Ancient Hindu Science

"And then the Aryans -- if we may believe that good man Bramachari Bawa -- knew a branch of science (Viman Vidya) about which the West is now speculating much, but has learnt next to nothing. They could navigate the air, and not only navigate but fight battles in it, like so many war eagles combating for the dominion of the clouds. To be perfect in aeronautics, as he [Bramachari Bawa] justly says, they must have known all the arts and sciences related to that science, including the strata and currents of the atmosphere, their relative temperature, humidity and density, and the specific gravity of the various gases. At the Mayasabha, described in the Bharata, he tells us, were microscopes, telescopes, clocks, watches, mechanical singing birds, and articulating and speaking animals. The Ashta Vidya -- a science of which our modern professors have not even an inkling -- enabled it's proficients completely to destroy an invading army by enveloping it in an atmosphere of poisonous gases...." -- Henry S. Olcott, theosophist, India Past Present and Future, 1880

"I have known an educated Indian to maintain with much warmth that in the Golden Age of the rishis and others were well acquainted with the art of aerial navigation, and probably with other rapid modes of locomotion known to the moderns. I have heard him assert boldly that even the telephone, microphone and phonograph were known to the Hindu sages, up to the time when the sciences and arts of the ancient world perished ... on the fatal field of Kurukshetra." -- John C. Oman, historian, Great Indian Epics: The Stories of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, 1894

"To deny to Babylon, to Egypt and to India, their part in the development of science and scientific thinking is to defy the testimony of the ancients, supported by the discovery of the modern authorities." -- Louis C. Karpinsi, mathematician, Hindu Science, The American Mathematical Monthly, Volume XXVI, Pages 298-300, 1919

"No question can be more interesting in the present circumstances of the world than India's contribution to the science of aeronautics. There are numerous illustrations in our vast Puranic and epic literature to show how well and wonderfully the ancient Indians conquered the air. To glibly characterize everything found in this literature as imaginary and summarily dismiss it as unreal has been the practice of both Western and Eastern scholars until very recently. The very idea indeed was ridiculed and people went so far as to assert that it was physically impossible for man to use flying machines. But today what with balloons, aero planes and other flying machines a great change has come over our ideas on the subject." -- V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar, historian, War In Ancient India, 1944