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which texts and in which passages I should find the 'super-weapons', 'flying weapons' and ‘flying machines' I was looking for. People got on the phone and warned librarians of my imminent arrival and the texts I wished to see; they gave me willing students to accompany me and make sure I found exactly what I wanted. And then when I expectantly held the answer to my questions in my hands, the essential thing was written in Sanskrit or some other Indian language. Disappointed by the meagre results, I decided to keep up the contacts I had made and return one day a wiser man. I still had hopes that one authority would be able to satisfy my curiosity by telling me about the texts in greater detail. I had corresponded from Switzerland with Professor Dr T. S. Nandi, Sanskrit scholar in the University of Ahmedabad. I consulted him in India and through him I met Professor Esther Abraham Solomon, who is his chief. She has a vast knowledge of Sanskrit. She has been Head of the Sanskrit Department for six years and scholars throughout India look up to her as one of the greatest experts on the subject. Ahmedabad is an old cotton town with many important mosques and tombs from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It lies right on the River Sarbarmatic, has more than 1-2 million inhabitants and today is famous for the University of Gujerat founded in 1961. Ahmedabad has a special tourist attraction, the Shaking Towers. They are the two tall minarets of a mosque, massively built and climbable inside by a spiral staircase right to the top—barefoot, of course. These towers have a peculiarity that is unique in the world. If a small group of people sets one tower in motion by a rhythmical to-and-fro movement, the other tower begins to swing too. So far the towers have easily stood up to these constant tourist antics and they look as if they will survive the leaning tower of Pisa. Professor Nandi had arranged for me to meet Professor Esther Solomon at noon and told me: 'Go up to the first floor; her name is on the door, go in and make yourself comfortable." I set off in the blazing midday sun—it was November. The University was a modern functional two- storeyed limestone building with no unnecessary external trimmings. I waited in the vestibule. To a European the encouragement: 'Go in and make yourself comfortable’ is very unusual. While I was waiting, I watched professors and students going into the various offices without knocking as if it was the most natural thing in the world and observed how politely and informally they mixed with each other. Professor Solomon arrived about one o'clock. She had been kept at a seminar. She wore a simple white sari. I estimated her age at about fifty. She greeted me like an old friend, obviously because Professor Nandi had told her about me. We carried on our conversation in English and she allowed me This was our conversation: 'Professor, am I interpreting the information of your colleagues correctly if I say that Sanskrit scholars consider the old Indian Vedas and epics to be older than the Old Testament?’ to tape it on my portable tape-recorder. "We cannot and should not make such absolute claims. Neither the ancient Indian texts nor those of