Thread: Ancient India had aeroplanes, nuclear weapons, says chief of India's premier history

Indians were flying aeroplanes, carrying out stem cell research and may even have been using cosmic weapons 5,000 years ago, according to the chairman of India's leading historical organisation.

Professor Y Sudershan Rao, the head of the Indian Council of Historical Research, has been criticized by fellow historians for comments that Hindu epics are adequate to understand the ancient world, rather than relying on evidence or research.

The Hindu nationalist government appointed Rao to the prestigious academic post soon after winning the biggest landslide in three decades, fuelling concerns of a push to teach the superiority of Hindu values and mythology at the cost of academic rigour, and cutting against the grain of secularism that runs through multi-faith modern India.

"We have so many proofs that these events happened," Rao, 69, said in an interview, describing events in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, the ancient Hindu epics about love and war, truth and deceit, that feature characters using inextinguishable fire and weapons with the destructive power of a nuclear arsenal.

Similar views have won support from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and in part reflect a belief that India's history books are beholden to colonial powers, foreign invaders and Marxists.

While there is debate over the exact age of the Hindu epics, historians say they were probably written at least two millennia ago. Rao says this in itself is proof the texts are factual because humans did not develop the art of fiction writing until a few centuries back.

Many academics are horrified by such views, and describe his appointment as a blow for the history organisation set up four decades ago to guide research and hand out grants. They point to signs of a broader plan to bring more Hinduism to the classroom through changes to the curriculum.

Two Indian states run by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have recruited controversial Hindu nationalist Dinanath Batra to advise on writing textbooks.

In June, thousands of schools in Gujarat were given textbooks by Batra that claimed cars were invented in ancient India and told children to draw an enlarged nation to include countries including Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

Teachers at Batra's organisation say they want the books to be in every school.

"The lessons from today's history books are that Indians are nothing and good for nothing," said Atul Kothari, secretary of Batra's Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti, or Save the Education Movement. "The truth is that historically we have been a far superior race."

Education Minister Smriti Irani, a former soap actress, declined to comment on what revisions will be included in a review of the curriculum planned next year.

The last time the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party was in power a decade ago it began to rewrite school books in line with Hindu-nationalist orthodoxy.

When the rival Congress party came back to power it rewrote the books again. Academics say the loser in all this are confused, and sometimes ill-informed, school children.

Modi is the first prime minister to publicly back the view that holy texts show many discoveries of modern science were made by ancient Indians. He told an audience of doctors last month that the Hindu god Ganesh's head was evidence of ancient plastic surgery. A warrior the Mahabharata describes as born outside his mother's womb was a test-tube baby, Modi said.

"These claims can be interpreted as signs of an inferiority complex," said Romila Thapar, a leading scholar on ancient India. "The most disturbing thing is that many people accept this without questioning it," said Thapar, whose books one BJP leader has said should be burned.



Read more at: Ancient India had aeroplanes, nuclear weapons, says chief of India's premier history body : India, News - India Today

The Indian PM make the Thai Generals look like Rhodes Scholars.

I think it would be much more satisfying if we started a thread on how the British punished the ringleaders of the Indian Mutiny by strapping them across the muzzles of 12 pounder cannons and blasting them across the Deccan. Apparently they met their fate with some élan. Talk about spreading the word, eh?

it's a shame they let all that tech go before Alexander came and kicked their arse with spears and arrows,
A nuke and a few ground attack aircraft would have been of more use than a few elephants.

Someone's been on the von Däniken

I just fell off my chair...!

i think the chap might have had a job at the bbc

Originally Posted by Necron99

[SIZE="3"]

While there is debate over the exact age of the Hindu epics, historians say they were probably written at least two millennia ago. Rao says this in itself is proof the texts are factual because humans did not develop the art of fiction writing until a few centuries back.

This fool never heard of the Bible ?

Originally Posted by Necron99

Modi is the first prime minister to publicly back the view that holy texts show many discoveries of modern science were made by ancient Indians.

fool.

Originally Posted by Neo

Someone's been on the von Däniken

Graham Hancock is a stronger elixir.

Originally Posted by Necron99

"We have so many proofs that these events happened," Rao, 69

The religious morons actually believe this stuff; we hear it from the lunatic muslims and christians all day every day.

Originally Posted by Necron99

Rao says this in itself is proof the texts are factual because humans did not develop the art of fiction writing until a few centuries back.

Ignoring the obvious fact that the texts are fictional; delusional moron...

Originally Posted by Seekingasylum

I think it would be much more satisfying if we started a thread on how the British punished the ringleaders of the Indian Mutiny by strapping them across the muzzles of 12 pounder cannons and blasting them across the Deccan. Apparently they met their fate with some élan. Talk about spreading the word, eh?

Elan ? Perhaps it was not unexpected ?

