What are some interesting lesser known tales from Hindu religion?

 There is very vivid description of growth of body in mother’s womb in Srimad Bhagavatam canto 3 chapter 31 from verse 1_and onward as below:

The Personality of Godhead said:

1. Under the supervision of the Supreme Lord and according to the result of his work, the living entity, the soul, is made to enter into the womb of a woman through the particle of male semen to assume a particular type of body(3.31.1)
2. On the first night, the sperm and ovum mix, and on the fifth night the mixture ferments into a bubble. On the tenth night it develops into a form like a plum, and after that, it gradually turns into a lump of flesh or an egg, as the case may be.3.31.2)
3. In the course of a month, a head is formed, and at the end of two months the hands, feet and other limbs take shape. By the end of three months, the nails, fingers, toes, body hair, bones and skin appear, as do the organ of generation and the other apertures in the body, namely the eyes, nostrils, ears, mouth and anus.3.31.3)
4. Within four months from the date of conception, the seven essential ingredients of the body, namely chyle, blood, flesh, fat, bone, marrow and semen, come into existence. At the end of five months, hunger and thirst make themselves felt, and at the end of six months, the fetus, enclosed by the amnion, begins to move on the right side of the abdomen.3.31.4)
5. Deriving its nutrition from the food and drink taken by the mother, the fetus grows and remains in that abominable residence of stools and urine, which is the breeding place of all kinds of worms.3.31.5)
6. Bitten again and again all over the body by the hungry worms in the abdomen itself, the child suffers terrible agony because of his tenderness. He thus becomes unconscious moment after moment because of the terrible condition.(3.31.6)
7. Owing to the mother’s eating bitter, pungent foodstuffs, or food which is too salty or too sour, the body of the child incessantly suffers pains which are almost intolerable.(3.31.7)
8. Placed within the amnion and covered outside by the intestines, the child remains lying on one side of the abdomen, his head turned towards his belly and his back and neck arched like a bow.(3.31.8
9. The child thus remains just like a bird in a cage, without freedom of movement. At that time, if the child is fortunate, he can remember all the troubles of his past one hundred births, and he grieves wretchedly. What is the possibility of peace of mind in that condition?(3.31.9)
10. Thus endowed with the development of consciousness from the seventh month after his conception, the child is tossed downward by the airs that press the embryo during the weeks preceding delivery. Like the worms born of the same filthy abdominal cavity, he cannot remain in one place.(3.31.10)
11. The living entity in this frightful condition of life, bound by seven layers of material ingredients, prays with folded hands, appealing to the Lord, who has put him in that condition.(3.31.11)
12. The human soul says: I take shelter of the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who appears in His various eternal forms and walks on the surface of the world. I take shelter of Him only, because He can give me relief from all fear and from Him I have received this condition of life, which is just befitting my impious activities.(3.31.12)

All the above description of embryo development can be seen in real pictures as below:

Inside the Fallopian tube

A human egg

The moment before fertilization

Sperm fuses with the egg

Spermatozoon carries genetic material into the egg

A newly-formed embryo floats through the fallopian tube

One week later...

Three weeks later...

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The first heart beat

Four weeks after fertilization

Fetus in the fifth week

Placenta formation in the sixth week

Two months later...

Eyes start forming at 10 weeks

The embryo has little hands at this point

Four months in...

The limbs develop

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The fetus hears sounds

Nails develop on the fingers

Hair cells begin to form

Six months in...

Human features start to become more pronounced

One month before birth...

Source and courtesy :

1.Nilsson's book, A Child is Born(1975).

2.Srimad Bhagavatam by Srila Prabhupada

So descriptions of human birth is very similar as described in the Srimad Bhagavatam.

So we should appreciate our ancestors who wrote the exact description of child growth in womb.

We should be proud to our ancestors and the God who has created all of us and He is same for everybody.

Thanks for reading.Thanks for your up votes and support .

Edit 1.One nice person asked about the cause of pain of embryo in the womb .The answered is also given in the next slokas as under:

The soul of the womb tells :

1. the pure soul, appearing now bound by my activities, am lying in the womb of my mother by the arrangement of māyā. I offer my respectful obeisances unto Him who is also here with me but who is unaffected and changeless. He is unlimited, but He is perceived in the repentant heart. To Him I offer my respectful obeisances. 3.31.13
2. I am separated from the Supreme Lord because of my being in this material body, which is made of five elements, and therefore my qualities and senses are being misused, although I am essentially spiritual. Because the Supreme Personality of Godhead is transcendental to material nature and the living entities, because He is devoid of such a material body, and because He is always glorious in His spiritual qualities, I offer my obeisances unto Him.
3. The human soul further prays: The living entity is put under the influence of material nature and continues a hard struggle for existence on the path of repeated birth and death. This conditional life is due to his forgetfulness of his relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Therefore, without the Lord’s mercy, how can he again engage in the transcendental loving service of the Lord?
4. No one other than the Supreme Personality of Godhead, as the localized Paramātmā, the partial representation of the Lord, is directing all inanimate and animate objects. He is present in the three phases of time—past, present and future. Therefore, the conditioned soul is engaged in different activities by His direction, and in order to get free from the threefold miseries of this conditional life, we have to surrender unto Him only.
5. Fallen into a pool of blood, stool and urine within the abdomen of his mother, his own body scorched by the mother’s gastric fire, the embodied soul, anxious to get out, counts his months and prays, “O my Lord, when shall I, a wretched soul, be released from this confinement?”
6. My dear Lord, by Your causeless mercy I am awakened to consciousness, although I am only ten months old. For this causeless mercy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the friend of all fallen souls, there is no way to express my gratitude but to pray with folded hands.
7. The living entity in another type of body sees only by instinct; he knows only the agreeable and disagreeable sense perceptions of that particular body. But I have a body in which I can control my senses and can understand my destination; therefore, I offer my respectful obeisances to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, by whom I have been blessed with this body and by whose grace I can see Him within and without.
8. Therefore, my Lord, although I am living in a terrible condition, I do not wish to depart from my mother’s abdomen to fall again into the blind well of materialistic life. Your external energy, called deva-māyā, at once captures the newly born child, and immediately false identification, which is the beginning of the cycle of continual birth and death, begins.
9. Therefore, without being agitated any more, I shall deliver myself from the darkness of nescience with the help of my friend, clear consciousness. Simply by keeping the lotus feet of Lord Viṣṇu in my mind, I shall be saved from entering into the wombs of many mothers for repeated birth and death.
10. Lord Kapila continued: The ten-month-old living entity has these desires even while in the womb. But while he thus extols the Lord, the wind that helps parturition propels him forth with his face turned downward so that he may be born
11. Pushed downward all of a sudden by the wind, the child comes out with great trouble, head downward, breathless and deprived of memory due to severe agony( Froanksm 3.31.13 to 24)

Thanks.

We should be happy now to find our real purpose of life of happiness.