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country with a twelve years' drought could exist? And powerful enough to kill the unborn in their mothers' wombs? This ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata, is more comprehensive than the Bible and even at a conservative estimate its original core is at least 5,000 years old. It is well worthwhile reading this epic in the light of present-day knowledge. We shall not be very surprised when we learn in the Ramayana that Vimanas, i.e. flying machines, navigated at great heights with the aid of quicksilver and a great propulsive wind. The Vimanas could cover vast distances and could travel forwards, upwards and downwards. Enviably manoeuvrable We cannot help noticing that not only is a flying object mentioned again, but also that the chronicler talks of a tremendous din. Here is another passage from the Mahabharata: Even imagination needs something to start it off. How can the chronicler give descriptions that presuppose at least some idea of rockets and the knowledge that such a vehicle can ride on a ray and In the Samsaptakabadha a distinction is made between chariots that fly and those that cannot fly. The first book of the Mahabharata reveals the intimate history of the unmarried Kunti, who not only received a visit from the Sun God, but also had a son by him, a son who is supposed to have been as radiant as the sun itself. As Kunti was afraid—even in those days—of falling into disgrace, she laid the child in a little basket and put it in a river. Adhirata, a worthy man of the Suta cast, fished basket and child out of the water and brought up the infant Really a story that is hardly worth mentioning if it were not so remarkably like the story of Moses! And, of course, there is yet another reference to the fertilisation of humans by gods. Like Gilgamesh, Aryuna, the hero of the Mahabharata, undertakes a long journey in order to seek the gods and ask them for weapons. And when Aryuna has found the gods after many perils, Indra, the lord of heaven, with his wife Sachi beside him, grants him a very exclusive audience. The two of them do not meet the valiant Aryuna just anywhere. They meet him in a heavenly war-chariot and even invite him to travel in the sky with them. There are numerical data in the Mahabharata that are so precise that one gets the impression that the author was writing from first-hand knowledge. Full of repulsion, he describes a weapon that could kill all warriors who wore metal on their bodies. If the warriors learnt about the effect of this weapon in time, they tore off all the metal equipment they were wearing, jumped into a river and washed themselves and everything that they had come into contact with very thoroughly. Not without reason, as the author explains, for the weapon made the hair and nails fall out. Everything living, he bemoaned, became pale and weak. space vehicles! This quotation comes from the translation by N. Dutt, 1891: "At Rama's behest the magnificent chariot rose up to a mountain of cloud with a tremendous din ...' ‘Bhima flew with his Vimana on an enormous ray which was as brilliant as the sun and made a noise like the thunder of a storm.' (C. Roy, 1889.) cause a terrifying thunder?