NEW SECTION: RESOURCES ON REINCARNATION
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Reincarnation is one of the most important issues faced by philosophy, religion, and science that have very significant implications for the understanding of human life.
Reincarnation used to be a subject confined to religion. Since the 20th century, however, the inquiry has moved into the field of science as a result of ground-breaking researches about people, particularly children, whose memories of previous lives have been validated by independent investigations. Many of these cases involved birthmarks or physical characteristics at birth that matched the manner of death of the claimed previous life. Some of them also could speak an unlearned language but which corresponded to the language learned in the claimed previous life.
The concept of reincarnation, however, goes against the mainstream doctrines of a number of major religions. This has created conflicts and has led to raging debates on the pros and cons of reincarnation.
This site contains current knowledge regarding reincarnation. It has linkages to sites on various facets of the topic, books written about it, and the controversies revolving around it. It also includes objections raised against reincarnation.
Readers are welcome to comment, make suggestions, contribute information or ask questions on any of the subjects in this site. Contributors are asked to try to be as objective as possible in any discussion, whether for or against, and avoid foul or propagandist language. The purpose of this site is to help arrive at valid knowledge on reincarnation, and not to defend any particular view of reincarnation.
“The statistical probability that reincarnation does in fact occur is so overwhelming . . . that cumulatively the evidence is not inferior to that for most if not all branches of science, whether physics, cosmology, or Darwinian evolution.” – Doris Kuhlmann-Wilsdorf, physicist |
![Shanti Devi was born in Delhi, India.[1] As a little girl in the 1930s, she began to claim to remember details of a past life. According to these accounts, when she was about four years old, she told her parents that her real home was in Mathura where her husband lived, about 145 km from her home in Delhi. She also shared three unique features about her husband – he was fair, wore glasses, and had a big wart on his left cheek. She also stated her husband's shop was located right in front of the Dwarkadhish temple in Mathura.[2] Discouraged by her parents, she ran away from home at age six, trying to reach Mathura. Back home, she stated in school that she was married and had died ten days after having given birth to a child. Interviewed by her teacher and headmaster, she used words from the Mathura dialect and divulged the name of her merchant husband, "Kedar Nath". The headmaster located a merchant by that name in Mathura who had lost his wife, Lugdi Devi, nine years earlier, ten days after having given birth to a son. Kedar Nath traveled to Delhi, pretending to be his own brother, but Shanti Devi immediately recognized him and Lugdi Devi's son. As she knew several details of Kedar Nath's life with his wife, he was soon convinced that Shanti Devi was indeed the reincarnation of Lugdi Devi.[3] The case was brought to the attention of Mahatma Gandhi who set up a commission to investigate. The commission traveled with Shanti Devi to Mathura, arriving on 15 November 1935. There she recognized several family members, including the grandfather of Lugdi Devi. She found out that Kedar Nath had neglected to keep a number of promises he had made to Lugdi Devi on her deathbed. She then traveled home with her parents. The commission's report, published in 1936, concluded that Shanti Devi was indeed the reincarnation of Lugdi Devi.[3] Two further reports were written at the time. The report by Bal Chand Nahata was published as a Hindi booklet by the name Punarjanma Ki Paryalochana. In this, he stated that "Whatever material that has come before us, does not warrant us to conclude that Shanti Devi has former life recollections or that this case proves reincarnation".[4] This argument was disputed by Indra Sen, a devotee of Sri Aurobindo, in an article later.[5] A further report, based on interviews conducted in 1936, was published in 1952.[6] Shanti Devi did not marry. She told her story again at the end of the 1950s, and once more in 1986 when she was interviewed by Ian Stevenson and K.S. Rawat. In this interview she also related her near death experiences when Lugdi Devi died.[1] K.S. Rawat continued his investigations in 1987, and the last interview took place only four days before her death on 27 December 1987.[7] A Swedish author who had visited her twice published a book about the case in 1994; the English translation appeared in 1998.[8]](http://reincarnation.theosophical.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/shantidevi3.jpg "Shanti Devi")
