Irodirionyerku’s pregnancy was normal, except that Cordelia remained within the womb slightly longer than normal and the labor was also longer than normal. Irodirionyerku was in good health, and did not take alcohol or drugs. Her previous three children were normal, and a subsequent child was also normal. But she and her husband said that no members of their families had birth defects (Stevenson 1997, p. 1638). Several tribes in West Africa mark the bodies of dead infants by mutilation so that they might recognize the person if the person reincarnates into the same family as a “repeater child” (Stevenson 1997, p. 1626).
Sunita Khandelwal was born on September 19, 1969, in the small town of Laxmangarh, near the city of Alwar, in the eastern part of the province of Rajasthan in India. She was the sixth child of Radhey Shyam Khandelwal, a grain dealer, and his wife, Santara Bai. At birth, Sunita had on the right side of her head a large birthmark.
When she was two years old, Sunita began to speak of a previous life. The first thing she said was, “Take me to Kota.” Kota is a city in the southeast part of Rajasthan, about 360 kilometers from Laxmangarh. When Sunita’s family inquired about what was in Kota, she said, “I had two brothers. I was the only daughter. I have a mummy and pappa. We have a silver shop and a safe. We have a car and a scooter. My mother has many saris.” In some of her statements she was less clear about the nature of the shop, simply stating there were silver coins in the shop. She also revealed that she had a paternal uncle older than her father. Pointing to the birthmark on her head, she said, “Look here, I have fallen” (Stevenson 1997, p. 468).
When she was three years old, Sunita asked to be taken to Kota, refusing to eat until her wish was carried out. Her parents thought to take her to the nearby city of Jaipur, telling her it was Kota. But Sunita said, “This is not Kota. This is Jaipur. You are telling lies and will be punished” (Stevenson 1997, p. 468).
Thereafter, Sunita gave further revelations about her life in Kota. She said her father was of the Bania, or merchant, caste, and that his shop was in the Chauth Mata Bazaar. The family house was in the Brijrajpura quarter. Revealing more of the circumstances of her death, she said, “I was a girl and died at the age of eight,” and, “My cousin pushed me down the stairs because I had asked for water” (Stevenson 1997, p. 469).
In 1974, H. N. Banerjee, a reincarnation researcher in Jaipur, learned of Sunita’s case through a friend of the Khandelwal family. Although initially reluctant, the Khandelwals agreed to let Banerjee take them and their daughter to Kota. Their first stop in Kota was the shop of a photographer, Pratap Singh Chordia, who knew many of the residents. From the information supplied to him, Chordia suggested Sunita’s father in her previous life may have been Prabhu Dayal Maheshwari. Sunita had once mentioned the name “Prabhu” in connection with her father. Also, Prabhu Dayal’s shop was a jewelry shop (with silver jewelry), and the shop was in the Chauth Mata Bazaar. Chordia did not know, however, that Prabhu Dayal had a daughter who died from a fall.
Taking Chordia’s advice, the party went to the Chauth Mata Bazaar to search for Prabhu Dayal’s shop. Stevenson (1997, p. 470) says, “Sunita, according to her mother, recognized a shop with a man in it who was writing. Sunita said that he was her father. This man was Prabhu Dayal Maheswari, and he was sitting in his own jewelry shop. The matter was explained to him. . . . Prabhu Dayal then invited Sunita to come to his home. Sunita led the way and found Prabhu Dayal’s house. She then made a number of other recognitions and some further statements about the life she was remembering. Prabhu Dayal and his wife had lost their only daughter in April 1968. This child, Shakuntala, had fallen over the low railing of a balcony and landed head first on a cement floor below. She died a few hours later. With a few exceptions everything Sunita had said in Laxmangarh was correct for the life and death of Shakuntala in Kota.” Stevenson (1997, p. 487) listed some of the correct items: “She was the only daughter; she died at the age of 8; her parents were both living; a paternal grandmother had died, but a paternal grandfather was living; she had no uncle younger than her father, but one older than he; she had two brothers and a girl cousin.” Stevenson also detailed other statements and behaviors of Sunita, of a more personal nature, such as food preferences and nicknames for relatives, that matched those of Shakuntala.
The members of the families of Sunita and Shakuntala had never met, with one exception. Sunita’s maternal uncle, a jeweler who lived in Delhi, had occasionally met Prabhu Dayal in Kota, but their meetings were strictly commercial, not social. He had never visited Prabhu Dayal’s home, and knew nothing about the death of Prabhu Dayal’s daughter (Stevenson 1997, pp. 473–474). So it was unlikely that Sunita could have learned of details of Shakuntala’s life and death from her own family members.
Stevenson visited Kota and verified the following details about the death of Shakuntala. On April 27, 1968, during the late afternoon, Shakuntala was on the balcony of the inner courtyard of her house, playing with her younger cousin. The balcony had a low railing. Her mother, Krishna Devi, heard her fall down from the balcony to the concrete floor, a distance of about five meters. Krishna Devi found her daughter unconscious and bleeding from one ear. She called her husband, who quickly returned home from his shop. Stevenson (1997, p. 474) stated, “Prabhu Dayal said that when he had come home he had noticed that Shakuntala had injured the top of her head and that there was some slight bleeding from a wound there.” He then took his daughter to the M. B .S. Hospital in Kota. The medical records show that Shakuntala was admitted and that she died nine hours later from “head injury” (Stevenson 1997, p. 475).
When Sunita was born she had a large birthmark on the top of her head. It bled for three days. Stevenson (1997, p. 487) described the birthmark as it appeared when photographed in 1979: “The mark was approximately round in shape with irregular edges and about 2.5 centimeters in diameter. It was . . . hairless . . . slightly raised and slightly puckered.” A relative said no other member of the family had a birthmark like this.
Recollecting what happened during the time between her fatal accident and her rebirth, Sunita said, “I went up. There was a baba (holy man) with a long beard. They checked my record and said: ‘Send her back.’ There are some rooms there. I have seen God’s house. It is very nice. You do not know everything that is there” (Stevenson 1997, p. 484).
Here are some brief accounts of other cases documented by Stevenson. A woman in Thailand was born with three linear scars in the middle of her back. When she was a child, this woman remembered a previous life as a woman who was killed by three strokes of an axe on her back (Stevenson 1993, p. 410). A Burmese woman was born with two round birthmarks on her chest. The marks overlapped, and one was larger than the other. When she was a child, she recalled dying in a previous life after being shot accidentally with a shotgun. According to a witness who knew the dead woman, the shotgun that killed her had been loaded with two kinds of shot (Stevenson, 1993, pp. 410–411). A female Burmese child was born with a long, vertical birthmark near the middle of her lower chest and upper abdomen. She recalled having previously existed as one of her aunts. This aunt had died during heart surgery. Stevenson (1993, p. 411) obtained the aunt’s medical records and found that the incision for theheart surgery matched the birthmark. “Two Burmese subjects,” said Stevenson (1993, p. 411), “remembered as children the lives of persons who had died after being bitten by venomous snakes, and the birthmark of each corresponded to therapeutic incisions made at the sites of the snakebites on the persons whose lives they remembered.” A Turkish boy was born with a malformed right ear, and the right side of his face was underdeveloped. The boy remembered a previous life as a man who died after someone shot him in the head with a shotgun. Stevenson (1993, p. 411), having verified the existence of this man, examined his medical records and found that he died in the hospital six days after a shotgun wound to the right side of the skull.