Vaimānika Shāstra

The Vaimānika Śāstra (वैमानिक शास्त्र, lit. "shastra on the topic of

Vimanas"; or "science of aeronautics", sometimes also rendered Vimanika,
Vymanika, Vyamanika) is a 20th-century text in Sanskrit. It makes the claim
that the vimānas mentioned in ancient Sanskrit epics were advanced
aerodynamic flying vehicles.

The existence of the text was revealed in 1952 by G. R. Josyer who

asserted that it was written by Pandit Subbaraya Shastry (1866–1940), who
dictated it during the years 1918–1923. A Hindi translation was published
in 1959, while the Sanskrit text with an English translation was published
in 1973. It contains 3000 shlokas in 8 chapters which Shastry claimed was
psychically delivered to him by the ancient Hindu sage Bharadvaja.[1] The
text has gained favour among proponents of ancient astronauts.
Title page of the English
translation of Vyamanika
A study by aeronautical and mechanical engineering researchers at the
Shastra published in 1973
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in 1974 concluded that the aircraft
described in the text were "poor concoctions" and that the author showed a
complete lack of understanding of aeronautics. Regarding the "Rukma
Vimana", the study noted, "If the craft is taken to mean what the drawing and the text say, it can be stated
that the craft is a decided impossibility".[2]

Origin and publication

The existence of the text was revealed in 1952 by G. R. Josyer who asserted that it was written by Pandit
Subbaraya Shastry (1866–1940), who dictated it during the years 1918–1923. A Hindi translation was
published in 1959, while the Sanskrit text with an English translation was published in 1973. It contains
3000 shlokas in 8 chapters which Shastry claimed was psychically delivered to him by the ancient Hindu
sage Bharadvaja.[3] The text has gained favour among proponents of ancient astronauts. The Vaimānika
Śāstra manuscript appeared at Rajakiya Sanskrit Library, Baroda by 1944.[4] The text was published in
Hindi in 1959[5] and later in English by G.R. Josyer, titled Vymanika Shastra.[6] Josyer's edition also added
illustrations drawn by T. K. Ellappa, a draughtsman at a local engineering college in Bangalore, under the
direction of Shastry, which had been missed in the 1959 edition.[7]

Its existence was first announced publicly in a 1952 press release by G.R. Josyer, who had founded his
"International Academy of Sanskrit Research" in Mysore the year before. In the foreword to the 1973
publication that contained the full Sanskrit text with English translation, Josyer quotes a 1952 press release
of his which was "published in all the leading dailies of India, and was taken up by Reuter and other World
Press News Services":[6]

Mr. G. R. Josyer, Director of the International Academy of Sanskrit Research in Mysore, in the
course of an interview recently, showed some very ancient manuscripts which the Academy
had collected. 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.

Josyer then tells how he was visited by "Miss Jean Lyon, journalist of Toronto and New York" for an
interview, and how Lyon in her Just Half a World Away (1954) concluded that he was "guilty of a rabid
nationalism, seeking to wipe out everything since the Vedas".

A critical review pronounced Josyer's introduction to be "least scholarly by any standards" and said that
"the people connected with publication – directly or indirectly – are solely to blame either for distorting or
hiding the history of the manuscripts", perhaps in an attempt to "eulogise and glorify whatever they can
find about our past, even without valid evidence". By tracing the provenance of the manuscript,
interviewing associates of Shastry (including G. V. Sharma to whom the text was originally dictated), and
based on the linguistic analysis of the text, the review concluded that it came into existence sometime
between 1900 and 1922.[7]

