Garbh Sanskar

Garbh Sanskar is a Sanskrit word, the meaning of which is - teaching good things to the unborn baby in womb during pregnancy.

Sounds crazy?

Not really. Read on . . . .

Sometime back I was in Helebeedu, which is in Hassan district of Karnataka, India. I visited the biggest attraction over there - Hoysaleshvara temple. Everywhere in this temple one can see wonderful sculptures. There are many sculptures which depicts different scenes from the Hindu Epic Mahabaratha and various mythological stories. One such sculpture is that of Abhimanyu entering the Chakra vyuha.

Chakravyuha-labyrinth (Source: Wikipedia)

There is a nice story behind this sculpture from the epic Mahabharata.

As an unborn child in his mother's womb, Abhimanyu learned the knowledge of entering the deadly and virtually impenetrable Chakravyuha from Arjuna, his father. (Chakravyuha (चक्रव्यूह) refers to a Military formation narrated in the Hindu epic Mahabharata)The epic explains that he overheard his father, Arjuna, talking about this with his wife Subhadra, while he was still in his mother′s womb. Arjuna explains to Subhadra in detail, the technique of attacking and escaping from various vyuhas. After explaining all the vyuhas, he explains about the technique of cracking Chakravyuha. Arjuna explains to her how to enter the Chakryavyuha. When he was about to explain how to exit from the Chakravyuha, he realises that Subhadra is asleep and stops expounding on the Chakravyuha further. As a result, Abhimanyu could not hear the story about how to exit. (Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abhimanyu)

So, Abhimanyu knows how to enter the Chakra vyuha but does not know how to exit from it. Then during the Kurukshetra War between Kauravas and the Pandavas he gloriously enters the Chakra vyuha and fights gallantly. But when the time comes to exit from the Chakra vyuha he was unable to do that as he has only heard from his father while he was in his mother’s womb the technique of entry but not the technique of exit! Because of this he finally gets killed in the war.

Now back to Garbh Sanskar! Is it really possible? Although our Hindu epic has talked about this thousands of years back, till recently it was considered as a well imagined and very creative story! But scientists now have discovered that it is indeed possible and they have proved it with various modern experiments.

 

Listen to the science writer and author of book Origins - Annie Murphy Paul’s talk on “What we learn before we're born”.

Sixty years back, a French ENT specialist, Professor Alfred Tomatis, developed a theory about how the child listens and learn in the womb (the child actually hears its mother's voice through bone conduction). Because at the time he could not prove much of his insights, Tomatis was first dismissed by the scientific world, then taken seriously, then dismissed again. Nowadays, people around the world are applying Tomatis theories and techniques to help people with a whole range of auditory spectrum disorders. The most important stage in the Tomatis treatment is listening to the mother's voice through special filters that attempt to reproduce the sound the way the child hears it inside the womb.

Moral of the story?

What our modern day’s scientists discover today with their sophisticated instruments in ultra modern laboratories with cutting edge technology, were already known to Hinduism thousands of years back when none of these facilities ever existed! 

Tomatis picture: http://www.tomatis.lu/institute/?language=en&page=method_founder

Annis’s picture: http://www.ted.com/speakers/annie_murphy_paul.html