{"it":{"id":"TX027","kind":"text","sub":"Indian (modern)","name":"Vaimanika Shastra","place":"Mysuru","date":"Dictated 1918-1923 by Pandit Subbaraya Shastry (claimed channelled); published 1952/1973","oldest":"1918-23","inst":"G.R. Josyer edition 1973 (Mysore)","lang":"Sanskrit/Hindi","src":[225,519],"lat":12.296,"lon":76.639,"tags":["Asia"],"sum":"The Vaimanika Shastra, or science of flying machines, is said to be the work of the ancient sage Bharadwaja. Its verses describe aircraft in detail, and an English edition by G. R. Josyer added drawings of the craft.\n\nIn 1974 five scientists at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, among them H. S. Mukunda, traced its history. Josyer wrote that Pandit Subbaraya Shastry of Anekal dictated the verses to G. Venkatachala Sharma. Shastry, they learned, spoke verses when inspiration came, and had the drawings made by a draughtsman named Ellappa between 1900 and 1919. The team concluded that the work came into being between 1900 and 1922 and cannot be dated earlier than 1904. Josyer set up his International Academy of Sanskrit Research in 1951.\n\nWhat is hard to explain is how a modern text came to pass as ancient. The team found nothing in the verses that dates them to the Vedic period.\n\nThe mainstream view is the team's own. None of the planes has properties of being flown, the geometries are unimaginably horrendous for flight, and the propulsion would resist rather than assist flying. Josyer goes further. In his edition he presents the book as the sage Bharadwaja's science of aircraft, handed down from ancient times.\n\nWhy did a modern text need an ancient author?","why":"Scientists traced a text on ancient flying machines to the early 20th century and found the planes could not fly.","nfacts":0,"nsrc":5,"yt":"Read the 1974 study.","rel":["TX026"],"hook":"A text on ancient aircraft cannot be dated earlier than 1904, scientists found in 1974."},"S":{"225":["en.wikipedia.org","https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaimanika_Shastra"],"519":["Wikipedia: Vaimānika Shāstra","https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaim%C4%81nika_Sh%C4%81stra"]},"rec":{"id":"TX027","alias":["W11T03","W15T12"],"ms":[],"lab":[{"k":"Lab test","mat":"engineering review","v":"aircraft \"poor concoctions\"; no grasp of aeronautics","m":"text analysis","by":"IISc Bangalore 1974","b":"S","s":["W15S34"],"url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vimana&oldid=1380096403"}],"eng":[],"ori":[],"gaps":[],"dat":[],"aa":[{"id":"AA128","a":"Ancient aviation manual.","who":"Josyer; some AA writers","main":"Modern text; 1974 IISc Bangalore aeronautical study (Mukunda et al.) found designs 'incapable of flight'.","ms":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaimanika_Shastra","st":"contradicted","n":"tested: Mukunda 1974 / van Beek 1991","nl":1},{"id":"AA200","a":"ancient/NHI-origin claims","who":"various (not itemised)","main":"IISc 1974 (Mukunda, Deshpande, Nagendra, Prabhu, Govindaraju): not earlier than 1904; craft non-feasible; no mass unit","ms":"W11S27;W11S28","st":"contradicted","n":"","nl":"1"},{"id":"AA227","a":"Records contact with non-human/advanced beings or craft","who":"AA literature (see claimant_index)","main":"IISc Bangalore 1974 study: aircraft \"poor concoctions\"","ms":"W15S34","st":"contradicted","n":"Not ancient; extends W11 coverage.","nl":"1"}],"ac":[],"me":[],"ci":[{"who":"Subbaraya Shastry / G.R. Josyer","med":"text","ep":"Vaimanika Shastra (Josyer ed.; dictated 1918-23)","v":"Ancient Indian aircraft technical manual","b":"S","s":["W15S34"]}],"cq":[],"sd":[],"pas":[],"tr":[{"by":"G.R. Josyer","yr":"1973","t":"Vymanika Shastra","lic":"copyright","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaimanika_Shastra"}],"mo":[],"tl":[],"wit":[{"id":"W11T03","mw":"Dictated by Pandit Subbaraya Shastry (1866-1940) 1918-1923; MS at Rajakiya Sanskrit Library Baroda by 1944; announced 1952 by G.R. Josyer; Hindi 1959; Sanskrit+English 1973","kn":"IISc 1974 (Mukunda, Deshpande, Nagendra, Prabhu, Govindaraju): not earlier than 1904; craft non-feasible; no mass unit","pf":"modern (20th c.)","st":"contradicted","sn":"","b":"V","s":["W11S27","W11S28"]},{"id":"W15T12","mw":"Dictated by Pandit Subbaraya Shastry 1918-1923 (per Josyer)","kn":"IISc Bangalore 1974 study: aircraft \"poor concoctions\"","pf":"modern (20th c)","st":"contradicted","sn":"Not ancient; extends W11 coverage.","b":"S","s":["W15S34"]}],"tx":{"mainstream_reading":"Modern text; 1974 IISc Bangalore aeronautical study (Mukunda et al.) found designs 'incapable of flight'.","alternative_reading":"Ancient aviation manual.","alt_proponent":"Josyer; some AA writers","mistranslation_or_dispute":"Provenance is 20th