Vimaan means airplane Airplane. Anything which can fly through sky as a carrier carrying people. Bangladesh's Airline's name is "Bimanair". Biman is a corrupted form of Vimaan.

According to the Indian historian Ramachandra Dikshitar, other texts which mention aerial vehicles and travels are the Shatapath Braahman; the Rig Ved Sanhitaa; the Harivansh; the Maarkandeya Puraan; the Vishnu Puraan; the Vikram Aur Vasiyaa; the Uttar Raam Charit; the Harsh Charit; the Tamil text Jivakochintaamani; and the Samaranganasutradhara.

Ancient Sanskrit literature is full of descriptions of flying machines – Vimaan. From the many documents found it is evident that the scientist-sages Agastya and Bharadwaaj had developed the lore of aircraft construction.

The “Agastya Sanhita” gives us Agastya's descriptions of two types of airplanes. The first is a “Chhatra” (umbrella or balloon) to be filled with hydrogen. The process of extracting hydrogen from water is described in elaborate detail and the use of electricity in achieving this is clearly stated. This was stated to be a primitive type of plane, useful only for escaping from a fort when the enemy had set fire to the jungle all around. Hence the name, “Agni-yaan”. The second type of aircraft mentioned is somewhat on the lines of the parachute. It could be opened and shut by operating chords. This aircraft has been described as “Vimaan Dwigunam” i.e. of a lower order than the regular airplane.

Aeronautics or Vaimaanik Shaastra is a part of Yantra Sarvaswa of Bharadwaaj. This is also known as Brihad Vimaan Shaastra. Vaimaanik Shaastra deals about aeronautics, including the design of aircraft, the way they can be used for transportation and other applications, in detail. The knowledge of aeronautics is described in Sanskrit in 100 sections, eight chapters, 500 principles and 3000 Shlok. Great sage Bharadwaaj explained the construction of aircraft and way to fly it in air, on land, on water and use the same aircraft like a sub-marine. He hasalso described the construction of war planes and fighter aircraft.

Vaimaanik Shaastra explains the metals and alloys and other required material, which can be make an aircraft imperishable in any condition. Planes which will not break (A-Bhedya), or catch fire (A-Daahya) and which cannot be cut (A-Chhedya) have been described. Along with the treatise there are diagrams of three types of airplanes – “Sundar”, “Shukana” and “Rukma”.

The aircraft is classified into three types- Maantrik, Taantrik and Kritak, to suit different Yug or eras. In Krit Yug, it is said, Dharm was well established. The people of that time had the Divinity to reach any place using their Ashta Siddhi. The aircraft used in Tretaa Yug are called Maantrik Vimaan, flown by the power of hymns (Mantras). Twenty-five varieties of aircraft including Pushpak Vimaan belong to this era. The aircraft used in Dwaapar Yug were called Taantrik Vimaan, flown by the power of Tantra. Fifty-six varieties of aircraft including Bhairav and Nandak belong to this era. The aircraft used in Kali Yug, the on-going Yug, are called Kritak Vimana, flown by the power of engines. Twenty-five varieties of aircraft including “Sundar”, “Shukana” and “Rukma” belong to this era.

Bharadwaaj states that there are 32 secrets of the science of aeronautics. Of these some are astonishing and some indicate an advance even beyond our own times. For instance the secret of “Paraa Shabd Graahya”, i.e. a cabin for listening to conversation in another plane, has been explained by elaborately describing an electrically worked sound-receiver that did the trick. Manufacture of different types of instruments and putting them together to form an aircraft are also described.

It appears that aerial warfare was also not unknown, for the treatise gives the technique of “Shatru Vimaan Kampan Kriyaa” and “Shatru Vimaan Naashan Kriyaa” i.e. shaking and destroying enemy aircraft, as well as photographing enemy planes, rendering their occupants unconscious and making one's own plane invisible.

In Vastraadhikaran, the chapter describing the dress and other wear required while flying, talks in detail about the wear for both the pilot and the passenger separately.

Aahaaraadhikaran is yet another section exclusively dealing with the food habits of a pilot. This has a variety of guidelines for pilots to keep their health through strict diet.

Bhardwaaj also provides a bibliography. He had consulted six treatises by six different authors previous to him and he gives their names and the names of their works in the following order : (1) Vimaan Chandrikaa by Naaraayan Muni; (2) Vyom Yaan Mantrah by Shaunak Jee; (3) Yantra Kalp by Garga Muni; (4) Yaan Bindu by Vaachaspati; (5) Khet Yaan Pradeepikaa by Chaakraayanee; and (6) Vyom Yaan Ark Prakaash by Dundi Naath.

