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2.1 Shirdi Sai & Similar “Saints”
Those who worship Shirdi Sai have not understood Him and you too have not understood Me.
It is only those who have understood both that can pronounce judgement, is it not?
1
Charles White (1972:866ff.) situates Sathya
Sai Baba in a tradition that he refers to as
‘The Sāī Bābā Movement’. He sees the roots
of this movement in the figures of Gorakh-
nāth (12
th
century
CE
), Kabīr (15
th
century
CE
), and Dattātreya (semi-legendary, Fig.7),
its trunk as the Muslim faqīr Sāī Bābā
2
(d.1918), and its branches as this last
figure’s disciples or imitators (into which
category falls Sathya Sai Baba).
White (1972:868-869) writes that this Sāī Bābā lived most of his life in the
town of Shirdi, in Maharashtra (immediately North of Andhra Pradesh), and:
is one of the most popular saints among the masses in central India today…He kept
a fire burning perpetually in a Dhuni [dhūnī = “hearth”]…. His ritual practices in-
cluded both Muslim Namaz
3
(Arabic Ṣalāt) and Hindu prayers and offerings.
...Sāī Bābā established himself as a saint through the performance of miracles….
He used the ash from the Dhuni as a sacramental substance for the working of his
miracles…. But in addition to sacred ash often exercised direct means such as multi-
location, warnings, appearance in dreams, and other devices to aid his followers….
since his death… a fairly large complex of buildings, including hostels for pilgrims,
has been erected near his tomb.
Sathya Sai Baba, as White (1972:873-874) notes, claims ‘to be Sāī Bābā incar-
nate’—to be a reincarnation of this figure
4
—and, whilst he writes that there is ‘no
1
Sathya Sai Baba [1957], quoted in Sathyam-1 (10) 193
2
NB As Antonio Rigopoulos (1993:5), author of a major academic monograph on Sāī Bābā of Shirdi,
writes: ‘Sāī is a term of Persian origin, usually attributed to Muslim ascetics, meaning “holy one” or
“saint.” Bābā... is a Hindi term attributed to respected seniors and holy men, and literally means
“father.” ...faqīr... which literally means “a poor man,” is commonly applied to Muslim mendicants’.
3
Cf. Rigopoulos (1993:63), who cites a devotee’s observation that Shirdi Sai Baba ‘seldom per-
formed the five Namazes and never was bending on the knees and rising, as most Moslems do’.
4
NB Whilst some devotees of Shirdi Sai are evidently convinced of the veracity of this claim, others
strongly reject it. An anti-Sathya Sai Baba website quotes the Mumbai Mirror of January 11, 2006
as follows: ‘Claims by followers of Sathya Sai Baba of Puttaparthi that he is a reincarnation of Sai
Baba of Shirdi have enraged devotees of the latter. They have filed a suit in the court at Rahata, in
Ahmadnagar district, asking the court to restrain people from making such claims’
(http://home.hetnet.nl/~ex_baba/engels/shortnews/Mumbai%20Mirror.htm [21-7-2006]). Sāī
Bābā himself, however, seems to have tolerated a number of persons who took on his name while
Fig.7 A Dattātreya idol in Puttaparthi.
The pose, right leg on left knee, com-
mon in his iconography, is echoed in
that of Shirdi & Sathya Sai—see Fig.11.
2
2
.
.
1
1
S
S
h
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i
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7
discernable Muslim influence’ on Sathya Sai Baba, he sees a strong:
apparent relationship between the Vibhūti of the Dhuni of Shirdi Sāī Bābā and the
produced Vibhūti of Sathya Sāī Bābā. …the latter like the former is prized for its
sacramental and healing qualities.
This is an obvious connection to make and (although White seems unaware of
this) is supported by hagiographical accounts, which claim that early in his career
Sathya Sai Baba told his followers that the vibhūti he was (magically) producing
came from the sacred fire kept by his former incarnation at Shirdi
5
. Sathya Sai
Baba’s materialisations of vibhūti thus form a direct link between the two Sais
6
.
And there are other symbolic links of note also. Fig.11a (p.96) is one example of
this: Sathya Sai Baba, we might say, was dressed to be (the new) Shirdi Sāī Bābā.
White (1972:867) connects Shirdi Sai, in turn, with Gorakhnāth—in whom he
sees a similar combination of magical powers and Hindu-Muslim syncretism. He
notes that a head of the [Hindu] ‘Nāthpanthi’ monastic orders of which he was the
‘chief director’ is known by the Muslim term ‘Pīr’ and, like a Muslim Pīr, was ‘sup-
posed to give advice or intercede with God through the use of his “powers” on be-
half of clients’. He also notes that some of the tombs of such leaders ‘were places
of religious resort as are those of the Muslim saints, and that, as with Shirdi Sai,
the focus of the Nāthpanthis’ religious life is a ‘hearth or Dhuni whereon a fire is
kept perpetually burning’. Kevin Shepherd (2005:19) points out, however, that
‘such fires were also favoured by Muslim faqirs’, and that ‘although Nathism did
assimilate some Muslim faqirs, Sai Baba was not typical of Nath attitudes’.
Shepherd cites in particular Shirdi Sai discouraging ‘the practice of pranayama
(breath control), which is favoured amongst the Naths’. But perhaps his reason for
discouraging this was due to his own (Nāth influenced) experience with this prac-
tice. Indeed, whilst Shepherd sees traditional accounts of Shirdi Sai Baba engag-
ing in ‘extreme Yogic exercises’ [characteristic of the Nāths] as being ‘exotic…
suspect… hagiological components’, Antonio Rigopoulos (1993:47) opines that:
The hagiographic character of the narrative when it indulges in such details (follow-
ing a typical scheme, as in the case of great yogins) does not diminish the general
impression of an assiduous practice of haṭha-yoga on Baba’s part, reproposing the
hypothesis of a training in which Nātha influences might have played a role.
he was alive (see http://www.shirdi-saibaba.com/saibababooks/saibabaambrosia/saibabaambrosia
101.asp [10-10-2006]), and, since his passing, a number of his devotees have embraced Sathya Sai
Baba as his successor (see, e.g., the hagiographical account of R.T.Kakade and A.V.Rao (1985)).
5
E.g. SSSA 22.
6
Palmer (2005:100) also notes this.