ABSTRACT
In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made headlines by claiming that Indians had mastered genetic engineering and plastic surgery during Vedic times. This claim, made at the opening of a new research hospital in Mumbai, is in keeping with similar claims about the invention of rockets and powered flight, as “described” in the Mahabharata and Ramayana. But the controversy that erupted around Modi’s public revelation does not reveal anything new about Indian discourses around religion and science, though such ideas have been largely ignored in academic research. Despite the general silence until Modi’s remarks, the underlying idea – that Vedic technology prefigured many twentieth-century advancements – has considerable cachet in Indian conversations about science and technology, and is credible in the minds of many Indian scientists and educated members of the public. Modi’s remarks are a departure, however, from previous political speech. They show that the politics of religion and technology are inextricably bound to the politics of nation-building and contemporary reflections upon Hindu religious traditions.
