When Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Deb made the baffling claim this week that internet technology actually existed in the Mahabharata era, he may not have anticipated the outpouring of support his statement would get. At an event on Tuesday, Deb said that the fact that the blind King Dhritarashtra could receive live updates on the Battle of Kurukshetra from his advisor, Sanjaya, even though they were miles away from the battlefield, was proof that ancient India had developed internet and satellite technology.
In the days since, social media users have generously come forward with images to bolster Deb’s claim. With the help of some clever photo-editing work, they have proved that not just the internet but an array of technological advances had taken place in ancient India, when the Mahabharata and Ramayana were believed to have been written.
Redditor CuriousNoobKid posted an image of Lord Krishna coming to Draupadi’s rescue as she is being disrobed by the Kauravas while her husbands, the Pandavas, look on helplessly. Captioned “Ancient Indian Torrent Technology”, the photo is proof that seeders and leechers existed even back then.
It wasn’t just Sanjaya who relied on technology to learn about of the war. Dhristarashtra’s wife Gandhari too got a live stream of the goings on at Kurukshetre courtesy a virtual reality headset, showed redditor cinephile46 in a photo captioned “Rare picture of Gandhari using VR headset to live stream the War”. Redditor GauBhakshak pointed out that in that era, VR stood for “Vedic Rishidarshan”.
Before drones, there was Drona, the ace archer and teacher of the Kauravas and Pandavas. And just like the use of autonomous unmanned military drones has been a topic of hot debate, India’s autonomous Drona also had a tough call to make in the Kurukshetra war, when he had to fight for the Kauravas even though he sympathised with the Pandavas. Redditor Bernard_Woolley reminded us of that in the picture captioned “Proof that Indians were the first to use an autonomous drona in war”.
More sophisticated technology like parabolic microphones also existed during the Mahabharata. This device, which can pick up sounds from a wide distance, is what helped Indra make sure Gautama Rishi was away so he could seduce his wife, Ahalya.
The original RSA cryptographic system stood for Ram Setu Anjaneya and the earliest example of the use of blockchain was the building of this bridge to Lanka during the Ramayana, said redditor vivekvenu.
Meanwhile on imgur, a user showed that Sita too had experienced the joys of reality, using technology to project a virtual image of Hanuman in front of her to converse with him.
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