Indian epics contain many examples of specialized human skills. One such example is the archery skill to shoot an arrow to hit an invisible sound source. Shabda-vedha (sabda vedha), as it is known, remained the gift of very few.
The most noted one related to this ability is perhaps the event that left King Dasaratha in great distress. As a young king, Dasaratha once send his shabda-vedhi arrow at the source of the sound of water entering a pitcher. In the torrential rain on the banks of river Sarayu, Dasartha made the fatal mistake of thinking it is the sound made by water entering an elephant’s trunk. The pitcher was being filled by Shravan (Shravanakumar) the sole support of a blind and aged couple. The blind hermit, unable to bear the loss of the only son, curses Dasaratha of ‘putrashoka’ – something which breaks the mightly heart of King Dasaratha later in his life. Romesh C Dutt in his The Ramayana and the Mahabharata: Condensed Into English Verse has Dasaratha saying to Kausalya “ I was called a sabda-bedhi, archer prince who shot by sound, on the unseen fancied tusker dealt a sure and deadly wound”.
In the Ghosha-yatra parva of Mahabharata, Arjuna takes on the Gandharvas in Dwaitavana to free Duryodhana and team. Chitrasena, chief of the Gandharvas, shift to illusionary warfare when faced with the might of Arjuna. At a stage, unable to stand the onslaught of Partha’s arrows, he turns invisible and wages war. Arjuna uses his shabda-vedhi arrows to make Chitrasena surrender. Another example of hitting unseen targets just by listening to the sound emanating from them.
In his famous work Mahabharata Tatparya Nirnaya, Sri Madhvacharya talks about the ability of Ekalavya to hit the source of a sound without seeing it. The incident is his making the life of Pandava’s hunting dog miserable by shooting seven arrows into its mouth without really hurting it. The quote form Madhvacharya’s work is given below
Quote (http://mahabharata-resources.org/mbtntrans/mbtntrans.html – Translation by Desiraju Hanumanta Rao )
shrutvA rAvaM sArameyasya dUrA chchharairmukhaM shabdavedhI pupUre | sa ekalavyo vraNamasya nAkarot chhvA pUritAsyaH pANDavAnabhyayAtsaH || 15\.61||
Listening the bark of dog, ekalavya, shot arrows towards it by his capability in sonic-archery. He did not hurt the dog in the least, but just filled its mouth with arrows. And that dog returned to dharmaja with arrows filled mouth. [15-61]
Unquote
Long before science uncovered sonar detection, heat detection and laser guidance methods, there were people who could use their sense of hearing to guide missiles !
Trivia : A Hollywood movie of the 80s titled Blind Fury talks about a blind Vietnam war veteran who learns to swordfight just by his hearing ability. A sabda-vedhi sword !