Ancient Sanskrit text mentioned air travel’

Ancient Sanskrit text mentioned air travel

The retired principal of a pilot training centre said at the Indian Science Congress Sunday that the country’s scientists should use technology listed in an ancient Sanskrit text to build indigenous aircraft and promote Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India initiative.

Captain Anand Bodas, who was presenting a paper on ‘Ancient Indian Aviation Technology’, claimed that the science of building and flying a plane was recorded by Maharshi Bharadwaj in Brihad Vimana Shastra, written between 6000 BC and 7000 BC, several millenia before the Wright Brothers built an aeroplane. “Maharshi Bharadwaj said air planes were used to travel from one city to another, from one country to another and from one planet to another,” Bodas said.

“The science should now be used by Indian scientists to build our own planes,” he added. Bodas further said building such planes would be in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India programme.

He also said a Mumbai couple pulled off a demonstration flight on Chowpatty beach before the Wright Brothers went up the air.

Bodas claimed that manuscripts recovered by Mysore’s International Academy of Sanskrit Research in 1952 discard records that Wright Brothers flew the first plane in 1903.

He said planes built centuries ago were nearly 60 feet X 60 feet and were made using 11 alloys, 407 melting pots and 532 furnaces. “Brihad Vimana Shastra had vivid details of 32 systems built in the plane with seven systems for navigation, eight for operational purposes and remaining for war-time purposes. The planes in the scripts also had flexible exhausts called ‘shundaas’ which are absent in modern technology,” he added.

Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said the scientific community should use Sanskrit for human development. He added that Germans were the first to acknowledge Sanskrit’s importance, but Indians are yet to do it.

Ayurvedic physician Dr Ashwin Sawant, who presented a case study on ancient surgery, indicated that plastic surgery was found in India 3,500 years ago and dentistry was practised 7,000 years ago. “The surgical instruments, about 101 blunt and 20 types of sharp instruments, are used with little variation today. For instance, ‘swastik yantra’ is modern day’s forceps while ‘sharaari shastra’ is today’s scissors. Medical use of leeches for blood-related diseases was mentioned in Sanskrit scripts. It was only recently that US Food and Drug Administration acknowledged use of leeches. It is time Indian medical science makes use of ancient scripts for innovation in medicine,” said Sawant.

Scientist Dr Vijay Bhatkar pointed out that Indian scientists should start studying the texts before the US recognises accuracy of ancient Indian sciences.

Most speakers at the session stressed on the use of Sanskrit texts to forward the Make in India initiative.