Shanti Devi was born in a happy Delhi family in 1930s. However, she didn’t stay happy for long. When she was four years old, she started insisting that her mother and father were not her true parents. She claimed that her name was actually Ludgi and her true family lived in a completely different city. She claimed she had died giving birth to a child and gave very specific information on her husband and family life.
Shanti’s worried parents set out to find if there was any meaning behind their daughter’s outlandish claims, and what they found out was truly unnerving. A young woman named Ludgi Devi had indeed died in childbirth at the time and in the town Shanti had specified, and the family and relatives she had described very much existed. When she eventually met her “husband from previous life,” she recognized him instantly and acted like a mother towards his child.
The newspapers soon became interested and authorities as revered as Mahatma Gandhi were soon keenly watching Shanti’s case. It turned out she was not only able to remember her past lives, but she could also remember the time “in between lives”—that is, the afterlife. She claimed to have met Lord Krishna during these layovers between her lives. The Lord tasked her with spreading the story of her experiences, which is why she was able to remember.
Shanti Devi went on to be a scholar, teacher, and student of religion. For over sixty years, she embraced all major and quite a few minor religions’ teachings, trying to determine the universal truth behind them all, which was presumably the great mission she was given. Hundreds of researchers and scientists put her claims of reincarnation memories to the test, but no one was ever able to prove her a fake.