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I have recently been plodding through the 78 episodes of The Ramayana, produced by the Sagar family in 1986. This serialisation of the story of Lord Ram, his brothers, and their war against the demon king of Lanka who has abducted Ram’s bride, the princess Sita, became a sensation when it was first broadcast on Indian TV, with an estimated audience of 100 million at its peak.

What particularly struck me was the first appearance of a vimana (a ‘flying chariot’ powered by ‘divine science’) in episode 28. The scene instantly evoked the wonderful illustration of a ‘floating platform’ by Alex Tomlinson for Peter Hassall’s FT article on time-travellers.

I took some screenshots of the Ramayana scene (example above); unfort­unately my viewing copy was pretty bad, but I hope you can make out the ‘flying platform’ and its four occup­ants (two seated and two standing).

Let me describe the scene.