Test-tube babies and stem cells in the Mahabharata
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Were the hundred Kauravas born through test-tube and stem-cell technology, as a vice-chancellor told the Indian Science Congress in 2019?
Indian claim not supported by evidenceMedicine & health
Indian claim
At the 106th Indian Science Congress in Jalandhar in January 2019, Andhra University Vice-Chancellor G. Nageswara Rao said the 100 Kauravas were born from embryos grown in pots, showing that ancient India knew test-tube and stem-cell methods.
Evidence for the Indian claim
- The Mahabharata says Gandhari's unborn mass was divided into a hundred parts and kept in pots of ghee until the children were born. This is a story within an epic.
Commonly credited to
In-vitro fertilisation was first achieved in humans with the birth of Louise Brown in England on 25 July 1978; India's first IVF baby, Durga, was born in Kolkata about ten weeks later.
Evidence for the other claim
- IVF needed microscopes, hormone treatment, egg retrieval and culture media developed in the 20th century; nothing like these is described in any ancient text.
- The Indian Science Congress Association distanced itself from the remarks, and scientific bodies such as the Breakthrough Science Society criticised mixing mythology with science.
What historians and scientists say
There is no evidence that test-tube reproduction or stem-cell methods existed in ancient India. Reading modern technology into epic stories is not history, and it overshadows real Indian work such as Dr Subhash Mukhopadhyay's 1978 IVF birth.