Structure and content

Unlike modern treatises on aeronautics that begin by discussing the general
principles of flight before detailing concepts of aircraft design, the
Vaimānika Shāstra starts with a quantitative description, as though a
particular aircraft is being described. The topics covered include,
"definition of an airplane, a pilot, aerial routes, food, clothing, metals, metal
production, mirrors and their uses in wars, varieties of machinery and
yantras, planes like ‘mantrik’, ‘tantrik’, and ‘kritak’" and four planes called
Shakuna, Sundara, Rukma, and Tripura are described in greater detail. The
extant text is claimed to be only a small (one-fortieth) part of a larger work
Yantra Sarvaswa ("All about machines"[6]) composed by Maharishi
Bharadwaj and other sages for the "benefit of all mankind".[7]

Appraisal An illustration of the

Shakuna Vimana that is
J. B. Hare of the Internet Sacred Text Archive in 2005 compiled an online supposed to fly like a bird
edition of Josyer's 1973 book, in the site's "UFOs" section. In his with hinged wings and tail.[7]
introduction, Hare writes

The Vaimānika Śāstra was first committed to writing between 1918 and 1923, and nobody is
claiming that it came from some mysterious antique manuscript. The fact is, there are no
manuscripts of this text before 1918, and nobody is claiming that there are. So on one level,
this is not a hoax. You just have to buy into the assumption that 'channeling' works. ... there is
no exposition of the theory of aviation (let alone antigravity). In plain terms, the VS. never
directly explains how Vimanas get up in the air. The text is top-heavy with long lists of often
bizarre ingredients used to construct various subsystems. ... There is nothing here which Jules
Verne couldn't have dreamed up, no mention of exotic elements or advanced construction
techniques. The 1923 technical illustration based on the text ... are absurdly un-aerodynamic.
They look like brutalist wedding cakes, with minarets, huge ornithopter wings and dinky
propellers. In other words, they look like typical early 20th century fantasy flying machines
with an Indian twist.
A 1974 study by researchers at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore,
found that the heavier-than-air aircraft that the Vaimānika Śāstra described
were aeronautically unfeasible. The authors remarked that the discussion of
the principles of flight in the text were largely perfunctory and incorrect, in
some cases violating Newton's laws of motion. The study concluded:[8]

Any reader by now would have concluded the obvious – that

the planes described above are the best poor concoctions,
rather than expressions of something real. 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 text and the drawings do not correlate with An illustration of Rukma
each other even thematically. The drawings definitely point to Vimana
a knowledge of modern machinery. This can be explained on
the basis of the fact that Shri Ellappa who made the drawings
was in a local engineering college and was thus familiar with
names and details of some machinery. Of course the text
retains a structure in language and content from which its
'recent nature' cannot be asserted. We must hasten to point out
that this does not imply an oriental nature of the text at all. All
that may be said is that thematically the drawings ought to be
ruled out of discussion. And the text, as it stands, is
incomplete and ambiguous by itself and incorrect at many
places.

The authors expressed puzzlement at the contradiction and errors in the Vaimānika Śāstra text, especially
since its compilers supposedly had access to publications that did not make such errors (such as Dayanand
Saraswati's commentary on the Rigveda published in 1878 or earlier).[2]

Controversy
The 102nd Indian Science Congress held at the Mumbai University in January 2015 organised a session on
"ancient sciences through Sanskrit" in which a presentation on Vaimānika Śāstra was included. It was
delivered by Anand J. Bodas, a pilot, and Ameya Jadhav, who holds in an M.A. in Sanskrit as well as an
M.Tech. degree. Bodas, speaking to the news media, has said that the aeroplanes of Vedic times could fly
not only from country to country, but also "from planet to planet." "In those days, aeroplanes were huge in
size, and could move left, right, as well as backwards, unlike modern planes which only fly forward," he
added. Ram Prasad Gandhiraman, a NASA scientist, launched an on-line petition demanding that the talk
be cancelled as it represents pseudoscience.[9][10]
Vaimānika Shāstra and vimanas are also mentioned in works about pseudoscience such as Regal's
Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia.[11][12] According to Regal, vimanas are one of the common
attempts to fit elements of ancient cultures into contemporary narratives.[12] When put under scrutiny, the
Vaimānika Shāstra "comes off as jibberish [sic]".[12]

