The case of Jagdish Chandra
For participants in this forum and others, I wish to give an example of the type of case that for me is strongly suggestive of reincarnation. If anyone would like to discuss this type of cases, it may be better to start a new thread about the topic.
The summary of the case is taken from a manuscript Dr. Kirti Swaroop Rawat from Indore has written together with myself, entitled Reincarnation: How Strong is the Scientific Evidence? soon to be published by a Canadian publisher.
The Case of Jagdish Chandra
In 1927, a lawyer called K.K.N. Sahay of Bareilly (India) described seven cases of children who remembered their previous life in a monograph entitled Reincarnation: verified cases of rebirth after death. One of these children was his son Jagdish Chandra. K.K.N. Sahay's account on Jagdish starts on June 6th 1926, when he "had gone to my village Kama where a message was received from home informing me of the serious illness of my wife... My wife had very high fever which took many days to lower down. It was on the 6th that Jagdish asked me to get a motorcar. I replied that I shall get one soon. The baby grew impatient and asked me to get one soon. I asked him where to get it from. He said that I should get his car. I asked him where his car was. He replied that it was at the house of Babuaji. I again asked him and in reply he said that he lived at Benares (Varanasi), and was his father."
After a few weeks, when he had ascertained some of his son's statements, K.K.N. Sahay sent a letter to the Editor of a regional newspaper in English called the Leader of June 27th 1926, entitled "Strange story of former life Enquiry about Babuaji Pande of Benaras". In this letter he writes: "My son, Jagdish aged 3 years and a half, gives the story of his previous life in a very connected form. He gives his father's name as Babuaji Pande, place of residence Benares, describes the house of Babuaji in Benares and makes particular mention of a big gate, a sitting room, and an underground room with an iron safe fixed in one of the walls.He also describes the courtyard in which Babuaji sits in the evening. Describes that Babuaji and the people who collect there drink Bhang. Babuaji has Malish on his body and paints his face with powder or earth before bath on washing his face in the morning. He describes two Motor Cars and one phaeton with pair and says that Babuaji had two sons and one wife and all have died. Babuaji is all alone. He also described many private and family matters. I have no friends or relatives at Benares and my wife has never been there. I never heard before of Babuaji. The following important citizens of Bareilly have talked to the boy and have questioned him further.
1. Syed Yusuf Ali, B.A., LL.B., Vakil and Municipal commissioner. 2. B. Braham Narain, B.A., LL.B., Vakil and Municipal Commissioner. 3. B. Mukat Behari Lal, B.A., LL.B., Vakil. 4. Pandit Ram Sarup Sharma B.A., LL.B., Vakil. 5. Babu Chhail Behari Capoor, B.A., Vakil and Ex-member of the Legislative Council; 6. Babu Jal Narain Chaudhri, B.A., Vakil and Member Legislative Council U.P. and Secretary, Bar Association, Bareilly; 7. Rai Sahib Dr. Shiam Sarup Satyabrata L.M.S.
I invite all gentlemen who may feel interested to ascertain the truth of the story given by the boy in a scientific spirit."
K.K.N. Sahay received several inquiries regarding Jagdish Chandra's story. As a result he wrote another letter to the Editor of the Leader on June 30th 1926 saying that: "The boy began to tell his story on the 6th June and completed it by the 11th replying to the questions I put him. I then asked the members of the Bareilly bar and other friends to examine this phenomenon and to advise me if the case is worth further inquiry. Friends and members of the bar continued to come and talk to the boy and it was decided on the 16th that no man should be sent to Benares as it would afford a loophole for sceptics. They may argue that suggestions regarding the house and other details of Benares have been conveyed by the messenger to the boy. So a letter was sent to the Chairman, Municipal Board, Benares, and on receipt of his reply letters were sent to the press. I have also requested some of the Leaders of India to send their representatives so that the boy may be taken with them to Benares to point out on the spot the things mentioned by him. As the boy has told so many things to me which have been corroborated by letters received from gentlemen whom I do not know, I am convinced the boy will be able to point many things on the spot which will satisfy the inquirers."
