Reincarnation Story 1: The Case of Purnima Ekanayake
Psychology professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Iceland, Erlendur Haraldsson, researched the strange case of Purnima Ekanayake, a girl who claims to have been a manufacturer of incense who died in a traffic accident.
Purnima was nine when Professor Erlendur Haraldsson saw her for the first time in September 1996 at her home in Bakamuna, a small town in the district center of Polunnaruwa, Sri Lanka. She was still talking about her former life, which is unusual at that age because most children stop doing this around the age of five or six years. According to her parents, she has started talking about her past life when she was three years old. At the age of 4, after seeing a famous TV show that featured the Kelaniya Temple (Temple of pilgrimage for Buddhists in Sri Lanka and 145 km from Bakamuna), Purnima said she knew that temple. A few days later, the girl went with her parents to visit the city of Kelaniya Temple. Upon reaching the city, Purnima said: “I used to live on the other side of the river (Kelaniya River).”
Over time Purnima talks became more bizarre, she started talking about having another mother and another father, who worked in an incense factory. She also talked about a terrible accident with a Zoku (a kind of bus). Despite the strange “statements”, Purnima’s parents did not pay much attention, thinking it was just a smart girl and with great imagination.
At the age of 6 years, Purnima realized that her mother was sad about a car accident that had occurred near the house in which one person died. So she tried to comfort her mother saying:
“Don’t worry about that, I’ve come here after an accident.”
Her parents, surprised, concluded that her daughter seemed to have memories of another person, or more specifically, from a past life.
For three years, Erlendur Haraldsson investigated the claims of Purnima, the research methodology consisted of interviews with all witnesses involved, together and separately. According to the memories of the previous life of Purnima, she had been a man. He worked in a factory incense and knew the name of the brand: Ambiga. According to her, he was the best incense maker in the family. Also reported his death: “After the accident, I just closed my eyes and came here”, “I was hit by a bus” “A piece of iron was in my body,” she said.
A family acquaintance, Professor Sumanasiri, who lived near the area where Purnima claimed to have lived, decided to investigate and found the alleged previous family of the girl. The teacher knew:
* She lived across the river from Kelaniya Temple
* The company manufactured Ambiga incense and Gita Pichcha
* She sold incense on a bicycle
* She had a fatal accident with a larger vehicle
With this information, Sumanasiri began his research. He asked the locals if they knew any of incense factory in the area. There were three, all of them small family businesses. To the surprise of Sumanarisi, a company called Ambiga manufactured incense and Geta Pichcha. Posing as a buyer of incense, Sumanarisi began to ask some questions to the owner of the factory: La Wijisiri. At one point in the conversation, Wijisiri said his brother Jinadasa had died in an accident with a bus when bringing incense from a market riding a bicycle in September 1985, two years before the birth of Purnima.
When Sumanarisi returned, he reported his findings Purnima’s father. A week and a half later, the little girl, her parents and Sumanasiri made a surprise visit to the Wijisiri family. When the group arrived at the house of Wijisiri, who arrived a little later, Purnima met for the first time the two daughters of Wijisiri. When Wijisiri entered the house, the little girl looked up and said:
“This is my brother.”
Wijisiri did not like the visit, let alone having a conversation with Purnima, so he asked everyone to leave, but Purnima started talking about incense, how it was made and asked about the packages of incense made by the family.
“Have you changed the packages?” Said Purnima.
Wijisiri was silent. After the death of his brother Jinadasa, Wijisiri changed the color and design of the packages. Purnima also asked about his knee. Wijisiri had suffered an accident and had fractured his knee, it was Jinadasa was who took care of him.
“How is Somasiri and Padmasiri?” Said Purnima.
Somasiri and Padmasiri were Jinadasa’s best friends. Everyone gasped as the conversation became deeper, Wijisiri was convinced that something astonishing had happened: Purnima was the reincarnation of Jinadasa.
Purnima was born with prominent marks on her lower chest. When Purnima’s family met Jinadasa the girl talked about these marks, she said the wheels passed over her chest and her left side.
“This was the mark that I got when I was hit by the bus,” said Purnima Wijisiri. Wijisiri knew Jinadasa’s fatal injuries had occurred on the left side, just below the chest. Jinadasa was killed instantly, it was another brother, Chandradasa, who told the family after seeing the serious injuries on the left side of the chest, that the lower ribs seemed to want to get out.
Some of the most significant details of this case are, the two families were very remote and completely isolated from each other. Fourteen of seventeen matching statements were found and reviewed from events that happened in the life of Jinadasa, who died two years before the birth of Purnima. Birthmarks of Purnima matched the area of Jinadasa’s fatal injuries. The girl also had knowledge of the making of incense, something highly unusual for a little girl. In general, all these aspects: memories, birthmarks and self-knowledge, make the case of Purnima Ekanayake quite unusual. Let’s look into other reincarnation stories.
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