Christianity - A Journey from Facts to Fiction — Page 109
Revival or Resurrection? 109 "Ramendra Narayan Roy, the Kumar of the Bhowal Estate with headquarters of the Court of Wards at Joydevpur, was alleged to have been poisoned and subsequently declared dead and placed for cremation at the burning ghat in May, 1909. Circumstances suggested that his wife was a principal player in the attempted murder. A heavy thunder burst, before the completion of the cremation, caused the party responsible for burning the dead body to hurriedly return, leaving the dead-body. The rain caused the fire to extinguish. A group of sadhus (Hindu hermits) who were passing by noticed that the man was alive. He was thus rescued. Next day when it was discovered by the conspirators that the body had disappeared, they had another body cremated to make Kumar’s death look like a fact. The sadhus, who had saved him, then took him from place to place. The near death experience had caused Kumar to lose his memory but he regained it gradually and visited Joydevpur twelve years later. The familiar surroundings of his home town caused him to regain his memory entirely. When Kumar filed a civil suit to recover the estate from the Court of Wards as the genuine heir and owner of Bhowal Estate, his wife and some others contested it. A court case was then bitterly fought between the two parties. More than one thousand people gave evidence in favour of Kumar and four hundred in support of his wife. The actual matter being contested was regarding the identity of Kumar as according to common knowledge he had died twelve years ago.