Pastmasters: The reincarnation story

Some days later, Chaube turned up with his third wife and his (or Shanti’s) son. Shanti stood aside like a coy wife, head bent. As a test somebody told her this was her jeth (husband’s elder brother). She cut him short, insisting this was her husband himself.

Then she requested her mother to cook the husband’s favourite dishes. She embraced the boy, bringing out her toys for him. Asked how she recognised him since he had been only nine days old when his mother died, Shanti said, ‘‘He is one of my soul, and my soul has identified him.’’

It was to probe this matter that Gandhiji’s 15-member group delegated three senior citizens to travel to Mathura with Shanti. No sooner had they detrained that, seeing an elderly man in the crowd, she touched his feet. Then she whispered, ‘‘He is my jeth.’’

She guided the tonga all the way to the house. When taken to her parents’ home, she ran to her mother’s lap and, on seeing her father, clung to his bosom and burst into tears. Pulling the girl away, the three investigators concluded it was a boon that memories of life were wiped out on death.

The Shanti case was widely reported in Indian and foreign journals, including The Illustrated Weekly. There were, of course, dissenting interpretations too.

Such stories are not unique to Hinduism. It is believed even Aurangzeb once summoned a boy with memories of an earlier birth. The boy shared birthmarks with the person he said he had been in his past life. The case of Katsugoro, a Japanese child, is similar. He narrated details of his earlier life and even located his earlier father’s grave.

The theory of transmigration and incarnation of the spirit has been described by Max Mueller as ‘‘metaphysical twaddle and scholastic hair-splitting’’. But how does this square up with the case of William Barnes, an American youth who had disturbing dreams of a sinking ship.

When five, Barnes drew a picture of a grand ship and told his parents, ‘‘‘I built this ship but it sank.’’ The ship resembled the famed Titanic.

Barnes said he hyad been Tommy Andrews, designer of the Titanic, in his previous bith. He underwent regression therapy to revive memories. Then he wrote a book, I Built the Titanic: Past Life Memories of a Master Ship Builder.

Life is full of mysteries, multiple lives more so.