Illuminations The Ancient Legends All images by Kamini Singh from South Asian Women’s Forum – Monday, Oct 16, 2000 (1) An Overview of the Literature “In various kinds of Asian and South Asian texts, we find references to flying machines and aerial vehicles. Chinese and Indian stories tell of peoples or individual artisans who constructed devices for traveling through the air. The stories take many different forms, including quite fanciful romances. Others present a picture of inventors taking pains to understand the basic principles of flight, and crafting machines of wood to achieve this goal.” – Dr. Benjamin B. Olshin, “Mechanical Mythology: Private Descriptions of Flying Machines as Found in Early Chinese, Korean, Indian, and Other Texts” (draft copy) The word vimana is purportedly derived […] Read More