Science Fiction Question for an Indologist (fwd)

[Klaus Karttunen]

About robots:
 John Robert Gardner:
> So far, I thought that the first science fiction novel ever was
> "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelly. Lately I have been told that this actually
> is not true, there should have been a woman in India who wrote some
> science fiction earlier, some kind of robots doing housework should play a
> role in this. Have you ever heard of this, and if so, can you tell me who
> the author was?
There are some stories about housework robots in Buddhist and Jaina
narrative literature. Usually they were constructed by Yavanas, who also
were skilled in constructing flying machines and other mechanical
wonders.

Regards,
Klaus

--
Klaus Karttunen, Ph.D.
Docent of Indology and Classical Ethnography
Institute of Asian and African Studies
PL 59 (Unioninkatu 38 B), 00014 University of Helsinki, FINLAND
phone 358-0-19122188, fax 358-0-19122094