The unbelievable story about the reincarnation of Swarnlata Mishra who was born thrice!
First birth – Born as Biya Pathak in Katni; died in 1939
Second birth – Born in 1940 as Kamlesh in Assam; died in 1947
Third birth – Born in 1948 as Swarnlata Mishra in Madhya Pradesh
While passing through a strange city on a road trip with her father, a three-year-old girl asks her driver to take a slight detour to get a nice cup of tea at ‘her house’! The girl was Swarnlata Mishra and her statement was the precursor to many such startling revelations about her previous life that was to follow in the days to come.
Swarnlata Mishra (also referred to as Swaranlata Mishra) was born on March 2, 1948, to a prosperous family in Madhya Pradesh, India. She claimed to have a past life in Katni, a small town in India. Her name was Biya Pathak and she had two sons. She lived in a white house having black doors that were fitted with iron bars, a few rooms were plastered while others were unfinished, and the floor in the front of the house was made up of stone slabs.
The girl starts to show recitative xenoglossy at the age of two!
About two years later, Swarnlata Mishra started to show recitative xenoglossy (a paranormal phenomenon in which a person can speak or write a language they could not have acquired by natural means). She began performing dances and singing in a foreign language that she had never learned. She continued talking about her memories as a member of the Pathak family in Katni during the next few years with her brothers and sisters and also her parents.
In July 1958, her family met Mrs. Agnihotri, a professor who was from Katni. When Swarnlata learned of this, she insisted to meet her and claimed to have known her in her past life.
In September 1958, when she was ten years old, her father began writing down her statements thereby documenting the record of her memories before contact with her family in the past life.
Professor H.N. Banerjee starts an investigation into the girl’s claims
In March 1959, Mr. H. N. Banerjee, who was a Professor of Parapsychology at the University of Rajasthan, heard about the girl and decided to investigate the case by visiting Chhatarpur, where the Mishra family then lived. Mr. Banerjee studied the notes that her father had made and also created an additional record of Swarnlata’s memories before establishing contact between the families.
Mr. Banerjee then traveled to Katni to trace her family of the past birth and also to verify if Swarnlata’s claims were authentic.
Prof Banerjee is able to trace Mishra’s past life home
Based solely on the description that Swarnlata had given, Mr. Banerjee was able to find the house even though the house had undergone a lot of changes since 1939 when Biya had died. The house belonged to the Pathak family. A daughter of the family named Biya had died in 1939 at the age of forty.
Banerjee interviewed the Pathak family and verified everything Swarnlata had said. Biya Pathak had died in 1939 leaving behind a husband, two young sons, and younger brothers.
The Mishra and Pathak families had never met before. The families had always lived in localities that were more than a hundred miles apart and had distinct languages and dialects. The Mishra family also stressed that their first interaction with anyone who knew Swarnlata’s prior life was with Mrs. Agnihotri, long after the girl had made numerous assertions.
Banerjee could establish that the facts of her past life resembled Swarnlata’s statements.
Biya’s family travels to Chhatarpur to meet Swarnlata
In the summer of 1959, to test Swarnlata’s memory, Biya’s husband, son, and eldest brother traveled to Chhatarpur, the town where Swarnlata then lived. They did not disclose their identities or the purpose of the visit to anyone in the town but took nine other men to accompany them to the girl’s home.
Biya’s brother, Hari Prasad Pathak met her first concealing his identity. Swarnlata recognized him as her younger brother but named him incorrectly as ‘Hira Lal Pathak’. However, she correctly recalled his pet name, ‘Babu’ which was used by Biya.
The girl meets her previous life husband and son!
On seeing Chintamini Pandey (Biya’s husband), she said she knew him from Katni, and behaved like a shy wife in presence of her husband. She could also recognize him among a group of men in a forty-year-old photograph.
Murli (Biya’s son) maintained to Swarnlata for a long time that he was not her son Murli but someone else. He also tried to pass off someone else as Biya’s other son, Naresh. However, Swarnlata was adamant that she was right in recognizing him.
Swarnlata recognizes her previous life family members
When Swarnlata visited Katni, Maihar, and Tilori, she correctly recognized three other brothers of Biya, as well as two sisters-in-law, a family servant, and a betel-nut seller, whom she had noticed in the crowd.
Swarnlata also remembered a tree that had been cut down and a parapet on the house that had now been removed.
She was shown two hats and asked to choose the one which her father wore. She correctly answered that her father never wore a hat but only adorned a turban.
She also correctly identified Biya’s room in the house at Maihar.
While visiting Tilora, she could also identify the room where Biya Pathak had died.
However, Swarnlata could not correctly answer the cause of Biya’s death. She said the cause of her death was a throat disease. In reality, she had been successfully treated for throat disease but died a few months later due to heart disease.
The legendary Dr. Ian Stevenson gets involved in the investigation
In 1961, a noted Virginia University Professor Dr. Ian Stevenson investigated the case. Known to treat reincarnation as a scientific concept, Dr. Stevenson interviewed Swarnlata, her father, and her uncle in Chhatarpur. He then interviewed Biya’s three brothers, three sisters-in-law, son, and nephew in Katni and surrounding areas.
In 1963, Dr. Ian Stevenson arranged a third investigation by his research assistant, P Pal. He also obtained notes by Banerjee in addition to correspondence with others familiar with the case including Mrs. Agnihotri.
Dr. Stevenson found the case of Swarnlata Mishra “authentically correct” and also published the case in his classic book featuring reincarnation case studies and examples – Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation.
Another Past Life of Swarnlata Mishra
Interestingly, Swarnlata also spoke about another past life – between the death of Biya and her birth as Swarnlata Mishra. She claimed that her name had been Kamlesh and she lived in Sylhet, a city now in Bangladesh. She had died at the age of nine and was reborn as Swarnlata. Some of her statements regarding the Sylhet area were found to be accurate, but her claims could not be verified due to insubstantial information and difficulties in traveling to Bangladesh.
The Pathak family accepted her as their Biya reborn and had a mutually loving relationship with her. Swarnlata kept in touch with the Pathak family and visited them often.
After witnessing conclusive proof given by Swarnlata, The Mishra family also accepted the truth of her reincarnation as Biya Pathak. At the time of her marriage, they even consulted the Pathak family about the choice of a husband for her.
Swarnlata Mishra often reminisces about her past life and wishes she could return to the wealthy life of Biya. But she also accepts the reality of her current situation and has an unwavering loyalty toward the Mishra family.
When heard last, she was a botanist and living at Bhopal with her husband Mr. K.P. Tiwari, a senior bureaucrat in the Indian government.
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Reference: Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation by Dr. Ian Stevenson
