The Conversation

Wed Mar 13

Robots guarded Buddha's relics in a legend of ancient India

Written by Adrienne Mayor, Research Scholar, Classics and History and Philosophy of Science, Stanford University

Two small figures guard the table holding the Buddha's relics. Are they spearmen, or robots?British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA

As early as Homer, more than 2,500 years ago, Greek mythology explored the idea of automatons and self-moving devices. By the third century B.C., engineers in Hellenistic Alexandria, in Egypt, were building real mechanical robots a...

Robots guarded Buddha's relics in a legend of ancient India

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