“Robots” Guarded Buddha's Relics in Ancient India | Hacker News Reader

“Robots” Guarded Buddha's Relics in Ancient India

theconversation.com

85 pointszerop29 comments

The types of 'android assassins' are tulpas. They're similar to the Jewish tradition of Golem, which is imbued rock and clay to an automaton. Other terms would be thoughtforms, egregores.

The belief behind them is that they are 'energy beings' (think of energy as spiritual and not em/strong/weak/gravity). And one can 'encode' simple ideas or actions on them, like "Protect this grave" or the like.

Even warnings written on a wall cause emotions that change the very chemistry of one's body.

The ideas in this article are considerably less irritating than I thought it was at first. Essentially:

* "In 300 B.C., two Greek ambassadors, Megasthenes and Deimachus, resided in [North India]"

* "Did they bring plans or miniature models of automatons and other mechanical devices?"

* Is the origin of a legend about robots guarding the remains of Buddha inspired by these automatons the Greeks brought from the West to the East?

It's still all conjecture, takes far too long to get to it's point, and copy-paste is disabled on the site, but it's not another "Ancient India invented the internet"[0] howler

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-43806078

They lost me at ancient robot assassins chasing robot makers who tried to escape.

That's where they got me.

probably a typo here, the "robots" are referred as "bhuta vahana yanta". "Yanta" is not a word in sanskrit, it should be "Yantra" which means machine.

Edit : My bad, it does means machine in pali which is the defacto language of the early buddhist sect.

Does it literally translated to soul carrying machine, or am i completely wrong

Bhuta means multiple things in sanskrit, it can mean deities, spirits, what is conscious, or comes into existence. In pali's context it is correct since bhuta in pali means something that has an animated in nature, which i believe is a better translation since pali was the dominant language during the reign of Asoka & Ajatshatru. On a different note, pali and sanskrit, though have almost the same vocabulary and inferences, may have different meanings for similar contexts.

I was first imagining spring-loaded or lever-based traps like in the Indiana Jones movies.

Obviously the ones in the movies were made up for entertainment value, but does anyone know if these sorts of traps have ever been encountered in a real archaeological site?

It's a pity that the major regions that link the greek/roman thought of the 'west' to the Indian/Asian cultures of the 'east' are today places of conflict resulting in destruction, both intentional and collateral. How much of archaeological knowledge has been lost to post ww2 wars in Afghanistan, Iran, Syria?

And in fact ISIS actually specifically targeted many of those sites either for plundering for artifacts to sell to fund their operations, or for demolition. It really is a shame, some of the sites are thousands of years old... gone in an instant.

They're certainly rare, but a few archeological sites have had minor traps.

Amenhotep III's tomb had a hidden spike pit near the hidden main chamber.

Baphuon had a sand trap to flood the area.

I believe one of the Mayan temples had an intentionally poisoned sarcophagis.

The story of treasures guarded by dormant robots evoked Laputa, Castle in the Sky by Studio Ghibli. Its a city in the sky, like in Gulliver's travels and a legend to aviators. Giant robots wake up to guard it. I wonder if Japan also picked up the lore.

The machines that could efficiently cut down many men evoked Enthiran (same word as yanthra in Tamil), about an android falling in love like Bicentiennal Man but at one point building a mega gun with his magnetic powers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-V_Vp_J9b0

Also thinking about the Golem. Similar ideas.

I love this and I don’t care if it’s bullshit. Such a great story.

Relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipu%27s_Tiger

I wonder if this has some connection to the terracotta warriors of China?

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army

Let me explain, because someone downmodded my snarky response earlier.

- How do the androids see? There isn't any cogent explanation of sight until the last 100 years. If there is some principle of sight discovered earlier, why didn't we see other simpler devices from the same era?

- How do the androids know what they see?

- How do the androids know who revealed the secrets? How do they know their address, or where they are right then?

- How do they act? Where do they get the energy from? How is it stored?

- How do they walk? Boston Dynamics has been beating its head for quite some time now. Someone who can read those old documents, please reveal the secret, and relieve them of their confused misery.

If they are anything they must be glorified rat traps. I am not trying to be offensive, but this article just offends any rational thought.

All of the sources mentioned in the article describe the Romavisaya as a "legend". It's unclear whether or not it has a real connection with any ancient device, although some of the sources suggest that the legend was inspired by ancient technology (which would have been much more limited than the devices in the story).

This article refers to the account as a "story", "legend", or "tale" deriving from "oral traditions". Since all of the actual robot content is repeatedly said to come from a "legend", I don't think the article's author is trying to convince you that this actually happened historically!

Harry Potter, then?

The article is describing and comparing legends. It makes that clear multiple times, it doesn't claim any of this actually existed as described. So how does it "offend rational thought"?

To be fair, the article is written in such a way that it shows you what you want to see. If you want it to be about myths, then it's about myths. If you want it to be a claim of actual ancient robotics, then you can ignore the few lines buried in there that use the word "legend".

You are reading the article wrong - maybe because you are prejudiced to reading it wrong.

The article is part legend and part truth. The robots weren't anything like the robots of today. There were mostly likely simple machines shaped like a human and with some movements. The movements could be orchestrated, for example, by flowing water through a mill which moves a circular disk with knives attached to a human shaped platform.

A lot of the legends are exaggerations and narrative hyperbole which often results when information can also travel verbally. The bigger the exaggeration, the farther the information flows.

It says this at the end: "This story was first published in The Conversation", but does not provide a link, usually required for content reposted from The Conversation. A search found it [1]

[1] https://theconversation.com/robots-guarded-buddhas-relics-in...

Why is the BS posted here?

Because it's a legend that has real and interesting historical connections to the relationship between India and the West. I think that it's reasonable to assume that many readers here aren't familiar with the history and cultural exchange that influenced or led to these tales.

I'm loving the myth Buddha is depicted with curly hair from Greek style. And Stoic philosophy, developed in Greece and popular with Roman elite was developed from Buddhist teachings.

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