Comment by s_Hogg
4 days ago
Probably worth drawing this thread's attention to the debate over whether ancient Hindu texts mention nuclear weapons and atomic war. Up to the beholder whether that makes those texts sci-fi or not, I guess.
4 days ago
Probably worth drawing this thread's attention to the debate over whether ancient Hindu texts mention nuclear weapons and atomic war. Up to the beholder whether that makes those texts sci-fi or not, I guess.
Every great culture, over the millennia has imagined great weapons and unlimited godlike destructive power. You could, as you are doing now, retrofit our narrative on any of those if you wish. Make your own sci-fi fantasy. Those texts are not.
Example:
Gotham Chopra did that with what is now Virgin Comics: https://liquidcomics.com/
See the gorgeous Ramayan 3392 A.D. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramayan_3392_A.D.
Also see the film Cargo, which turns mythological narrative into a rather watchable space opera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_(2019_film)
I’d say that’s more fantasy than science fiction.
It's true that ancient Indians had some interesting insights into astronomy and natural sciences (recognizing the heliocentricity as early as the aitareya BrAhmaNa, and some ideas about electricity) and have some evidence about Indo-Aryan warfare being evolved with variety of weapons.
But it would sound like boomer uncles to claim that there is mention of space travel or nuclear weapons in our epics. The astra-s are simply figments of imagination.
And yet people do haha
I was just bringing up something I thought was tangentially related without expressing an opinion on it
Don't. Please.
> Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Your original comment checks all three boxes.