Yantras or Mechanical Contrivances in Ancient India c2.22

c2.22

To a student of ancient Indian civilization in detail this is a question arousing very keen enthusiasm and, from the point of view of the general cultured public conversant with Sanskrit literature, what I am going to present contains much unfamiliar material about which they are likely to be curious. The whole of this material has not, so far as I know, been set forth previously at length or in a single place; the literary sources concerned are not free from textual problems and difficulties of interpretation, a few of them being still in manuscript; and, on the whole, I feel gratified, and grateful to this Institute that I have this opportunity to put together data that I have been noting down for some time.