The Mahabharata Describes a Flying City

A flying vehicle is one thing.

A flying city suggests somebody has become ambitious.

In the Vana Parva of the Mahabharata, Arjuna encounters Hiranyapura, a magnificent city associated with powerful Asuras.

The English translation calls it an "aerial city."

It is described as brilliant, filled with desirable things, difficult even for divine beings to conquer and capable of moving about rather than remaining obediently attached to geography like an ordinary municipality.

Naturally, this has become irresistible to ancient-technology enthusiasts.

A moving city becomes a spacecraft.

Divine weapons become missiles.

Mythological warfare becomes forgotten technological history.

That interpretation may be entertaining, but it is not demanded by the text.

The Mahabharata operates on a cosmic scale in which mountains, gods, celestial realms, supernatural creatures and impossible weapons routinely enter the narrative. Hiranyapura is not strange because it violates the rules of that world.

It is strange because the idea remains visually astonishing thousands of years later.

Human imagination has repeatedly built cities above the ground.

Mount Olympus.

Heavenly Jerusalem.

Laputa.

Cloud City.

Massive orbital habitats.

Apparently civilization has always found the surface of Earth slightly restrictive.

Hiranyapura belongs to that very old dream: power, wealth and safety made perfect by removing the city from the reach of ordinary humans.

Real-estate prices were presumably appalling.