He goes on to quote from two of the letters he had received. One of these is a letter by Munshi Mahadeva Prasad M.A., LL.B., Advocate, Chairman, Municipal Board, Benares, saying:
"On receipt of your letter I made the necessary inquiries and found that most of the things told by your boy are quite true. In fact they all correctly related except that Babuaji Pandey's son, Jai Gopal, died about 2 years and a half ago.The rest of the facts are all correct ..... about the phaeton,ekka, horse, malish, goondas, bhang and the rest. Babua Pande for that's the name of person referred to by your boy as Babuaji is well known to me, having been also my client for the last many years, and I could see on the mere first reading of your letter that he was the person meant by the boy. So I sent my man to Babua Pandey to make the necessary enquiries, when his men, learning of this, came and took away the letter from me. Now they may be going to Bareilly to enquire and corroborate the facts for themselves. Babua Pandey is otherwise known here as Pandit Mathura Prasad Pandey and lives at Pandey Ghat, Benares City."
The other letter K.K.N. Sahay quotes from had been received from Pandit Uma Kant Pande, Vakil, Benares who writes: "I saw your letter in the 'Leader' of today. Babua Pande is a friend of mine. I have seen this boy who is born in your family. The descriptions given by him are in the main correct.Pandeyji does not possess a car though he used one or two. I am informing him about the boy and we shall very soon go to see him at yours."
After the 'Leader' had published these letters by K.K.N. Sahay, he received for a full two months a number of visitors interested in the case who wanted to hear Jagdish talk about his previous life.
"The baby became quite tired of this and began to refuse to see people or to talk in their presence. I, therefore, wrote to Mr. V.N. Mehta, I.C.S., District Magistrate, Benares for his help before I could make up my mind to visit Benares with the boy. I was afraid of the crowd as it confounded the child very much. He very kindly promised his help. I started on the 13th August in the afternoon for Benares and reached there the next morning... B. Hanuman Prasad sub-judge, Dr. Ganesh Prasad, Mr Tandon, Income Tax officer, and several respectable people came to see us. Pt. Laxmi Kant Pande, Vakil, also came to see us. The baby recognised him at once. At first the baby said that he was Uma Kant. On his refusal he said that he was then Lakshmi Kant as both brothers were similar in features....The boy also mentioned the relationship which Pt. Laxmi Kant had with Babua Pande with some accuracy. In the evening Mr.V.N. Mehta the Collector reached Babua Pandey's house before us with constables and the city Kotwal. Babua's house is near the river and the road is about 2 furlongs away. One has to pass through a maze of lanes to reach this house.The boy pointed out the way through the labyrinth of lanes up to the house of Babua. On reaching there the number of crowd swelled to over a thousand. In the room of Babua himself the boy found 35 men seated on the floor close together. The boy got upset and refused to reply... Then the boy was taken to the other house where he pointed out the place where Bhang was prepared... The boy was taken inside the Zenana where he pointed out chachi and said that he had come to her house..."
The boy was also taken to Babua Pande and there he repeated the story, but Babua did not want to ask him any questions.
"The boy was taken to the Dasha-Ashwa medha Ghat which he recognised from a distance. He took his bath twice with great pleasure in the arms of a Panda whom he recognised at first sight. He was not at all upset with the sight of the swelled volume of the Ganges in August which flowed so violently making terrific noise. The volume of the Ganges did not strike him and he behaved as one who was very familiar with the site. The Panda offered him a betel which Jagdish refused saying that he being a bigger Panda could not accept from him who was a smaller Panda. The boy also recognised the Vishwanath's temple, the Harish Chandra Ghat and the Dufferin Bridge. He had mentioned this bridge in reply to Mr J. Nott-Bower, the District Superintendent of Police Bareilly, before we left for Benares. I took him to the Benares Hindu University which he called Vishwa Vidyalay and said it was under construction in his time. Pt. Lakshmi Kant Pande, B.A., LL.B., Vakil, Benares, introduced himself by correspondence as an old neighbour of Babua possessing intimate knowledge of facts regarding him. Before leaving for Benares, the following facts were written to him and verified by him as correct.
1. That Babuaji's wife was called Chachi.
2. That Chachi cooked food for the family although the Pandeji had means sufficient to engage a cook.
3. That she, although an elderly female, observed purdah in her house and had a long drawn Ghungat. Jagdish said that Chachi drew the Ghungat or veil when goondas came inside the house.
