Yantras or Mechanical Contrivances in Ancient India c2.31

c2.31

The Ṛibhus, Viśvakarman and Tvaṣhṭar of the Vedas and the anonymous Vedic Takshan are succeeded in the epics by the two great architects of the Devas and the Asuras, Viśvakarman and Maya. The epics form indeed the great age of the exploits of Viśvakarman and, even to a greater extent of Maya.⁷ Both the epics are full of the magnificence of the architecture for which Maya was responsible. In the *Mahābhārata* we hear of the *Matsya-yantra* or the revolving wheel with a fish which Arjuna had to shoot in order to win Draupadī in the *svayaṁvara*. This has a late echo in the *Gadyacūḍāmaṇi* and *Kṣhatracūḍāmaṇi* of the Jain poet Vādībhasimha of the 12th century, in a similar context of *svayaṁvara*, the test stipulated here being the piercing of three boars placed within a yantra called *Candraka-yantra*. In this connection attention may be drawn also to the general observation in both Kauṭilya and Kālidāsa that one of the uses of the hunt is to develop the skill to shoot targets which are in constant movement (*paricayaṁ cala-lakṣhya-nipātane*).