century, decisive.","key_theme":"detailed aircraft designs","language":"Sanskrit/Hindi","physical_object_institution":"G.R. Josyer edition 1973 (Mysore)","composition_date":"Dictated 1918-1923 by Pandit Subbaraya Shastry (claimed channelled); published 1952/1973","oldest_ms_date":"1918-23","b":"V"},"sub":[],"src":[{"id":"W15S34","t":"IISc Bangalore 1974","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vimana&oldid=1380096403"},{"id":"W11S27","t":"Wikipedia Vaimanika Shastra","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vaimanika_Shastra&oldid=1376747919"},{"id":"W11S28","t":"Mukunda et al 1974 Scientific Opinion p5 (IISc)","u":"https://cgpl.iisc.ac.in/oldwebcontent/site/Portals/0/Publications/ReferedJournal/ACriticalStudyOfTheWorkVaimanikaShastra.pdf"},{"id":"S0630","t":"en.wikipedia.org","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaimanika_Shastra"},{"id":null,"t":"Wikipedia: Vaimānika Shāstra","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaim%C4%81nika_Sh%C4%81stra"},{"id":"VTX027-6","t":"Mukunda et al. 1974, A critical study of the work Vaimanika Shastra (IISc, PDF)","u":"https://hsmukunda.in/files/journal_other_papers/1974_hsm_etc_A%20Critical%20Study%20of%20the%20Work%20Vaimanika%20Shastra.pdf"}],"qs":["Why did a modern text need an ancient author?","What would it take to show that any part of it was old?"],"sum":"# The Vaimanika Shastra: An Aircraft Manual From an Ancient Sage, Written Down in 1918\n\nThe boy had been left to die. Smallpox had killed his sisters and one of his brothers, and it struck him so hard that he could no longer move or use his hands. His surviving brothers, unable to care for him, went on without him. For a time he lived on grass and leaves, like an animal. Then, near Kolar in southern India, in a most pitiable state, he met a holy man remembered only as Guruji Maharaj. The saint cured him, initiated him, and in a cave revealed to him the secrets of many lost sciences. One of them was the science of flying machines.\n\nThat is the life story of Pandit Subbaraya Shastry, as summarised in 1974 by five scientists from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, drawing on his own autobiography. Years after the cave, Shastry began to speak verses whenever inspiration came, and an associate wrote them down. The result is the Vaimanika Shastra, \"the science of aircraft,\" one of the most famous and most argued-over texts in the modern search for lost knowledge.\n\n## What the text is\n\nThe Vaimanika Shastra is a work in Sanskrit of about 3,000 verses in eight chapters. It claims to be a small part, about one-fortieth, of a much larger work called Yantra Sarvaswa, \"All about machines,\" composed by the ancient sage Bharadwaja and other sages for the benefit of all mankind. It does not begin with the principles of flight. It starts straight in with details, as though describing a particular aircraft, and it ranges widely: the definition of an aeroplane and a pilot, aerial routes, food and clothing for flyers, metals and how to make them, mirrors and their uses in war, machinery of many kinds. It names classes of craft driven by spells, by tantric powers and by construction, and describes four built aircraft in detail, called Shakuna, Sundara, Rukma and Tripura.\n\nThe verses were dictated, by the account of the editor G. R. Josyer, to a man named G. Venkatachala Sharma, a close associate of Shastry in his later years, between 1918 and 1923. A manuscript was in the Rajakiya Sanskrit Library at Baroda by 1944. A Hindi edition appeared in 1959. In 1973 Josyer published the Sanskrit with an English translation, and added something the Hindi edition lacked: drawings of the aircraft, made under Shastry's direction by T. K. Ellappa, a draughtsman at a local engineering college in Bangalore.\n\n## The man who made it famous\n\nJosyer had founded his International Academy of Sanskrit Research in Mysore in 1951, opening it with an exhibition of rare manuscripts. In 1952 he announced the aircraft text to the press. His statement, which he says was taken up by Reuters, claimed manuscripts \"several thousands of years old,\" compiled by ancient seers, including one on \"the construction of various types of aircraft for civil aviation and for warfare,\" with designs for \"a helicopter-type cargo-loading plane,\" \"passenger aircraft carrying 400 to 500 persons,\" and \"double- and triple-decked aircraft.\"\n\nHere the story becomes partly about motive. A country newly independent, proud of an ancient civilisation that colonial rulers had belittled, was ready to hear that its sages had flown. Jean Lyon, a journalist from Toronto and New York who interviewed Josyer, concluded in a 1954 book that he was \"guilty of a rabid nationalism, seeking to wipe out everything since the Vedas.