4. The Chachi wore gold ornaments in her wrist and ears.
5. That Chachi had marks of small pox on her face was verified by Bechu.
6. That Babuaji liked Rabri.
7. That Babuaji took poison every day (opium).
8. That Babuaji wore gold rings in his fingers.
9. That Babuaji's son Jai Mangal had died of poisoning and there was a suspicion of such a cause at the time of death.
Babuaji's wife sent a man named Bechu in August to Bareilly with an invitation asking me to come to Benares to show the child to her. Several letters from Babuaji were also received before to this effect. This Bechu had a talk with Jagdish and admitted the following facts:
1. That Babuaji smeared his face with ashes after washing his face everyday.
2. That the Iron safe was fixed in the wall to the left.
3. That Bhagwatia prostitute was called in for dancing and singing on occasions of different ceremonies in the family. He also certified that Bhagwatia had a sworthy colour and loud voice as Jagdish described her."
In a footnote K.K.N. Sahay adds that Jagdish had a birthmark on each of his ears: "The mark is in the upper part of the ear and looks as if a hole has been closed. People say that in Benares it is customary to wear ear rings in the upper part of the ear." However, Dr. Ian Stevenson who also studied case later on, could find no trace of these marks in 1961 or 1964. Also, Jai Gopal's mother nor his sister Kamla Pandey could tell him whether he had worn earrings or not.
The investigation with regard to Jagdish Chandra does not end there. In 1939 S.C. Bose visited K.K.N. Sahay and talked to him and his son about the case. Bose subsequently published a report which contains little more than what was included in Sahay's report. As an adult Jagdish wrote himself (in 1960) an autobiographical account which is important for its description of the feelings and in particular his strong attraction to the family of the previous life.
Ian Stevenson first learned about the case in 1959 and started studying it in 1961 when he had interviews with Jagdish and his two older brothers. Also in 1961 he visited a younger sister of Jai Gopal. In 1964 he again interviewed Jagdish and his older brother. In 1973 he had an interview with Babu Pandey's oldest daughter.The main contribution from Ian Stevenson to this case has been that of adding some details and verifications to it. He also paid attention to the correspondences in behavior between Jagdish and Jai Gopal to the evolution of the emotional components in Jagdish's memories. One of the observations that Stevenson made was that when K.K.N. Sahay said in his report that he had "no friends or relatives at Benares, this was untrue unless he meant close relatives, since a cousin and her husband lived in Nuddesar, in Benares (a section 4 kilometers from Babu Pandey's home,which was by the ghats at the river).... Also, Babu Pandey was a Brahmin and K.K.N. Sahay belonged to the Kayastha caste which formed more of a barrier to social relations than would be the case nowadays. Then, K.K.N. Sahay had stated the following about the relationship between Jai Gopal and Babu Pandey:
"Pandit Laxmi Kant Pandey's view is that this boy was the grandson of Babu, the son of his daughter who lived at his house and died, leaving this boy to Babu to bring up. I also think that this explanation is quite in keeping with the account given by Jagdish Chandra except that he calls his grandfather his "father". It may be that, as his mother left her child to her father to bring up, the child did not know any other father except Babu Pandey".
However, Dr Ian Stevenson thinks that Babu Pandey was indeed Jai Gopal's father. About Babu pandey he writes:
"A more important obstacle to Babu Pandey's cooperation were the "disparaging facts" given out by Jagdish Chandra, which K.K.N. Sahay alluded to but did not specify in his report. Babu Pandey was upset by the interest taken in the case by the district magistrate. This is not at all surprising. Jagdish Chandra later told me what one of the "disparaging facts" was -namely, that Babu Pandey had killed a pilgrim for his money and that the body had been put down a well which had then been covered over."
