimana civilization may be out of this world and only the stories remain. It makes sense that if a small group of people settled on Earth, then there will not be any infrastruture to produce advanced vehicles and large machines and manufacturing capabilities. All one needs is a method of transportation between the planets. And if Earth was an outpost, then there would be minimal hightech equipment which could easily have degraded by now. If such is the case, we may have to search areas where civilization began - like the river banks of India and dig for archelogical evidence of any gadgets....

    If not, we may have to wait for a few hundred years when we do interstellar travel and find the place where it all began....Atlantis anyone?

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  18. skywalker 3 @ T M 3 Registered Senior Member

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    Let it go. There were no planes in India or Egypt or anywhere. If there were planes then there should have been some solid evidence except the pictures on the wall.

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  19. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    like what?
     
  20. Rick Valued Senior Member

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    3,336
    We dont know the exact age of the period.Some say somethings,some say something else.If we perhaps know the exact age of the Empires,we could then perhaps start Digging.

    I dont quite agree on Alien Technology at work.We all are aware of Ashoka's 9 secret men who had created a stirr by making complex machines beyond the comprehension of common.Ancient-India has always been strong in Maths and Astronomy,(remember Velocity of Light?).Aliens,UFOs are just stories.In this case the whole India echoes the stories of Epics which have extreme details giving the sense of being real.Plus accurate records...
    How can we possibly use the above information to our benefit?When will the moment of exact evidence with something concrete come?we are yet to know.

    ~~Zion
    bye!
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2004
  21. HitArth Registered Member

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    Is there some reference material on how Hydrogen used to get seperated from water? I read it about usage of Hydrogen in ancient aeroplane in this site. It has been mentioned that there is an elaborate discussion about Hydrogen in Rig Ved. How do I get more information?
     
  22. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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    13,433
    I would like some direct quotes and sources please for the detailed scientific instructions for using electricity to extract hydrogen from water and the other outlandish claims.

    I'm not saying they aren't there, just that I want to see them, and compare them with translations I have.

    I have come across more than a few web pages that exaggerate and contrive meanings into ancient Indian texts and pass it off as fact and/or a direct translation.

    Some sites report some fantastical claims, yet does not back them up with direct quotes.
    MANY of them simply read these loose translations and extrapolations, and rather than research them, simply re-state what was said and sometimes even get THAT wrong.
    Most of them do not quote their sources, so it is nearly impossible to verify their claims.
    Trying to research ancient Indian documents on the web is akin to trying to track down the source of a chinese whisper.

    This site for example, says:
    Hey, wait...
    That sounds awfully familiar!
    Where have I seen that before?

    Then you have to call the original translations themselves into serious scrutiny.
    There are many different translations of the ancient Indian texts.
    Some of them are quite obviously not literal (they rhyme in English) and the translators have taken quite a few liberties with the text.

    I'm curious, kmuguru...
    Have you researched these claims at all, or simply quoted someone else's web page blindly assuming they are both correct and truthful without looking any further on your own?

    If you have done research on your own, please share specifically (including citing book, chapter, verse and translator) what you have found.
    If you haven't, please try and cite your source in the future so WE can.
     
  23. MRC_Hans Skeptic Registered Senior Member

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    The airplane was discovered (for certain) in 1905. By 1918, it had changed history. If it was discovered earlier, how come it did not even impact history one little bit back then? What would the impact on warfare centuries ago have been from just a few clumsy aircraft?

    Hans
     

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