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Vedic Air Battles 

In the Ramayana, the sage Valmiki tells about Vimanas that fly at great heights with the aid of quicksilver and a great propulsive wind and travel vast distances and manoeuvre upwards, downwards and forwards.    In the ‘Rama and Sita’ section of the Ramayana all about how the villainous Ravana kidnaps the beautiful heroine Sita in an aerial car that is called Pushpaka Vimana. Ravana flies Sita in his aerial car that is like the sun high over woods, valleys, and high mountain tops. Hearing about the kidnapping of his lovely wife, Sita, Rama cries: “Fly out the aerial cars at once”. And immediately he sets off and challenges Ravana to aerial combat. In the perusing battle to get Sita back, Rama uses a heavenly arrow to shoot down his enemy, who eventually dives into the depths. Rama manages to save Sita and she climbs into her husband’s heavenly flying machine which at Rama’s behest, rose up to a mountain of cloud with an enormous noise.   An aerial chariot, the Pushpaka, conveys many people to the capital of Ayodhya. The sky is full of stupendous flying-machines, dark as night, but picked out by lights with a yellowish glare."

It is in the Mahabharata that, the sage Vyasa describes about Bhima who “flew with his vimana on an enormous ray which was as brilliant as the sun and made a noise like the thunder of a storm”. And in the same great ancient Indian epic we also hear about the great warrior Arjuna’s ascent to Indra’s heaven in a car that travels upwards to the clouds with a noise like thunder. Whilst travelling to heaven Arjuna apparently also sees flying cars that have crashed and are out of action and other flying cars that are stationary, whilst others fly freely in the air.  Sivkishen, Author