Yantras or Mechanical Contrivances in Ancient India c2.225

c2.225

Many of his inventions³⁹ have correspondences to those mentioned by Somadeva and Bhoja: mechanical birds singing by the air driven through them by the force of water—which remind us that the musical devices of the *yantra-dhārā-gṛiha* are worked ultimately by water, statues pouring out libations, dancing figures that revolve, those based on sun's heat or warm air, have echoes in our literature. Bhoja's automatic lamp has its parallel in the inexhaustible lamp in this treatise. The reference to many of these producing sound or act-ing by the principle of stopped and released air, and air expanding by heat, re-mind us of Bhoja's identical statements in the *Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra* (XXXI. 40-41 and 78).