King UPARICHARA VĀSU

UPARICHARA VASU WAS A KING OF CHEDI KINGDOM IN THE RACE OF PURU

The myth of the name 'Uparichara' The king Vasu had an interesting title in his name. He was always mentioned as 'Uparichara' Vasu. The meaning of Upari-Chara is Upari:-Upward, Chara:- Going, thus Upari-Chara means the upward-going one. The myth makers try to explain this strange title by the following myth:- Vasu was gifted with an airplane (Vimana) by his friend Indra, the king of the gods (Devas). Vasu traveled in the airplane and was thus called Uparichara Vasu. One possibility is that he indeed possessed a vehicle or a device that could lift people upward. Was this some sort of hydrogen balloon type device? We are not sure. The reference of Vimana is plenty in Mahabharata, Ramayana and the Puranas. Not all of them can be dismissed as pure imagination. Indeed man's fascination to fly like birds is very ancient. People, even before many thousands of years, had attempted to fly and had tried to construct vehicles or devices that can make them fly or at least lift them upwards. Among the people mentioned as possessing Vimana (flying vehicles) were VaisravanaKuvera the king of the Yakshas ( Tibet) (which was later taken away by Ravana, the king of the Rakshasas in Lanka), Indra the king of the Devas (Tibet). Both the tribes of Yakshas and the Devas lived in Tibet. So this seems to be an ancient Tibeten technology. It is not sure if this vehicle or device was capable of travelling far distances as explained by the epics and the Puranas. Even if this device provide lift to take people upwards, it will be a useful device especially in hilly regions where people can be lifted to mountain tops where chariots or even horses cannot climb. Such devices which could lift people and heavy objects upwards were within the capability of technology existed in those periods. Arjuna is mentioned as taken in such a vehicle by Matali, the charioteer of Indra, which rose from ground taking Arjuna from the southern foothills of the Himalayas up above the mountains and finally into the territory of Indra in Tibet, on the northern side of the Himalayas. Indra or somebody belonging to the Deva tribe in Tibet seems to have gifted Vasu with such a device or vehicle. This enabled Vasu to go up into the top of mountains in Chedi which is modern dayBundhelkhand. It could be some other unknown mechanism like a rope-wheel system that enabled Vasu and his engineers to go up quickly to mountain tops, lift heavy materials upward so that they can quickly build dams and other constructions on the top of mountains. This ability to 'go upward' with ease gave Vasu the title 'Uparichara'. There is also another verse in Mahabharata that says:- (Mbh.2.24 ) The car (chariot) upon which Krishna rode had been obtained by king Vasu from Vasava (another name of Indra) , and from Vasu byVrihadratha, and from the latter in due course by king Jarasandha. Thus we also see that what Vasu got from Indra was probably not a flying vehicle but a chariot. Some historians believe that every reference of Vimana (flying vehicles) were actually references to a fast moving chariot. The speed of a chariot was invoked a sense of astonishment to those who did not posses a chariot or seen it before. This lead to the myth of flying-vehicles or Vimanas. If we follow this theory then we need to again explain why then Vasu was titled Uparichara.