REAL STORIES OF REINCARNATION IN INDIA

Shanti Devi was born in Delhi, India on 11 December 1926 and died on 27 December 1987. When she was a young girl and studying in school she claimed that she had her previous birth in Mathura which is about 145 km away from Delhi. There she lived with her husband and after the birth of their first child she died. Since this was widely reported, many known persons came up with their opinions. Since they argued for and against the matter,  Mahatma Gandhi himself interfered and appointed a commission to probe the substance of the claim. It was then substantiated that a women named Lugdi Devi (18 January 1902 - 4 October 1925) lived in  Mathura. She was reported to have died ten days after giving birth to a child. She started speaking  the dialect of  Mathura region. She also divulged the name of her then husband as Kedarnath Choubey. When her stories came to the principal of the school where Shanti Devi was studying, he  went to Mathura to get more information about Lugdi Devi.

The principal went to Mathura and had an extensive investigation. He could locate the merchant named Kedarnath Choubey who lost his wife Lugdi Devi ten days after giving birth to the child.  He confirmed to have happened these nine years before. The principal brought Kedarnath Choubey to Delhi pretending him as his brother. Immediately after seeing him  the young girl Shanti Devi recognised Kedarnath as her former husband. She also revealed few incidents of their life to him which he could instantly admit.

The commission set up by Mahatma Gandhi went to Mathura on 11 November 1935 took Shanti Devi also with them.  There she could recognise many of the family members of Kedarnath's home and the grand father of Lugdi Devi. She also amazingly revealed that many of the promises made be Kedarnath on her death bed did not honor by him in later life which he had confirmed. Shanti Devi then returned to Delhi and lived with her parents. The commission that probed the reincarnation issue published the report in 1936.

Shanti Devi did not marry. She gave many interviews in the 1950s and an extensive interview in 1987 to Ian Stevanson and K S Rawat and on 25 December 1987 she died.

K V George