Yantras or Mechanical Contrivances in Ancient India c2.101

c2.101

In Daṇḍin's own life-story, a gifted architect Lalitālaya, son of another eminent architect Māndhātā, is introduced and the achievements of these two, which form the subject of the amazed talk of the people, are set forth. It is said here that the father excelled even the Yavanas, from which we have to deduce that Māndhātā and his son Lalitālaya were natives of the soil. Once the father, anxious lest his young son might be hungry, rushed to him in an aerial car, evidently from a distance where he had been at work; which shows how casually the architect took his personal equipment of an aerial vehicle.