As before Bharadwaaja, and after him too, there have been Sanskrit writers on aeronautics and there were four commentaries on his work. The names of the commentators are Bodh Deva, Lalla, Naaraayan Shankh and Vishwambhar.

Evidence of existence of aircrafts are also found in the Arth Shaastra of Kautilya (c. 3rd century BC). Kautilya mentions amongst various tradesmen and technocrats the Saubhik as "pilots conducting vehicles in the sky". Saubh was the name of the aerial flying city of King Harishchandra and the form "Saubhik" means "one who flies or knows the art of flying an aerial city". Kautilya uses another significant word "Aakaash Yodhinah", which has been translated as "persons who are trained to fight from the sky". The existence of aerial chariots, in whatever form it might be, was so well-known that it found a place among the royal edicts of the Emperor Ashok which were executed during his reign from 256 BC – 237 BC.

It is interesting to note that the Academy of Sanskrit Research in Melkote, near Mandya, had been commissioned by the Aeronautical Research Development Board, New Delhi, to take up a one-year study, ‘Non-conventional approach to Aeronautics’, on the basis of Vaimaanik Shaastra. As a result of the research, a glass-like material which cannot be detected by radar has been developed by Prof Dongre, a research scholar of Benaras Hindu University. A plane coated with this unique material cannot be detected using radar. (Did You Know this? http://www.indpride.com/didyouknow.html)

But perhaps the most interesting thing, about the Indian science of aeronautics and Bharadwaaja's research in the field was that they were successfully tested in actual practice by an Indian over hundred years ago. In 1895, full eight years before the Wright Brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, USA, Shivkar Bapuji Talpade and his wife gave a thrilling demonstration flight on the Chowpatty beach in Mumbai.

An even more astonishing feature of Talpade’s aircraft was the power source he used - An Ion Engine. The theory of the Ion Engine has been credited to Robert Goddard, long recognized as the father of Liquid-fuel Rocketry. It is claimed that in 1906, long before Goddard launched his first modern rocket, his imagination had conceived the idea of an Ion rocket. But the fact is that not only had the idea of an Ion Engine been conceived long before Dr Goddard, it had also been materialized in the form of Talpade’s aircraft.

Mr Talpade, a resident of Mumbai, was an erudite scholar of Sanskrit literature, especially of the Ved, an inventor and a teacher in the School of Arts. His deep study of the Ved led him to construct an airplane in conformity with descriptions of aircraft available in the Ved and he displayed it in an exhibition arranged by the Bombay Art Society in the Town Hall. Its proving the star attraction of the exhibition encouraged its maker to go deeper into the matter and see if the plane could be flown with the aid of mercurial pressure. For the 190th “Richaa” (verse) of the Rig Ved and the aeronautical treatise of Bharadwaaj mention that flying machines came into full operation when the power of the Sun's rays, mercury and another chemical called “Naksh rassa” were blended together. This energy was, it seems, stored in something like an accumulator or storage batteries. The Ved refer to eight different engines in the plane and Bharadwaaj added that they worked by electricity.

Mr Talpade carried on his research along these lines and constructed an airplane. In his experiments he was aided by his wife, also a deep scholar of the Vaidik lore, and an architect friend. The plane combined the constructional characteristics of both “Pushpak” and “Marut Sakhaa”, the sixth and eighth types of aircraft described by Bharadwaaj. It was named “Marut Sakhaa” meaning “Friend of the Wind”.

With this plane this pioneer airman of modern India gave a demonstration flight on the Chowpatty Beach in Mumbai in the year 1895. The machine attained a height of about 1500 feet and then automatically landed safely. The flight was witnessed, among many others, by Sir Sayajirao Gaekwad, the Maharaja of Baroda and Justice Govind Ranade and was reported in “The Kesari” a leading Marathi daily newspaper. They were impressed by the feat and rewarded the talented inventor.

Unfortunately Talpade lost interest in things after his wife's death, and after his death in 1917 at the age of 53 his relatives sold the machine to Rally Brothers, a leading British exporting firm then operating in Mumbai. Thus the first ever attempt at flying in modern India, undertaken and made successful by an Indian, in a plane of Indian manufacture and built to Indian scientific specifications, slid into the limbo of oblivion.

Shachi Rairikar - Author is a Chartered Accountant working in a private organization in Indore (MP), India and manages a web-site www.indpride.com