From: "vrnparker" <vrnparker@yahoo.com>
Mailing-List: list vediculture@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2003 10:10:08 -0000
Subject: [world-vedic] ANCIENT INDIAN COMPASS

MACCHA-YANTRA - THE ANCIENT INDIAN MARINER'S COMPASS 

By Sudheer 

There were Sanskrit terms for many parts of a ship. The ship's anchor 
was known as Nava-Bandhan-Kilaha which literally means 'A Nail to tie 
up a ship' . The sail was called Vata Vastra a which means 'wind- 
cloth'. The hull was termed StulaBhaga i.e. an 'expanded area'. The 
rudder was called Keni-Pata, Pata means blade; the rudder was also 
known as Karna which literally means a 'ear' and was so called because 
it used to be a hollow curved blade, as is found today in exhaust 
fans. The ship's keel was called Nava-Tala which means 'bottom of a 
ship'. The mast was known as Kupadanda, in which danda means a pole. 

Even a sextant was used for navigation and was called Vruttashanga- 
Bhaga. But what is more surprising is that even a contrived mariner's 
compass was used by Indian navigators nearly 1500 to 2000 years ago. 
This claim is not being made in an overzealous nationalistic spirit. 
This has in fact been the suggestion of an European expert, Mr. J.L. 
Reid, who was a member of the Institute of Naval Architects and 
Shipbuilders in England at around the beginning of the present 
century. This is what Mr. Reid has said in the Bombay Gazetteer, vol. 
xiii., Part ii., Appendix A. 

"The early Hindu astrologers are said to have used the magnet, in 
fixing the North and East, in laying foundations, and other religious 
ceremonies. The Hindu compass was an iron fish that floated in a 
vessel of oil and pointed to the North. The fact of this older Hindu 
compass seems placed beyond doubt by the Sanskrit word Maccha Yantra, 
or fish machine, which Molesworth gives as a name for the mariner's 
compass". 

It is significant to note that these are the words of a foreign Naval 
Architect and Shipbuilding Expert. Is is thus quite possible that the 
Maccha Yantra (fish machine) was transmitted to the west by the Arabs 
to give us the mariner's compass of today. 

- Sudheer