Cloning in Veda & Purana

Achievements in cloning or test-tube baby in scriptures is found in Mahabharata. Duryodhana and his 100 brothers were cloned from the single flesh (Mamsa Pinda.)  . The technique of division of Chamasa might have been used by sage Vyasa in producing 100 Kauravas and their sister Dusshala. Gandhari became pregnant naturally from her husband Dhritarashtra. However she did not deliver a child even after nine months were completed. By that time Kunti gave birth to a child named as Yudhishthira. Therefore Gandhari became angry because her son’s right to the throne was lost. Therefore, burning with anger, Gandhari aborted her foetus. In fact it was not a foetus, not a developed child; but a mole, a mass of living cells having no shape like a human child. As soon as the sage Vyasa heard about her abortion, he came immediately, took the aborted cell mass in possession and carried on further work over it. He divided that mole, This means that Vyasa dissected the mole carefully and found out normal living cells, which he kept separately in ‘Ghrita Kumbha’(घृत कुंभ). Ghrita Kumbha does not mean an ordinary pot of clay, filled with Ghee. ‘Ghrita’ means a nutrient medium supplying life energy, which was kept in a special Kumbha, a highly sophisticated urn. The normal living cells were implanted one each in a separate Kumbha. There were 101 cells. Those cells were grown separately in vitro, i.e. out of any living body, in Ghrita Kumbhas or nutrient urns. In due course children were born, 100 Kaurawas and their sister Dusshala. (Mahabharata, Adiparva, 115)

Normally, a fertilized ovum starts dividing. One cell divides in to two. Two cells divide to produce four cells and so on, till billions of cells are produced. In the initial stage, every new -born cell has a capacity to divide and re-divide till a full grown foetus forms. Rubhus took four- cell stage and produced four animals. However, Vyasa was not doing an experiment of cloning on one fertilized ovum. He had collected one aborted mass of cells, which contained some normal living cells. Out of these primary cells, Vyasa found 101 cells, which had a capacity to begin multiplication from the original stage. Therefore all the 101 cells developed in to 101 children. The modern science does not know up to what stage of multiplication the newly born cells have a capacity to multiply from the beginning so as to form a child. But from this experiment of Vyasa it appears that up to 128 -celled stage, each cell may have a capacity to begin multiplication anew to produce a child. It seems that Vyas found 101 living cells out of 128 cells. These cells may be termed as Stem cells of the modern science.