From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Wed Feb 13 2002 - 09:39:17 MST
Nothing new, Dr Drexler, same old same old:
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After Kardama Muni married Devahuti, he decided at a certain point to take
her on a tour of the universe.
To do this, he manifested an aerial mansion (called, as usual, a vimdna)
that was lavishly equipped as a
pleasure palace. Here the sage Maitreya relates the story of this
mansion to his disciple Vidura:
Maitreya continued: O Vidura, seeking to please his beloved wife, the sage
Kardama exercised his yogic
power and instantly produced an aerial mansion that could travel
at his will.
It was a wonderful structure, bedecked with all sorts of jewels, adorned
with pillars of precious stones,
and capable of yielding whatever one desired. It was equipped with every
form of furniture and wealth,
which tended to increase in the course of time....
With the choicest rubies set in its diamond walls, it appeared as
though possessed of eyes. It was
furnished with wonderful canopies and greatly valuable gates of
gold.
Here and there in that palace were multitudes of live swans and pigeons,
as well as artificial swans and
pigeons so lifelike that the real swans rose above them again and again,
thinking them live birds like
themselves. Thus the palace vibrated with the sounds of these
birds.
The castle had pleasure grounds, resting chambers, bedrooms and inner and
outer yards designed with an
eye to comfort. All this caused astonishment to the sage
himself.33
[the useful provenance footnote, alas, is absent from the site:]
http://www.qtm.net/~geibdan/oldufos/vimanas.html
Damien Broderick
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