Swarnalata Remembers

World famous researcher Ian Stevenson, in his landmark book, 20 cases suggestive of reincarnation, told the story of Swarnalata Mishra, the daughter of a school inspector in India, whom he interviewed in 1961, when she was 13. Dr. Stevenson told how Swarnalata, at age three, went on a trip with her father to the city of Jabalpur, and on the way home "unexpectedly asked the driver of the truck they were in to turn down a road toward ‘my house’ "in the city of Katni, where they stopped for tea. Katni is about 100 miles from their home city of Panna.

Swarnalata said they could obtain much better tea at "her" house nearby, Stevenson recounted. Her remarks puzzled her father, especially when he learned that she later told her siblings of a previous life in Katni as a member of a family named Pathak.

In the several years following, she performed dances and sang songs she had not been taught in this life. At age 10, (Swarnalata met the wife of a professor from Katni, whom Swarnalata claimed to recognize from her previous life)

Her claims were investigated a year later by Sri. H.N. Banerjee, who spend two days in Katni where he becomes acquainted with the Pathak family of which Swarnalata claimed to have been a member. He had a list of nine statements Swarnalata had made about the Pathak residence, which he conformed on arriving there. Her statements corresponded closely with the life of Biya, daughter of the Pathak family and the deceased wife of Sri Chintamini Pandey . Biya had died in 1939, nine years before Swarnalata’s birth.

Swarnalata and members of her family then went to Katni and other towns where Biya had lived much of her married life, and where she died. She recognized additional people and places and commented on various changes that had occurred since the death of Biya.

In the summer of 1959, members of the Pathak family and of Biya’s marital family were recognized by Swarnalata. In 1961. Dr. Stevenson spent four days in the area interviewing people concerned with the case, including Swarnalata and Biya’s bothers and children, "for whom she showed the warmest affection".

Swarnalata made statements of a much more fragmentary nature about another life she believed she had lived subsequent to the life as Biya in Katni, "wrote the Virginia professor" She stated that after she died (in the life as Biya) she was born as one Kamlesh in Sylhet , Assam (now in Bangladesh), and that in that life she died as a child of about nine and was then reborn in the Mishra family. Some of the statements made by Swarnalata with regard to this "intermediate life" accord with the geography and other facts of Sylhet . It has not yet been possible, however to identify a child of this area whose life corresponds with the rather few details given by Swarnalata. (Investigation was hampered by the East Pakistan and is now in Bangladesh.)"

Swarnalata’s songs and dances apparently belong to the life in Bangladesh. The languages of the songs was Bengali. Sylhet in a Bengali-speaking area. In India Swarnalata have lived entirely among Hindi-speaking people.

The wife of professor Agnihotri had known Biya, but neither Swarnalata nor her family had known the Agnihotri family prior to the time when Swarnalata made her initial statements about Katni. Both Sri. M.L. Mishra and Sri. Agnihotri stated that the families had never met until Agnihotri, having heard of Swarnalata’s claims to remember a previous life, invited her and her father to his home to tell about the previous life. At the time, Swarnalata learned that Srimati Agnihotri came from the Katni area and asked to see her. Swarnalata’s recognition of Srimati Agnihotri then occurred. This happened in July, 1958, when Swarnalata was 10 and had already being talking about the previous life for six years.

Stevenson learned that the Mishra family traveled from Panna to other cities, passing through Katni from time to time, and it is conceivable that she picked up some knowledge of Katni during such journeys. The Pathak family was prominent and presumably the location of their houses was well known there. But Swarnalata gave information about the structural details of the houses as it was years before she began talking of the previous life. If she some how picked up knowledge of the Pathaks, it must have eluded her parents for they knew nothing of the Pathak family when she first began to the talk about them. As Swarnalata never left home without her parents, Stevenson thought it unlikely she could have learned about the Pathak family while her parents did not also acquire the same information at the same time.

Swarnalata’s case has since become famous. "Almost all the eminent parapsychologists of the world, connected with reincarnation research, have studied the case of Swarnalata’s said Dr. K.S. Rawat , director Foundation in Faridabad, India, who recently went to see Swarnalata’s. "I had gone to Indore to get some information on another case when I learned that Swarnalata was also residing there."

Dr. K.S. Rawat found her working as a lecturer in a college and married to a local municipal commissioner named DP Toward. After his visit he wrote the following impressions.

Generally memories of past lives fade as one grown older. To find out whether it was true with her, I inquired if she still remembered the previous lives. Srimati Tewari (Swarnalata’s married name) is a lady with dignified and sober personality. She spoke softly and sweetly – "I have very faint memories. I have remained in contact with those people and so the memories have survived."

Srimati Tewari has maintained the same relationship with her brothers of the past life. She joins them on different occasions of happiness and sorrows. She ties the rakhi(a sacred thread of trust between brothers and sisters) on Raksha Bandhan day (celebrated in India as Brother’s Day). On being asked up to what age she continued to get fresh recollection about her past life, she informed me that this happened up to the time of her marriage in 1973 when she was 25 years old.

About the reactions of her family on her relating the memories of her past life, Srimati Tewari said that nobody believed them; and her brothers and sisters even made fun of her. Later her father’s attitude changed, but the mother continued to oppose the idea, being afraid that she might lose her daughter because of the prevailing superstition that those who speak of past lives will die young.

(Even after studying so many instances of past-life memories of her past life, Srimati Tewari totally confident as mere probability. But Srimati Tewari is totally confident of reincarnation because of her own personal experience .)

It is natural that the recollections of memories of previous lives should have an impact on the personality of the persons in their present life. Several instances have been seen in Western countries where people have been not able to adjust to their present personality. Srimati Tewari is nature and well-educated person and should, therefore be able to judge such an effect on her personality. She informed me that she feels she belongs to the family of the past life when she is among them, while when she is with those of the present life, she thinks that the latter are her family. She is able to live a well-adjusted life at both places.

Unable to proof reincarnation, psychologists have put forward a number of alternative theories to explain this phenomenon. One theory is that the basis of such memories could be ESP. With this faculty, a person can read the minds of other persons, gain knowledge of what is happening elsewhere, or know about events to the past and future. I questioned Swarnalata on this point. She said that she had such faculties from the very beginning. Quite often, even in working state, she would get an inklings and sometimes she gained knowledge in dreams . I asked her specifically if she got such inklings in the past to which she replied in the affirmative. On being requested to narrate some examples, Srimati Tewari told us that one night she dreamt that her brother had lost his bicycle at Satna. Later, she learnt through a latter that it was so. About a week a latter, she dreamt that the bicycle was recovered by the brother from near a pond. This was also confirmed to have happened .

Srimati Tewari, while narrating another incident of her precognition, informed us that eight years before her marriage, she repeatedly saw a particular house in her dreams. After marriage, she came to the same house.

I asked Srimati Tewari whether she found any indication in her past and present life supporting the doctrine of karma. She reported that she found some similarity in the husband life and her present husband. Their features and their nature were similar. She also added that even though she did not remember, her brother tells her that his sister also talked exactly in the same manner as she does.

As for her life in Sylhet , Swarnalata said she does not distinctly remember it in detail. Of course, she still remembered the Bengali songs. At my request, she sang one of them its pleasant melody is still ringing in my ears.