Michael Cremo - Human Devolution - A Vedic Alternative To Darwin's Theory

Ian Stevenson and coworker Pasricha Satwant have reported some interesting near death experiences from India (Satwant and Stevenson, 1986). Stevenson was a psychiatrist from the University of virginia Medical School, and Satwant was clinical psychologist with the national Institute of Mental Health and neurosciences at Bangalore, India. Satwant and Stevenson encountered the ndE stories as they were interviewing subjects in the course of their research into past life memories. All the sixteen subjects reporting ndEs were Hindus from northern India. The typical Indian ndE involved a subject being taken to the court of Yamaraja, the Hindu god of death, by messengers called Yamadutas, servants of Yamaraja. At the court of Yamaraja the subject encountered someone with a book or papers, corresponding to chitragupta, who keeps a record of everyone’s actions during life. This record is used to determine a person’s next birth. In the ndE cases reported by Satwant and Stevenson, it would happen that the subject had been taken by mistake and had to be sent back to life on earth.

Here are some typical cases. vasudeva Pandey, interviewed in 1975 and 1976, told of an experience that happened when he was about ten years old, around the year 1931. He had nearly died of a typhoid disease, the symptoms of death being so convincing that his body was taken for cremation. When signs of life were observed, he was taken to a hospital, where he remained unconscious for three days. In recollecting his ndE, he said he had been taken away by two persons, who eventually dragged him to Yamaraja, who said to his servants, “I had asked you to bring vasudev the gardener . . . You have brought vasudev the student.” The same two servants then brought vasudev back to the world of the living. When vasudev regained consciousness at the hospital he saw vasudev the gardener among a group of friends and family who had come to see him. He looked healthy, but he died that night (Satwant and Stevenson 1986, p. 166).

durga Jatav was fifty years old when he told his story in 1979. When he was about twenty years old, he was suffering from typhoid and at one point his family thought he was dead. He told his family that he had been taken away by ten persons. When he tried to escape, they cut his legs off at the knees. He arrived at a place where many people were sitting at tables. One of them said that Jatav’s name was not on the list of people to be taken, and that he should be sent back. Jatav asked how he could go back with no legs. His lower legs were again attached to his knees, and he was told not to bend his knees for some time. Satwant and Stevenson (1986, p. 167) reported: “durga’s sister and a neighbor noticed, a few days after he revived, that marks had appeared on his knees; there had previously been no such marks there. These folds, or deep fissures, in the skin on the front of durga’s knees were still visible in 1979 . . . One informant for this case (the headman of the village where durga lived) said that at the time of durga’s experience another person by the same name had died in Agra (about 30 km away).”

chajju Bania reported that during his ndE four black messengers took him to the court of Yamaraja, where he saw an old woman with a pen and several clerks. Yamaraja was sitting on a high chair. He had a white beard and was wearing yellow cloth. “We don’t need chajju Bania,” said one of the clerks. “We had asked for chajju Kumbar. Push him back and bring the other man.” chajju Bania did not want to go back. He asked Yamaraja for permission to stay, but was pushed down, at which point he regained consciousness. Satwant and Stevenson (1986, p. 167) reported: “chajju told us that he later learned that a person called chajju Kumhar had died at about the same time that he (chajju Bania) revived.”

The cultural heritage of such accounts goes back a long time. The Shrimad Bhagavatam , one of India’s ancient Sanskrit histories, tells the story of Ajamila (canto 6, chpts. 1–3). As a boy, he was a saintly brahmana, but once he happened to see a debauched man embracing a prostitute in a public place. The vision stayed in his mind. He gave up his religious principles, and he in turn began consorting with a prostitute, by whom he had many children. He supported his family by gambling and robbery. He lived in this degraded way until the very end of his life. At the time of death, the servants of Yamaraja came to fetch him. Seeing them, Ajamila cried out the name of his youngest child, narayana, who was standing nearby. The servants of Yamaraja nevertheless continued dragging Ajamila to the court of Yamaraja. Suddenly, some servants of vishnu appeared and stopped the servants of Yamaraja from taking Ajamila to Yamaraja’s court of judgement. The servants of vishnu told the servants of Yamaraja that they had made a mistake. It seems that by chanting his son’s name, narayana, which happened to be one of the names of vishnu, Ajamila had unwittingly become freed from the results of his sins. Ajamila, released by the servants of Yamaraja, returned to life, and gave up his sinful activities. Thus purified, he eventually died and was taken by the servants of vishnu to the spiritual world to reside there eternally with God.

In another case reported by Satwant and Stevenson, an elderly man, Mangal Singh, was lying on a cot. Two people came and took him away. They came to a gate, where a man said, “Why have you brought the wrong person?” Mangal Singh saw two pots of water, which were boiling although there was no fire visible. The man, saying “Mangal must go back,” pushed Mangal with his hand, which felt extremely hot. Mangal found himself awake, with a burning sensation in his left arm. Satwant and Stevenson (1986, p. 167) reported: “The area developed the appearance of a boil. Mangal showed it to a doctor, who applied some ointment. The area healed within 3 days but left a residual mark on the left arm, which we examined . . . Another person had died in the locality at or about the time he revived, but Mangal and his family made no inquiries about the suddenness of this person’s death and did not even learn his name.”

The Indian ndE reports differ from the Western ones. In most cases the Indian subjects did not report seeing their own physical body from a different perspective. In most cases, Western subjects did not report being taken away by messengers. Westerners who journey to other worlds might report seeing christ or angels instead of Yamaraja or his messengers. On the basis of these and other differences, skeptics might conclude that all ndE reports are culturally influenced mental productions, and do not reflect real events. To this suggestion Satwant and Stevenson (1986, p. 169) replied: “If we survive death and live in an afterdeath realm, we should expect to find variations in that world, just as we find them in the different parts of the familiar world of the living. A traveler to delhi encounters dark-skinned immigration officials, who in many respects behave differently from the lighter skinned immigration officials another traveler may meet when arriving in London or new York. Yet we do not say that the descriptions of the first traveler are ‘real’ and those of the second ‘unreal.’ In the same way, there may be different receptionists and different modes of reception in the ‘next world’ after death. They may differ for persons of different cultures.”

As of this writing, medical professionals continue to document ndEs of the kind reported by Sabom and Ring. In february 2001, a team from the University of Southampton, in the United Kingdom, published a favorable study on ndEs in cardiac arrest patients in the journal Resuscitation (Parnia et al. 2001). The team was headed by dr. Sam Parnia, a senior research fellow at the university. On february 16, 2001, the university published on its web site a report on the team’s work (d’Arcy