In popular culture
In 2010, 'Prapaatha', a Kannada language film made by K. Suchendra Prasad, has a story
line where a young man tries to find out works of Subbaraya Shastry.[13]
In 2015 Hindi film Hawaizaada, Vaimānika Shāstra has been shown as the main theory
book to build "India's first unmanned plane". The book was shown by Pandit Subbaraya
Shastry (portrayed by Mithun Chakraborty), who originally wrote it.
In 2016, 'Vyamanika' is a duo album recorded by Kit Downes on church organ and Tom
Challenger on saxophone in five Suffolk churches on the slipimprint recording label.

See also
Quimbaya artifacts
Chariots of the Gods?
Pranava-Vada of Gargyayana

Notes
1. Childress 1991, p. 109
2. Mukunda 1974, p. 12
3. Childress 1991, p. 109
4. Mukunda 1974, p. 2.
5. Parivrajaka 1959
6. Shastry & Josyer 1973
7. Mukunda 1974
8. Mukunda 1974, p. 11
9. Pseudo-science must not figure in Indian Science Congress, Mumbai Mirror, 31 December
2014 (http://www.mumbaimirror.com/mumbai/cover-story/Pseudo-science-must-not-figure-in-
Indian-Science-Congress/articleshow/45698353.cms)
10. Indian Science Congress: Vedic myth must not be masqueraded as science, says Nasa
scientist, Firstpost, 31 December 2014 (http://www.firstpost.com/india/indian-science-congre
ss-vedic-myth-must-not-be-masqueraded-as-science-says-nasa-scientist-2024755.html)
11. Regal 2009, pp. 16–17.
12. Regal 2009, p. 164.
13. "Beyond one's depth" (http://www.thehindu.com/features/cinema/beyond-ones-depth/article6
23049.ece). The Hindu. Retrieved September 9, 2010.

References
Childress, David Hatcher (1991). Vimana Aircraft of Ancient India. Adventures Unlimited
Press. ISBN 0-932813-12-7.
 Kanjilal, Dileep Kumar (1985). Vimana in Ancient India : Aeroplanes Or Flying Machines in
Ancient India. Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar.
Mukunda, H. S.; Deshpande, S. M.; Nagendra, H. R.; Prabhu, A. & Govindraju, S. P. (1974).
"A critical study of the work "Vyamanika Shastra" " (http://cgpl.iisc.ernet.in/site/Portals/0/Publi
cations/ReferedJournal/ACriticalStudyOfTheWorkVaimanikaShastra.pdf) (PDF). Scientific
Opinion: 5–12. Retrieved 2007-09-03.
Parivrajaka, Swami Brahmamuni (1959). Brihad Vimana Shastra. New Delhi: Sarvadeshik
Arya Pratinidhi Sabha, Dayanand Bhavan.
Shastry, Subbaraya; Josyer, G. R. (1973). Vymaanika Shaastra - Aeronautics by Maharshi
Bharadwaaja (http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/vimanas/vs/default.htm). Mysore:
Coronation Press.
Regal, Brian (2009). Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia (https://books.google.com/boo
ks?id=c6PACQAAQBAJ). ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9780313355080.

External links
Flights of fancy? (https://web.archive.org/web/20120331170834/http://www.hvk.org/articles/0
601/100.html), The Week, 24 June 2001.
Vimanika Shastra (http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/vimanas/vs/default.htm) An incomplete
version, containing the first six chapters, archived by Sacred Texts web site
The Vimanika Shastra (https://www.scribd.com/doc/9551453/Vimanika-Shastra) An
incomplete version, containing the first six chapters, archived by scribd.com
M. P. Rao; et al. (1 June 2001). "Vymanika Shastra Rediscovered" (http://www.bibliotecapley
ades.net/vimanas/vimanas.htm). Aeronautics Research and Development Board, India.

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