vimana
विमान vimānaA 'well-measured mansion.' In myth, a flying palace or celestial chariot of the gods (e.g. the Pushpaka); in South Indian temple architecture, the pyramidal tower raised over the sanctum.
Where this term appears
- Konark: The Sun Temple Temples
At Konark the tower is the rekha deul , also called the vimana (the sanctum spire over the deity).
- Nagara, Dravida and Vesara: The Styles of the Hindu Temple Temples
Its tower, the vimana , is a stepped pyramid that rises in clearly marked storeys called talas , each storey a shrunken tier of the one below.
- What is a Hindu Temple? Temples
In the Dravida style of the south, the tower over the sanctum is called the vimana , a stepped pyramid of receding storeys, and the word shikhara there names only the small domed member that crowns it.
- Anatomy of a Hindu Temple: Gopuram to Garbhagriha Temples
In the south, the tower is the vimana , and it climbs as a stepped pyramid of diminishing storeys called talas , each tier smaller than the one beneath, capped by a small domed cupola, which is what the word sh…
- The Chola Age and the Temple as Institution History
Its tower, the vimana rising over the sanctum, climbs to about sixty-six metres, one of the tallest of its kind ever built, a stepped pyramid of granite in the pure Dravidian style.
- Tirupati: The Temple of Venkateshwara Temples
At the center of it, beneath a vimana sheathed in gold, stands a dark standing image that several hundred thousand people on a busy day will travel to see for a few seconds each.
- Did the Mahabharata describe nuclear weapons? Journal
No. The Mahabharata and Ramayana describe divine weapons, the astras, which are god-given energies invoked and withdrawn by mantra in the idiom of epic poetry, not…
- Vimanas: did ancient India have flying machines? Journal
So the interesting work is not denying that vimanas exist in the literature.