Stevenson has not independently verified this statement but if it was correct, it could have been incriminating for Babu Pandey. He explains that wells are often covered over in India when another, better source of water becomes available. So that a covered well by itself attracts no attention. But such a well could easily be opened up to see whether it contained a corpse so that Babu Pandey found himself in a most delicate situation.Therefore if Babu Pandey endorsed Jagdish Chandra, he ran the risk that the boy would reveal the "disparaging facts". On the other hand, if Babu Pandey refused to accept the evidence of the boy's accuracy on many details, he could have aroused suspicions that might have led to further inquiries by the police and district magistrate. Therefore, according to Stevenson, he chose the somewhat risky third alternative of remaining silent. For Stevenson the uncooperative attitude of Babu Pandey explains at least part of the very few seemingly incorrect details stated by Jagdish Chandra:
"Babu Pandey was the real father of Jai Gopal, and not the grandfather, as was given out in Benares and accepted by K.K.N. Sahay. Both Kamla Pandey and Minto Pandey Tiwari, Jai Gopal's sisters, told me he was Jai Gopal's father."
The longing for the car that first triggered the expression of Jagdish Chandra's memories persisted into adulthood and was still strong in 1969.
In his own autobiographical report of 1960 Jagdish Chandra wrote that as a child he would sometimes roll on the floor dressed in a loin cloth, asserting to his family that this was a sort of loosening up before wrestling. This playing at wrestling would have related to the wrestling that went on at the home of Babu Pandey, who had an akhara (wrestling arena) specially constructed in front of the house.
After Babu Pandey's death, Jagdish told Stevenson, he had been welcomed affectionately by the two women of the household and he continued to visit the family every four years or so.
All in all, Jagdish Chandra made 51 statements concerning his previous life. Of these, 12 were recorded in writing before any verification was attempted. Then, 24 were recorded in writing and verified before the two families met. The other 15 statements were made after that. Jagdish recalled among other things his own name, the name of his father, the place where he lived, the location of his home near the river Ganges, some details about the house, the occupation of his father, his father's habits and possessions, and the goondas ("bouncers") his father had employed. He also gave details about his "Chachi". Literally, this means "aunt", but Stevenson thinks that in the typical extended families of India a child may hear his older cousins calling his (the child's) mother Chachi and develops the habit of calling her Chachi too.
There were only a few statements that could not be verified. For example, Jagdish stated that his brother Jai Mangal had died of poisoning, whereas there was only a suspicion that Jai Mangal died of accidental poisoning. Then, he claimed that he had a car, but Babu Pandey actually used cars borrowed from friends to drive Jai Gopal around almost whenever he wished. Also, Jagdish stated that he died of enteritis or cholera, whereas the correct diagnosis had been uncertain.
Jagdish Chandra told Stevenson in 1961 that when he first visited Benares in 1926 the site of the burial ghats, where bodies are cremated, stimulated in him memories of the funeral of Jai Gopal.
"He then recalled seeing the body of Jai Gopal taken out for the funeral and mourners chanting around it. In his memories he could not make out what they were saying. He did not recall the cremation or any other details of the interval between the death of Jai Gopal and his own birth."
Ian Stevenson made a list of 14 behavioral traits of Jagdish Chandra related to the previous life:
1. Insistence on eating before other members of the family.
2. Refusal to eat with non-Hindus or to allow non-Hindus to touch his food.
3. Dislike for bearded persons (Moslems).
4. Fondness for sweets, especially rabri.
5. Reluctance to eat salty foods.
6. Refusal to eat garlic and onions.
7. Refusal to eat meat.
8. Refusal to eat eggs.
9. Liking for bhang.
10. Preference for wearing a loin cloth.
11. Rolling on floor preliminary to wrestling.
12. Interest in cars.
13. Interest in swimming.
14. Interest in previous family.
About these traits, Stevenson comments that even if we could explain the informational aspects of the case by normal means, we would still need another hypothesis to explain its behavioural features.
All in all, Stevenson comments on the evidence provided by this case that a fraud hypothesis is out of the question because K.K.N. Sahay published details of it in a newspaper before verification. Also, he firmly excludes the possibility of the mingling of memories of the two families which would have contaminated the child's original statements:
"The principal items of the statements made by Jagdish Chandra concerning the previous life were written down before verification was begun, and most of them were in fact verified before the two families had met. The great physical distance between the families, their separation through membership in different castes, and the close surveillance of Jagdish Chandra when he was a child makes it virtually impossible that he could have picked up all the detailed information he showed about Babu Pandey and his family without someone being aware of the person who was passing such information."
(Summary given by Dr. K.S. Rawat and Titus Rivas).
Titus
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