Ancient Hindus created test tube babies and artificial wombs?

[patrick457]

Interesting! No I am not familiar with this ritual. Hindus are pretty conservative about sticking to the traditions within their own community, so a Hindu from another part of India would not participate in such ritual from Kerala (unless it was part of a academic exercise or he was Westernized enough to be curious about other communities)

I see, so it’s a kind of local, community-type (autonomous?) thing?

All these rituals are supposed to have supernatural effects. It is quite silly to give them scientific value or expect measurable results. It is makes much more sense to interpret the stories as myths and the rituals as symbolic with psychological effects rather than tangible, physical ones.

Yeah. AFAIK the Agnicayana’s main purpose itself is apparently to give the sacrificer or yajamana well-being and prosperity in this life and attainment of heaven (svarga-loka) and immortality in the afterlife. Obviously, as you say, a matter of faith that can’t be measured by science.

A Catholic analogue to what these scientists are doing is someone who goes into a Mass and tries to inspect the Host after the consecration (after we believe it has transubstantiated into the body of Christ) to see if there’s any chemical change in it.