Jeewanu

Bahadur named these particles 'Jeewanu' because they exhibit some of the basic properties of a cell, such as the presence of semipermeable membrane, amino acids, phospholipids and carbohydrates.

Bahadur specifically used the term to represent the Indian philosophical tradition not only through the use of Sanskrit but also by inferring ideas on the origin of life from the Vedas.

[1] In 1954[9] and 1958 Krishna Bahadur and co-workers published the successful synthesis of amino acids from a mixture of paraformaldehyde, colloidal molybdenum oxide or potassium nitrate and ferric chloride under sunlight.

[10] It appears that this experimental approach was seminal for the assays to produce Jeewanu, which he first reported in 1963 in an obscure Indian journal, Vijnana Parishad Anusandhan Patrika.

Bahadur stated that by using molybdenum as a cofactor, the Jeewanu showed capability of reversible photochemical electron transfer, and released a gas mixture of oxygen and hydrogen at a 1:2 ratio.

[5][11] Then, NASA's Exobiology Division tasked two biologists in 1967 to review and evaluate the literature so far published by Krishna Bahadur (not to replicate the experiments) on the synthesis and characteristics of the Jeewanu.

[1] In the context of self-organizing structures, Gánti considered the Jeewanu a promising model system to understand the origin and fundamentals of life, and one that had never received due attention.