ATOMIC WARFARE IN ANCIENT INDIA
Was India Atomic in Ancient days
BY
DR. NITISH PRIYADARSHI
Our own culture, if we assume a starting point of 4000 B.C. has progressed from primitive agriculture and herding to nuclear fission is only 6,000 years. Considering the age of mankind, there has been ample time for other cultures to have arrived at a level roughly corresponding to ours. A re-examination of some of the ancient records that have come down to us might give some indication of man kind having previously attained our present aptitude for destruction. While there are hints of great blastings of the earth’s surface in the Bible (Sodom and Gomorrah), the Greek myths, and many of the legends of the Indians of North and South America, it is in the ancient records of India, copied and recopied from prehistoric antiquity, that we find, described in considerable detail, the use and effect of what closely resembles atomic explosions in warfare.
Unexpected references to such recent developments of our technological civilization are present in many of the ancient books of India, which, unlike so many records of the Western world, escaped burning and destruction.
These references deal, almost as if they were written today instead of thousands of years ago, with such matters as the relatively of time and space, cosmic rays, the law of gravity, radiation, the kinetic nature of energy, and the atomic theory.
The Vaisesika school of science philosophers of ancient India developed or preserved the theory that atoms were in incessant motion. Kanad who was the founder of Vaisesika system of Indian thoughts admits that substances are made of atom. Atoms are the smallest, indivisible part of substances. Atom cannot be broken up further. Substances are the result of combination of atoms. They subdivided the measure of time into a series of incredible fractions of seconds, the most infinitesimal being considered as the ‘period taken by an atom to traverse its own unit of space’.
Surprisingly modern-sounding references abound in the Mahabharata, a gigantic compendium of over 200,000 verses dealing with the creation of the cosmos, religion, prayers, customs, history, and legends about the gods and heroes of ancient India. It is supposed to have been originally written 3,500 years ago, but it refers to events that reputedly took place thousands of years before that. Among the verses of the Mahabharata, there are a number that contain vivid descriptions of what seem to be a firsthand view of atomic warfare.
When Western students of philosophy and religion, in the 1880s, were able to read and study the Mahabharata (a translation had been completed in 1884), they naturally considered as poetic fancy the frequent and curiously detailed references to ancient airships (Vimanas), with instructions of how they were powered and how to recognize enemy aircraft. There were even more puzzling references to a weapon to paralyze enemy armies ( mohanastra- ‘the arrow of unconsciousness’) as well as description of two story sky chariots with many windows ejecting red flame that race up into the sky until they look like comets… to the regions of both the sun and stars.
Other mysterious weapons mentioned in the Mahabharata were, different kinds of artillery and rockets, ‘bullets of iron’, lead shot, rocket bombs capable of reducing city gates, and the agneyastras, cylindrical cannons which made a noise like thunder.
It is in ancient Indian epic poems such as The Mahabharata and The Ramayana that we can read what appear to be references to an otherwise relatively primitive people having the capacity to wield highly destructive nuclear weapons. Not surprisingly it is as a direct consequence of such compelling passages that many UFOlogists like Erich Vor Daniken and W.R. Drake, have argued that the highly advanced capacity to use (and misuse) nuclear weaponry must have being handed down to these ancient people by the gods or, in other words, highly- advanced extra-terrestrial spaceman.
Reading through the various passages of The Ramayana and The Mahabharata with an eye to references of destructive nuclear type weapons certainly does lend itself to believing such claims, too. The evidence does appear to be highly compelling. For instance on p.383 of the Drona Parva we come across the following lines which certainly could be constructed as evidence of the loathsome effects of detonating a nuclear weapon of some sorts:
“Encompassed by them (bowmen)… Bhisma smiting the while and uttering a leonine roar took up and hurried at them with great force a fierce mace of destruction of hostile ranks. The mace of adamantine strength, hurled like Indra’s thunder by Indra himself, crushed, O King, thy soldiers in battle. And it seemed to fill… the whole earth with a loud noise. And blazing forth in splendour, that fierce mace inspired thy sons with fear. Beholding that mace of impetuous course and endowed with lightening flashes coursing towards them, thy warriors fled away uttering frightful cries. And at the unbelievable sound… of that fiery mace, many men fell down where they stood and many car (vimana or flying vehicle) warriors also fell down from their cars.”
On p. 677 of the Drona Parva we can read more about the devastating effects of Asvatthaman wielding his awesome ‘Agneya’ weapon:
“ The sun seemed to turn around. The universe scorched with heats seemed to be in a ever. The elephants and other of the land scorched by the energy of weapon, ran in fright, breathing heavily and desirous of protection against that terrible force…”.
Also in the very same passage: “A thick gloom suddenly shrouded the … host. All points of the compass also were enveloped by that darkness. Rakshashas and Vicocha crowding together uttered fierce cries. Inauspicious winds began to blow.”
All in all such descriptive passages amount to compelling and frightening stuff. As Drake says on p.49 of Gods And Spacemen In The Ancient East (Sphere, 1976): “Arjuna and his companions (our warrior heroes in The Mahabarata) appear(ed) to possess an arsenal of diverse, sophisticated nuclear weapons, equal to, perhaps surpassing, the missiles of the Americans and Russians today”. Vor Daniken also seems to agree.
