So, your husband cannot give you a baby? Get another man’s sperm. So your wife cannot give you a baby? Get another woman’s egg. So your wife cannot carry the child in her womb? Get another woman to carry it for you. Lately, we are hearing a lot about these new ways of baby making. Makes us think – depending on who we are that either the world is becoming very modern or everything is collapsing.

But Indic mythologies are full of stories where babies are produced in different ways. There is the story in Jain mythology of a Brahmin woman becoming pregnant with a child and Indra transfers the baby from her womb to a more appropriate womb, that of a queen, wife of a Kshatriya. Thus the Tirthankara is born. In the Bhagavat Purana we hear how the foetus in Yashoda’s womb is transferred to Rohini’s womb to protect the child from the murderous Kamsa. Thus, Balaram is born.