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Dr. Parameswar Solanki has without questioning the possibility of such an embryo-transfer remarked (see Jain Bharti, Vol. 39.3 March 1991, pages 147-148) that the Jain Acharyas may have been guided in mentioning such an episode by the Bhagwat-Purana's example perhaps on the assumption that Bhagwat-Purana is a prior treatise. But it could be vice-versa, the origin of Agamic literature is no less older than BhagwatPurana's. The height of imagination however in Bhagwat-Purana's episode of embryo-transfer in the 7th month of pregnancy is all the more amazing and less credible than the Agamic-transfer of embryo on its 83rd day of pregnancy. The process of operation of hypnotising the incumbents in deep sleep is also void of the minutest details which are the hallmark of Agamic literature.
I had in my previous article published in the Journal of Asiatic Society (Vol. XLII nos. 3-4,2000) while highlighting the excellency of such an experiment 2600 years ago, also expressed my doubt about the factual trustworthiness of the whole episode. Giving it a sociological twist I was inclined to interpret the myth differently. Those were the days of feudal Kingship. The King Supreme owned many a Queens and in the palace there were concubines from every strata including Brahmins with whom the king frequently had sexual relations. The son born to a Brahmin-concubine could found favour with the king linking the son's parentage to the Royal household for the outside world or could be adopted by the king to save the embarassment although he already had a son (FREE) from his Queen Trishala in this particular case.
This angle, to look at the whole episode, may annoy many a blind followers and fanatics but needs to be explored for solving many a myths created by vested interests and to bring out historical facts as authentically as possible. The modern mind with its scientfiic aptitude cannot accept such unimaginable happenings as historic truths unless they could be rationally perceived or explained. Even the myth of Five-hooded-serpent head as canopy over the 23rd Tirthankar (atec) Parasvanath has been challenged by the modern scholars. These serpent-heads are said to be the creation of medieval Jain-Acharyas. The sculptures and literature depicting the canopy only go to explain Parsva's association with Nagraj (TRI) Dharnendra (EFE ). Sri U. P. Shah, a Jainologist of
repute, in his essay on the subject while explaining the depiction of serpent-canopy (118 ) over Parsva interprets it to be a totemic symbol of his link with his ancestral Naga-tribe (T09T) and Nag-worship (TTTUIT). The eminent scholar Dr. M.A. Dhaky in his essay Arhat Parsba and Dharnendra Nexus (published 1997) supporting Shah's views suggests that in the total absence of this serpent -canopy in any of the sculptures found in kankali tila (chchisi FCSI) of Mathuraexcavations dating them to be of 1st century B.C. the so called depicition are obviously a Nirgrantha (निग्रंथ) adaptation of the Brahmanical myth of Sesh-Nag (शेषनाग) supporting Globe of Earth on his head or followed from the myth of Krishna-Govardhan episode of Hindu-scriptures. Likewise the embryo-transfer-myth could be interpreted rationally to be a creation of the later Jain-Acharyas to avoid the Brahamanical parental linkage of Lord Mahavir. The medieval period between 5th to 10th century A.D. saw a phenomenal upsurge of hatred against Boudhas (CE) and Jains generated by the followers of Adi-Guru Shankaracharya when not only vast number of Jain shrines were demolished and or destroyed and a disheartening number of Jain And Boudh Acharyas and Muni's were slain in Southern India. The possibility of one-up-manship creating such myth cannot be ruled out.
The most reverred Jain scholar of the 20th century Pundit Sukhlal Sanghvi has in his critical analysis of such mythical representations in Lord Mahavir's life challenged the Embryo-transfer episode ar ath ) and suggested that it could be an addition to the Agamic literature by later Acharyas. What gave strength to his argument was the fact that the Jain scriptures of its Digamber sect have completely ignored this transfer episode. Mahavir according to them was born of Trishala and there is no mention of Devananda as Mahavir's mother of conception at all.
The Archaeological finds of Kankali tila (chchisi Tec) in Mathura and the inscriptions found there support the above view. The famous Western Archaelogical and Historian Vincent Smith has in his treatise "Jaina Stupa & other Antiquities of Mathura" dated the inscriptions and sculptures to be of 1st century B.C. These sculptures faithfully depict most of the important events of Lord Mahavir's life but the total absence of the Embryo transfer-episode in those depictions clearly is a pointer to its concoction later on.
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