An account is also recorded in Mahabarata of the meeting of the two missiles in the air.” “The two weapons met each other in mid air. Then earth with all her mountains and seas and trees began to tremble, and all living creatures were heated with energy of the weapons and greatly affected. The skies blazed and the ten points of the horizon became filled with smoke”.
In a similar vein to the above mention of awesome and devastating mention of weapons in The Mahabarata, The Ramayana also seems to make mention of such weapons, too. For instance in the tale of ‘Rama and Sita’ the king promises Rama that if he succeeds in bending a certain immensely powerful bow, he will have his daughter, Sita, the princess born from the earth. “Straight away the King gave the orders: five thousand well-built men strained to drag the eight-wheeled iron cart which contained the divine weapon. Try, commanded the devout king, and effortlessly Rama seized the bow and drew it. He bent it to such an extent that he broke it and the sound that the string made in breaking struck fear in everyone who witnessed it, explained Dr. Sushila Mishra, expert of ancient history and retired head of the department of history Ranchi University, Ranchi.
According to Dr. Mahendra Singh, Professor of history, Ranchi University, Sanskrit texts are filled with references to Gods who fought battles in the sky using Vimanas equipped with weapons as deadly as any we can deploy in these more enlightened times. For example, there is a passage in the Ramayana which reads: The Puspaka car that resembles the Sun and belongs to my brother was brought by the powerful Ravan; that aerial and excellent car going everywhere at will.... that car resembling a bright cloud in the sky.
".. and the King [Rama] got in, and the excellent car at the command of the Raghira, rose up into the higher atmosphere."
In the Mahabharatra, an ancient Indian poem of enormous length, we learn that an individual named Asura Maya had a Vimana measuring twelve cubits in circumference, with four strong wheels. The poem is a veritable gold mine of information relating to conflicts between gods who settled their differences apparently using weapons as lethal as the ones we are capable of deploying, said Dr. V.S. Upadhyay an Anthropoligist.
Apart from 'blazing missiles', the poem records the use of other deadly weapons. 'Indra's Dart' operated via a circular 'reflector'. When switched on, it produced a 'shaft of light' which, when focused on any target, immediately 'consumed it with its power'.
In one particular exchange, the hero, Krishna, is pursuing his enemy, Salva, in the sky, when Salva's Vimana, the Saubha is made invisible in some way. Undeterred, Krishna immediately fires off a special weapon: 'I quickly laid on an arrow, which killed by seeking out sound', explained Dr. Upadhyay.
Many other terrible weapons are described, in the Mahabharata, but the most fearsome of all is the one used against the Vrishis.
The narrative records:
Gurkha flying in his swift and powerful Vimana hurled against the three cities of the Vrishis and Andhakas a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe. An incandescent column of smoke and fire, as brilliant as ten thousands suns, rose in all its splendor. It was the unknown weapon, the Iron Thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes the entire race of the Vrishnis and Andhakas.
The great war described in the Mahabharata is thought by many to refer to the ‘Aryan’ invasion of the Indian sub-continent from the north.
According to World Island Review, January 1992, a heavy layer of radioactive ash in Rajasthan, India was found which covers a three-square mile area, ten miles west of Jodhpur. Scientists were investigating the site, where a housing development was being built.
For some time it has been established that there is a very high rate of birth defects and cancer in the area under construction. Scientists have unearthed an ancient city where evidence shows an atomic blast dating back thousands of years, from 8,000 to 12,000 years, destroyed most of the buildings and probably a half-million people. One researchers estimates that the nuclear bomb used was about the size of the ones dropped on Japan in 1945.
The Mahabharata clearly describes a catastrophic blast that rocked the continent. "A single projectile charged with all the power in the Universe...An incandescent column of smoke and flame as bright as 10,000 suns, rose in all its splendor...it was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes an entire race.
"The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. Their hair and nails fell out, pottery broke without any apparent cause, and the birds turned white.
"After a few hours, all foodstuffs were infected. To escape from this fire, the soldiers threw themselves into the river."
Archeologist Francis Taylor says that etchings in some nearby temples he has managed to translate suggest that they prayed to be spared from the great light that was coming to lay ruin to the city. "It's so mid-boggling to imagine that some civilization had nuclear technology before we did. The radioactive ash adds credibility to the ancient Indian records that describe atomic warfare."
Construction has halted while the five member team conducts the investigation. The foreman of the project is Lee Hundley, who pioneered the investigation after the high level of radiation was discovered.
It is pertinent to point out, however, that skeletons discovered in the extremely ancient sites of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, Pakistan, have been found to be exteremely radioactive. Practically nothing is known of the histories of these very ancient cities except that they were suddenly destroyed.
Address:
Dr. Nitish Priyadarshi
Independent Geologist and Environmentalist
76, circular road,
Ranchi-834001
Jharkhand
India.
Tel.no. 091-0651-2562895® 2562909®
Email: rch_nitishp@sancharnet.in
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