A Brief History of
Stevenson’s Case Studies
in West Bengal, India
Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia visited West Bengal in India for the first time in 1961 and eventually published 2 Case Studies in his Books.
The first one was the case of Sukla Gupta in his very first Book on the Reincarnation topic “Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation” (first released in 1966) and the next one the case of Dolon Champa Mitra in his voluminous book ‘Cases of the Reincarnation Type, Volume 1: Ten Cases in India’ (1975).
SUKLA GUPTA
Sukla Gupta was born on 1957 at Kampa, then a village in the outskirt of my hometown Kalyani, and the Extra Identity (EI) named Mana lived at another village named Bhatpara in West Bengal, this one being in a deep outskirt of my hometown. The EI too was a female and died due to illness in her married life.
EI had a daughter named Minu whom Mana in her seeming-next-life started calling the name of while herself aged 2. At the bed, she repeatedly addressed a side-pillow by calling the exact name “Minu”. This is how the Onset occurred. Eventually Sukla told details about a previous life that she claimed to have lived. And news eventually flowed to Stevenson in the distant USA.
And Steveson was quite swift in his arrival at West Bengal as he turned this Account into a Case (i.e. started scientifically investigating it) when the ‘late’ Mana was seemingly just 4 years into her next Birth, in 1961, the very year when Ian came for the first time in India also.
Ian Stevenson even stayed in the ‘late’ Mana’s village for two successive days, in order to carry out rigorous exploration on the EI’s family side. A local Bengali man named some Professor Pal helped Stevenson significantly by working as a Translator between Bengali language and English as well as participating in the local investigation itself like an Assistant of Stevenson. Stevenson visited Kampa also and saw Sukla Gupta right from her 4-year age and also of course explored the Subject’s family side. It became a “Solved” case.
However, Sukla’s such memory faded as she grew up to 13 years age. Stevenson followed up the Case, observing the fading of the PLM too. As he writes something like, in a later edition (1974) of his debut book on Reincarnation:
By the 1970, Sukla Gupta’s memory had faded finally totally.
A saint/monk/maharaj of ISKCON (International Society for Krishna CONsciousness) after tracking this Case Study in Stevenson’s research, wrote online even in an Article, something like:
Memory is a mysterious thing. And it is under Krishna’s will whether the Memory will vanish or whether will it linger.
Maharaj did not however give any explanation to: why Sukla Gupta’s memory vanished totally by 1970, leaving Stevenson only 9 years span to study the case.
He left the responsibility of explanation, as though to, directly Lord Krishna!
On the other hand, Stevenson attempted the explanation meticulously in the 1974 Edition of his famous book “Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation”. Although as far as I remember, Ian was using hedging in his language such as ‘perhaps’, ‘maybe’ and ‘possibly’ in a point-wise explanation as to why the Memory vanished.
DOLON CHAMPA MITRA
Dolon Champa Mitra was born as a girl on 1967 in a Spiritual organization’s School campus Staff quarter. This organization was named Ramakrishna Mission (RKM). And the School campus was situated at Narendrapur in the deep southern outskirt of the then Calcutta city.
In a Staff quarter of this campus, this girl also had onset from the childhood but her memory was not as sharp as Sukla Gupta as far as necessary data for solving the Case straightforwardly is concerned. Dolon could not recall her Extra Identity’s name, whom Stevenson called the Previous Personality. To tell further, based on her desire to go to Bardhaman city to meet the EI’s family an initial attempt failed (in far north of Narendrapur and Calcutta, into what you might call almost Mid-West-Bengal). She could not identify the EI’s house right away. Eventually she was able to meet such a family.
Stevenson went to Bardhaman city (also known as Vardhaman city, in the honor of the name of Lord Mahavir the 24th Jain Tirthankar, whose another name was Vardhaman and who spent some time in a then village here) and as far as possible interviewed this family. Dolon recognized one family member after another in the EI’s house. The details she gave about the EI beforehand, matched significantly with the information obtained from the Vardhaman city.
It became a “Solved” case.
The EI was suffering from a Neurological disease in his very youth. His father finally admitted him to the Tropical School of Medicine hospital in West Bengal’s capital city then Calcutta, after the local doctor(s) in Bhardhaman city failed. Dolon developed a habit of looking at the ceiling of a room with a typical bending of her head. She said that, in the previous life, she used to look up the hospital room’s ceiling from the bed (maybe because of some head pain) while in this terminal illness. In this life though, she had not had any pain in the head. Yet she would look up the ceiling in a peculiar manner habitually.
The EI’s mother however avoided the Case Study even from the very first day the two families met, perhaps because she could not accept the seeming fact that her deceased son had returned to her as a girl child. If this was really the cause of eventually the entire EI family’s non-coperation (the father of EI seemed to follow the suit, he did not effectively participate in the investigation too), then it not only points to a gender bias in the society but also is not supportive for the progress of scientific research.
Stevenson then focussed primarily on the Subject’s family. But even there, obstacles arose.
The hitherto co-operative parents of Dolon Champa were suddenly being influenced by a local doctor at Narendrapur and a Maharaj/monk of the Ramakrishna Mission. The doctor told something like:
The PLM would be unhealthy if it lingers. Let her forget. So prevent the Scientific Investigation.
And the Maharaj told similar thing too:
The PLM would interfere with the present life. She needs to ‘live fully in the moment’.
When Stevenson contacted the parents afterward, they practically withdrew their co-operation from the research. And Stevenson could not know whether the Memory would linger or fade away. Ian Stevenson wrote in the book ‘Cases of the Reincarnation Type, Volume 1: Ten Cases in India’ toward the end of the Chapter on Dolon Champa Mitra, something like:
I could last follow-up Dolon Champa in 1973. By that time, her memory had not faded to any extent. And I do not know now if the memory still lingers or not.
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1. Home | 2. Background | 3. Memocariate | 4. Types of Memocariate | 5. My Terminology | 6. Newspaper Report (2005) | 7. Solved vs Unsolved cases | 8. My Podcast | 9. A Brief History of Stevenson’s CORTs in West Bengal India | 10. A Private Outline of My CORTs in West Bengal India | 11. Parental Guidance . . . | 12. My Symbolism | 13. PSH Therapy