Guided missiles and Ravana's airports
AI-drafted · awaiting admin review
Did the epics describe guided missiles, and did Ravana run 24 kinds of aircraft and airports in Lanka?
Indian claim not supported by evidenceTechnology & engineering
Indian claim
At the 106th Indian Science Congress (Jalandhar, January 2019), Andhra University's then Vice-Chancellor G. Nageswara Rao said Vishnu's chakra and Rama's astras were guided missiles and that Ravana had 24 types of aircraft and several airports in Lanka.
Evidence for the Indian claim
- The Ramayana describes Ravana's Pushpaka Vimana, and the epics describe weapons that return to the user or seek a target.
Commonly credited to
Guided missiles were first built in the 1940s (e.g. Germany's V-1 and V-2); aviation and airports began in the 20th century.
Evidence for the other claim
- There is no archaeological trace of aircraft, runways, engines or fuel in India or Sri Lanka from the epic period.
- Scientists and research scholars protested at IISc Bengaluru after the talk, and the Breakthrough Science Society called the claims false and chauvinistic.
What historians and scientists say
These are literary descriptions read as modern technology. There is no evidence for them as engineering, and Indian scientists publicly objected to them.