Detailed, Obscure and Verified Information Unobtainable by Ordinary Sensory Channels and Not Involving ESP:
Evidence for Reincarnation

Madhavendra Puri das

June 2005

"I won't pick it up. I am a Sharma."
With these words, young Gopal Gupta angrily broke the dinner glasses his parents had asked him to remove from the table. Gopal was outraged that he, as a member of the wealthy, upper-class Sharma family, should be engaged in the menial task of clearing off a dining table. Of course, Gopal's parents had no idea that they were engaging a Sharma in clearing the table; they simply thought of Gopal as their two-and-a-half-year-old son.

Thus unfolded one of the numerous cases reported by Professor Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia. Stevenson has published a series of books (Stevenson, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1980, 1983, 1987, 1997) in which he describes his extensive research work during the last thirty years. Stevenson reports cases in which a child gives specific details about a person he claims to have been in his previous life and Stevenson has done careful research in an attempt to verify these details. The information in these cases is not obtained by hypnosis; the children spontaneously describe their experiences. In addition to the books cited above, please also see the following websites:

http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/personalitystudies/case_types.cfm#CORT

http://www.childpastlives.org/

The case of Gopal Gupta is typical. He was born in Delhi, India on 26 August 1956, the son of S.P. Gupta and his wife Omvati Gupta. The incident mentioned above occurred when Gopal was approximately two and a half years old. Gopal startled everyone by this outburst of anger and his unprecedented claim to be a member of a strange family. During the next few years, Gopal provided various details of what he claimed was his previous life as a man named Shaktipal Sharma who had lived in another city called Mathura, which is 160 kilometers away from Delhi where Gopal and his parents were living at the time (Shaktipal Sharma died in 1948). These details included the following information (Stevenson, 1975, p.82-95): He and his two brothers had owned a company called Sukh Shancharak that sold medicines. The company maintained a showroom. He owned a large house and had many servants to take away dishes and eating utensils. The Sharmas owned a number of large houses including one with a garden outside the town. He owned a car (it was very unusual to own a car in India in the 1930s). He went to college in a car. His employees were happy because he gave them wine. His younger brother married a woman from Assam. One day there had been shooting between the brothers.

According to Stevenson (1975, p.74-75), during the time Gopal was revealing this knowledge (from 1959 to 1964), neither Gopal nor his parents had ever been in Mathura. S.P. Gupta did not set foot in Mathura until 1964, and Gopal and his mother did not go there until March 1965. In his interview with Stevenson, Gopal's father said that his family had no contact with the Sharma family prior to the development of the case. Similarly, the Sharmas told Stevenson that there had been no contact between their family and the Gupta family before the case.

As a general operating rule in his investigation of these cases, Stevenson interviews a number of knowledgeable persons in an attempt to establish that the information reported by the child was not acquired through normal means of communication. He is especially alert for any evidence of contact between the two families before the development of the case.

In the case of Gopal Gupta, Stevenson interviewed the following persons in Delhi:

1. Gopal Gupta

2. Gopal's father (S. P. Gupta)

3. Gopal's mother (Omvati Gupta)

4. Jwala Prasad (a building contractor who was a friend of S. P. Gupta)

5. B. B. Das (a friend of S. P. Gupta)

6. Chandra Kumari Devi Shastri (one of Shaktipal Sharma's older sisters)

7. M. D. Shastri (Chandra Kumari Devi's husband)

8. Chandra Kanta Devi Sharma (another of Shaktipal Sharma's older sisters)

9. R. S. Sharma (Chandra Kanta Devi's husband)

10. Chaman Lal Kapoor (a friend of K. B. Pathak)

11. R. C. Chaturvedi (a friend of Chaman Lal Kapoor)

12. Prabha Chaturvedi (R. C. Chaturvedi's wife)

In Mathura, Stevenson interviewed:

1. Vishwapal Sharma (Shaktipal Sharma's older brother)

2. Satyawati Sharma (Vishwapal Sharma's wife)

3. Kirtipal Sharma (Shaktipal Sharma's oldest son)

4. Subhadra Devi Sharma (Shaktipal Sharma's widow)

5. Asha Sharma (Shaktipal Sharma's niece by marriage)

6. K. B. Pathak (sales manager of the Sukh Shancharak Company)

7. R. A. Haryana (a friend of Shaktipal Sharma)