Girl recognises husband from ‘another life’ and speaks language none of her family know

When their daughter started talking about a previous life, Swarnlata Mishra’s parents thought it was just the fantasy babblings of a toddler.

It started when she was travelling through a city in northern India, almost 100 miles from where she lived.

The three-year-old girl asked the driver of the car to make a turn to “my house”.

Dismayed, the parents noted the strange comment but put it out of their mind.

But rather than being a random remark, the so-called returning recollections grew into something more sustained.

When she began speaking a language no-one else in her family had taught her and carrying out dances not associated with their region of India, her father decided to record these memories.

What developed was an incredible story that became known worldwide.

H. N. Banerjee, an expert from the University of Rajasthan, heard about her recollections and began to put together the pieces to try and figure out where these memories might have stemmed from.

Using nine statements Swarnlata, who was born in 1948, had made — including descriptions of her former house, what was nearby and the fact her past family had a car (which was rare for the time) — Banerjee tracked down a family who he thought matched.

He deduced that Swarnlata could be referring to Biya Pathak (her birthname), a 40-year-old woman who died nine years before his subject had been born.

The two families agreed to meet when Swarnlata was aged 11.

The Pathaks were sceptical, and did not want to help Swarnlata in any way to recognise them.

It was her reaction to meeting them that slowly convinced them there might be something in her story.

Travelling up to visit the Mishras, Biya’s brother Hari Prasad was first to enter, but did not introduce himself.

After getting his name slightly wrong, the child then called him “Babu” — a pet name his deceased sister had used.

Next was Biya’s widower, Chintamini Pandey, and son, Murli.

They decided to meet Swarnlata, accompanied by nine other men, some known to Biya and some not.

When she came to be introduced to Biya’s husband, she said she knew him from Katni — Biya’s former hometown.

She then assumed the bashful manner of Hindu wives in the presence of their husbands, including covering her head.

She also recognised him among a group of men in a four-decade old photograph.

Later, she was able to spot what were three brothers of Biya, putting them in their correct birth order, along with the woman’s sisters-in-law.

When in the following year she took a trip to the town of Maihar, where Biya had lived after Katni, Biya’s son arranged for his brother to be there to meet Swarnlata.

Murli looked to trick her by saying it was another man. But Swarnlata stood firm and insisted it was Naresh, Biya’s son.

Swarnlata told the family things about Biya’s life that even they had almost forgotten — like having gold fillings in her teeth — and recalled events only Biya and her husband would know.

She remembered that Biya’s husband took money from her cash box — something he confirmed.

There was a discrepancy in the amount taken, but only by 200 rupees (£2) difference.

While in Maihar, she recalled that one of Biya’s sisters had died before her, pointed out Biya’s old bedroom and, when travelling down a road, correctly told how the family would wash in the nearby river.

There were some aspects of Swarnlata’s memories that did not match up with reality.

In her recollections, she had got names wrong, including saying her name had been Kamlesh rather than Biya.

She later explained that Kamlesh had been her name in a life lived between being Biya and her current one.

Swarnlata also said Biya had died of a throat disease.

However, she had been successfully treated for the throat ailment but died a few months later of heart disease.

Yet, none of these details prevented the Pathak family from accepting that she was Biya reincarnated.

It was noted how her behaviour would change when she was with them.

Swarnlata’s father, according to online psychology journal Psi Encyclopedia, said she would act reserved with him and his wife, respecting them as her parents.

But when with Biya’s sons, she would be “informal in a motherly way”, as if playing the role of their mum again.

It was not just one past life that Swarnlata said she recalled.

She used to perform three Bengali songs and dances — something she believed stemmed from her time as a girl called Kamlesh.

She said Kamlesh had lived in Sylhet, a city that is now in Bangladesh, and that she had died aged nine before being reborn as Swarnlata.

Her memory, experts found, was recitative only. She could not converse in Bengali, nor translate the words to Hindi — she could only perform them.

Both her families in India — Pathak and Methi — accepted Swarnlata as their own.

It was why experts like Dr Ian Stevenson — who helped bring her case to international attention when featuring it in his 1966 book, Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation — felt that, unlike many children who talked about memories allegedly from another life, they did not totally fade as she got older.

She told researchers that it was only at age 25 that she stopped receiving new memories of Biya’s life.

Reincarnation researcher Dr Kirti Swaroop Rawat interviewed Swarnlata, who got married in 1973 and worked as a college lecturer, when she was in her 60s.

She told him she was still carrying out annual Hindu rituals with her “past-life” brothers, and was involved in their lives.

Dr Rawat, in an article published in 2019, wrote: “She informed me that she feels she belongs to the family of the past life when she is among them, while when she is with those of the present life, she thinks that the latter are her family.

“She is able to live a well-adjusted life at both places.”

Elderly when Dr Rawat spoke to her, Swarnlata performed a Bengali song that she claimed to have learned when living as Kamlesh.

After Dr Rawat’s visit, the International Centre for Reincarnation and Survival Researches said: “Swarnlata says her past life family still gives her the same honour as they did before.

“Now the family has expanded, grandchildren also give her the same respect as before.

“Swarnlata’s daughter-in-law was very much happy to meet us. Though she says it is very hard to believe in rebirths, she has to believe after listening to all regarding the rebirth case of her mother-in-law.”