Yantras or Mechanical Contrivances in Ancient India c2.73

c2.73

The Jain Sūtras, which may go back in their nucleus to Mauryan times and which attained their present form in the 6th century A.D., know these yantras. The *Bhagavatī Sūtra* gives a list of eight finalities one of which is the last fight with huge stones thrown as missiles.¹¹ The same Sūtra describes the war between Kūṇiya and Cheḍaga where we have the expressions *Mahāśilākaṇṭaka-Saṁgrāma* and *Ratha-musala-Saṁgrāma*; the correct construction of the first name is "a battle in which one is beset by the stone complex," for the text itself elaborates that such a heavy stone-shower has been in operation that even if a blade of grass or a piece of wood, a leaf or a pebble struck one, one got the fright of a stone. The *Ratha-musala* is described by the text 'as a mechanical chariot which ran about without horses or driver and worked carnage in the enemy lines.