"As well as hanging mutineers, the British had some "blown from cannon" (an old Mughal punishment adopted many years before in India), in which sentenced rebels were tied over the mouths of cannons and blown to pieces when the guns were fired".

Originally Posted by VocalNeal

Isn't there a paraphrased joke here where the Indians dug and could not find any copper wires or fibre optic cable so deducted that ancient Indians had wireless communication?

Soon there will be war with Pakistan.
Some of you will be happy, until the nuclear fallout blows your way.

After reading this, I'm cancelling my order for a Tata truck.....

Originally Posted by Necron99

. "The truth is that historically we have been a far superior race."

Have to admit they have been quite good at running call centers.. and the family that ran the Shell station just down the road from me were very good at cross and upselling.

So what's the reason for misplacing all this technology anyway? It was not that long ago when all the cars built there were copies of 1955 Morris Oxfords.

Ancient India had aeroplanes, nuclear weapons, says chief of India's premier history

He's talking about 2014, yes.

The accounts of flying saucers, rockets, technically advanced weapons etc in the Indian Mahayana and Mahabharata were written more than 2,000 years ago, long before western technology produced or described anything like them.

Those stories aren't latter day concoctions made after seeing modern aircraft or weaponry, so can be only derived from two possible sources.

a) Either the early Indian writers literally saw the phenomena, or,

b) Those machines so described are imaginary concoctions.

Since it's impossible to imagine something outside of reality, (ie, imagination can only be based and built up from experienced actions, views or sensations), where or how on earth at that time around 2,000 yrs ago or more (< 4,000 yrs ago) did those early writers get their ideas from?

Not from nothing.

The Vedas aren't just a collection of religious poems, hymns etc, but a a collection of allegorical descriptions of life situations and events.

Only believers take those allegorical stories literally, but early accounts of technically advanced machines falls outside of simple religious allegorical texts concerning seemingly miraculous and superhuman feats of the time.

Those descriptions were based on visual experience. Similar stories and depictions have been made by other societies, including the Maya/Inca peoples.

If drawings of technically advanced machinery existed 2,000 yrs ago or more, where did the draughtsman concerned get his information from to be able to depict such?




3,000 yr old depiction Abydos Egypt.




Aircraft, 200 BC Saquara Egypt.


For further reference;



Vaimanika Shashtra
Samarangana Stradhara
Yuktikalpatani of Bohja
Rigveda, Yajurveda
Atharvaveda
Ramayana
Mahabharata
Puranas
Bhagaravata
Avadhana
Kathasaritsagara
Raghuramsa
darma Abhijnanasakuntalam of Kalidasa
Abimaraka of Bhasa
Jatalas

They may have imagined that it would be possible to build some kind of flying machine at some time in the future, and then made images of what they thought some flying machine might look like. They may have imagined all kinds of other amazing and impossible (at the time) things as well.

Science fiction writers have used illustrations of some pretty funky looking space ships and stuff in modern times.....I mean before we actually got around to building some really primitive space travel machinery. They also imagined what the landscapes on distant planets in distant galaxies might look like.....or aliens from other worlds... you can imagine all kinds of things, as can be seen from the daily input here on TD, which ranges from the very sensible to the totally bizarre.....

So again the question: if they did in fact have some kind of advanced technology thousands of years ago, what happened to it? How did they end up with 1955 Morris Oxfords as the vehicle of choice?

Originally Posted by hazz

i think the chap might have had a job at the bbc

India the only country where a man can run faster than a train.

Originally Posted by helge

Originally Posted by Necron99

[SIZE="3"]

While there is debate over the exact age of the Hindu epics, historians say they were probably written at least two millennia ago. Rao says this in itself is proof the texts are factual because humans did not develop the art of fiction writing until a few centuries back.

This fool never heard of the Bible ?

didn't you know.... thats indian too

Originally Posted by koman

you can imagine all kinds of things,

So again the question: if they did in fact have some kind of advanced technology thousands of years ago, what happened to it? How did they end up with 1955 Morris Oxfords as the vehicle of choice?

Yup, you can imagine anything you like, but sorry mate, it's a known psychological fact that imagination is derived from reality, not from nothing.


Early science fiction in the 1950s (Eagle comics, Dan Dare etc) predicted several futuristic aircraft shapes and forms, but those drawings were derived from military designs drawn up in the war years.

It's not as if anyone of so called 'Indian' origin had/owned/built any of that advanced technology, they simply described it.

Originally Posted by koman

How did they end up with 1955 Morris Oxfords as the vehicle of choice?

Not the Indian vehicle of choice, necessarily, but a cheap knockdown sale bought off Morris Motors and massproduced, now mainly the ubiquitous yellow taxis of India.

Not a bad runner though.

The kama sutra.