Shanti Devi

Shanti Devi (11 December 1926 – 27 December 1987), also known as Lugdi Devi (18 January 1902 – 4 October 1925) in her alleged past life, was an Indian woman who claimed to remember her previous life and became the subject of reincarnation research. A commission set up by the Indian political leader Mahatma Gandhi supported her claim, while another report by researcher Bal Chand Nahata disputed it. Subsequently, several other researchers interviewed her, and published articles and books about her.

Reincarnation claim Shanti Devi was born in Delhi, India. As a young girl, she began to notice that she remembered details of a past life. According to these accounts, when she was about four years old, she told her parents that her real home was in Mathura where her husband lived, about 145 km from her home in Delhi.

Discouraged by her parents, she fled from home at the age of six, attempting to reach Mathura. Back home, she unequivocally stated in school that she was married and had died ten days after giving birth to a child. Interviewed by her teacher and headmaster, she used words from the Mathura dialect and divulged the name of her merchant husband, "Kedarnath Chaube". The headmaster managed to locate a merchant by the name of Kedar Nath in Mathura who had lost his wife, Lugdi Devi, seven years earlier, ten days after having given birth to a son. Kedar Nath travelled to Delhi, pretending to be his brother, but Shanti Devi immediately recognized him and Lugdi Devi's son. As she knew several details of Kedar Nath's life with his wife, he was soon convinced that Shanti Devi was indeed the reincarnation of Lugdi Devi.

Two further reports were written at the time. The report by Bal Chand Nahata was published as a Hindi booklet by the name Punarjanma Ki Paryalochana. In this, he stated that "Whatever material that has come before us, does not warrant us to conclude that Shanti Devi has former life recollections or that this case proves reincarnation".