\"\n\n## The 1974 investigation\n\nThe scientists who studied the text, H. S. Mukunda, S. M. Deshpande, H. R. Nagendra, A. Prabhu and S. P. Govindaraju, did something unusual. They did not only read it. They went looking for the people. With help from a retired scholar, they found G. V. Sharma himself and Venkatarama Shastry, Shastry's adopted son, and talked through the history of the papers. They learned that the drawings had been made sometime between 1900 and 1919. A Bombay man named Talpade had tried to build models under Shastry's guidance and had not succeeded in making any of them fly.\n\nTheir verdict on dating was firm. The Sanskrit, set in a simple metre, is \"quite simple and modern,\" and the few words with a Vedic look are incidental. The great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, make no mention of aircraft used for travel or war; even Pushpak in the Ramayana \"has no flying qualities except possibly by invocation\" of spells. The study concluded that the work \"cannot be dated earlier than 1904\" and came into being \"sometime between 1900 and 1922.\" The only evidence for Bharadwaja as author \"is the textual statement and nothing more.\"\n\nThen they tested the machines as engineers. The Shakuna, shaped like a bird, gives great importance to the tail for lift, when it is the wings that should lift and the tail that should steer; its height and width put its stability \"in serious question,\" and the dimensions in the verses disagree with those in the drawings. The Sundara would suck air from below and blow hot gases out through the top, \"a gross violation of Newton's laws,\" and its quoted speed of four hundred yojanas in a ghatika works out to about 8,000 miles an hour. The Rukma, which some of the team had once thought the most promising, turned out to be \"a decided impossibility.\" Materials included recipes involving mercury, mica and sixteen measures of donkey's urine.\n\nTheir conclusion has been quoted ever since. \"None of the planes has properties or capabilities of being flown; the geometries are unimaginably horrendous from the point of view of flying; and the principles of propulsion make them resist rather than assist flying.\" The drawings, they noted, \"definitely point to a knowledge of modern machinery,\" showing cylinders, pistons, worm gears and pumps, which they explained by Ellappa's work at an engineering college.\n\n## The mainstream view, and its edges\n\nThat is now the mainstream position, and the record marks the claim of an ancient aviation manual as contradicted. Josyer's introduction, in the scientists' words, is \"least scholarly by any standards.\" They added a sharper judgement: \"some people tend to eulogise and glorify whatever they can find about our past, even without valid evidence.\"\n\nYet even the debunkers drew a careful line. J. B. Hare, who put Josyer's book online in 2005, pointed out that \"nobody is claiming that it came from some mysterious antique manuscript,\" and that on one level \"this is not a hoax. You just have to buy into the assumption that 'channelling' works.\" The 1974 team wrote that whether flying vehicles in the ancient texts existed at all \"is undecideable within the realm of science.\" Their study judged the text, not the question behind it.\n\nThe question has not gone away. In January 2015 the 102nd Indian Science Congress in Mumbai included a talk on the Vaimanika Shastra by a pilot, Anand J. Bodas, who said Vedic aircraft flew \"from planet to planet.\" A scientist named Ram Prasad Gandhiraman launched a petition to cancel it as pseudoscience.\n\nWhat survives is the strangeness of the source. Shastry never claimed to have found an old manuscript. He claimed to remember, or to receive, a lost science, and he said so openly. The drawings are modern. The verses are modern. The insistence that they are ancient comes from the sage's name at the top.\n\nWhy did a text written down in 1918 need an author who lived thousands of years earlier, and what would it take to show that any idea inside it was old?"},"img":null,"md":{"h":"img/m/TX027-16x9.webp","w":1600,"hh":900,"alt":"Vaimanika Shastra, Mysuru — Illustration of the Shakuna Vahana / Vaimānika Shāstra from Vaimanika Shastra. Drawn in Bangalore in 1923 and out of cop","by":"T.K. Ellappa","lic":"Public domain","lu":"","p":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vaimanika_Shastra_Shakuna_illustration.jpg","g":false,"ct":true,"cap":"","sec":[]},"hh":[{"v":"1918-23","h":"Oldest surviving copy","s":[302]},{"v":"Sanskrit/Hindi","h":"Language","s":[302]}],"hs":{"302":["en.wikipedia.org","https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaimanika_Shastra"]}}