[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Science, technology and education](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science) › [Yantras or Mechanical Contrivances in Ancient India](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.raghavan-1952) › c2.223 # Yantras or Mechanical Contrivances in Ancient India c2.223 Yantras or Mechanical Contrivances in Ancient India c2.223 - **Language:** English ### [c2.223](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.raghavan-1952.c2.223) "the first scientific inventor of such objects" as are mentioned in the \*Kathāsaritsāgara\*, "was probably Archytas (c. 428-347 B.C.), the Greek phil-osopher of Tarentum .... He constructed a kind of flying machine, consisting of a wooden figure balanced by a weight suspended from a pulley, and set in motion by "hidden and enclosed air." The tenth book of the \*De Architectura Decem\* by Vitruvius, the Roman architect of the time of Cæsar, is wholly devoted to mechanical inventions of all kinds: water-raising contrivances, various enter-taining things like birds singing by means of water-works, figures that drink and move and so on.³⁸ Hero of Alexandria of c. 100 A.D. invented numerous complicated drinking animals and wrote also treatises on them, like \*Catoptrica\*, \*Pneumatica\* and \*Automatopoietica\*. - [Previous: c2.222](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.raghavan-1952.c2.222) - [Next: c2.224](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.raghavan-1952.c2.224) - [Up: c2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.raghavan-1952.c2) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.raghavan-1952.c2.223](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.raghavan-1952.c2.223) · Pramāṇa