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Q: It is said that during the time of Lord Rama, India used to be so technologically advanced that there were aeroplanes. Is it true?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Well all that we have found is an old manuscript by a Rishi called Bharadwaj, the 'Bharadwaja Vaimanic Shastra'. The Science department has taken the book and published it in English as well. So they have mentioned how through solar power it was possible to fly. More than that we don't know. We find some diagrams, some indication to this. And one thing for sure that is documented, one Mr.Shastri, from India went to Mumbai and with the help of a Parsi businessman, flew the first plane several years before Wright brothers. But the world knows the Wright brothers as the first to fly a plane, which is not correct, because this was printed in the English newspaper, in London, that two Indian people have flown a plane for fifteen minutes on Chowpatty beach, in Mumbai. This is documented. But what the British did is, put the two people in jail and they pressurized them to give the knowledge. Finally they did not give everything, they gave something, which after thirty years or so, the Wright brothers could successfully fly the plane. There is a documentary on this. Some television people have done it, you can look into it. And there is a lot of description about Vimana. The word Vimana means aeroplane. If there is a word it must be in existence in the past. How from Sri Lanka, in one day, Rama went back to Ayodhya. It is not possible without a plane in those days. And all the dates are documented. But in the colonial days, some of the historians did not want to acknowledge this. So they tried to push it down. As Lord McCaulay wrote to Queen Victoria, unless you destroy the spiritual heritage of this country, you cannot rule this country. He wrote a letter to Queen Victoria, it is still available. Lord McCaulay when he came to India he travelled length and breadth of India, and he said this country is so rich, I couldn't find one beggar and one sick person in this country. And the cultural heritage is so strong, you can never rule this country unless you destroy the spiritual heritage of this country. So then they brought a number of startling rules. They first made a law, barring all architects to work. That's why they made Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai. All the architects were asked not to work. So after the eighteenth century, there is not a single building made by Indian architects in all the British provinces. Then they put a bar on the weavers, so that they can bring all the clothes from Leicester and Birmingham. So there were all these colonial rules. And systematically, the Ayurveda system was banished. Because of one British soldier. In Indian when someone lost, they would cut a little bit of their nose, they would never kill because killing is wrong. The only way to show someone has been defeated is they would cut a little piece of the nose. when he came out of the Mysore kingdom, an Ayurvedic doctor caught hold of this soldier and in just three hours time he does plastic surgery, he fixes the nose back. This soldier on his return, writes to Queen Victoria, 'our country is far behind the medical science that is prevalent here, we must learn from the medical science here.' So there are many such documentation to prove that there was a lot of this knowledge that was available. And in those days without internet, without cellphone, Columbus tried to find India and found America! Why would he try to find India? That was a time when this knowledge was beyond Cambodia. Even today in Cambodia, huge temples are there. In Mahabharat, you must have heard of Kambhoj. That's Cambodia. Revival of this education is essential and its only been in the last two decades that Ayurveda has been revived. It's good scientists are rediscovering. Well whatever the past has been, they may know, they may not know, but what we need to do is take the good from wherever it is. Whether east, west, north or south, whether past or present, we should take the best. Every culture every civilization has something good, something great in them. We must take those things and be a global citizen. That's what I feel. The boundaries are all man-made, real boundaries don't exist. The whole planet is ours, we should think that and all its wealth is ours. Whether it is in Spanish, in Chinese, in Japanese, whatever language, whatever culture, it all belongs to us. That is real evolution. If u start feeling the planet is mine, everyone in this planet belongs to me, then you are moving in the right direction.