A mother birthing 100 children?

Did the ancient Indians know about IVF?

Mahabharata is an ancient (10,000 year old) epic literature from India which also includes The Gita.

The main so called villains in it are the 100 Kauravas- all born to one mother named Gandhari and father Dhritarashtra.

Upon reading it for the first time, it was puzzling that how a woman can have 100 children?

The story elaborates that she apparently delivered only 2 children named Duryodhana and Dushshasana and the other 98 embryos were “grown in kumbha i.e. in containers”.

Sounds like ancient fertility clinic?

Well, modern science is experimenting artificial wombs with technique pioneered at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, with hundreds of successful trial runs using lambs.

The trial involves a premature infant spending part of its gestation in a fluid-filled plastic “bio-bag” that has been designed to mimic the conditions found inside a mother’s uterus. The baby would be supplied with oxygen and nutrients via an artificial placenta attached to its umbilical cord while its lungs remain filled with liquid, as they are in a natural womb.

Based on similar story in Mahabharata tens of thousand years ago, was Indian ancient civilization that advanced?

“Whatever is here, may be found elsewhere; what is not cannot be found anywhere else,” The Epilogue to the Mahabharata exclaims with pride (18:56-33).

May be the medicine in those days was so advanced that they knew about IVF and reproductive endocrinology.