Starting in the 1960s, the Indian chemist Krishna Bahadur, from the University of Allahabad, published on organic and inorganic particles that he had synthesized and baptized 'Jeewanu', or 'particle of life'. Bahadur conceived of the Jeewanu as a simple form of the living. These studies are presented in a historical perspective and positioned within mid-20th century research on the origin of life, notably the so-called 'coacervate theory' of the Soviet biochemist Aleksandr I Oparin. The concepts of life proposed by Bahadur, Oparin and others are discussed from a historical standpoint.