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Vasudeva and Nandha’
21
, and even explicitly declares: ‘How fortunate you are that
you have today the same Krishna, the full Prema-Avathaar, moving among you!’
22
One passage in particular makes his Vaiṣṇava leanings only too clear—he iden-
tifies himself with the qualities of several traditional Vaiṣṇava avatars, and declares
that he has come as their successor, possessed of all their combined attributes:
The attributes and qualities which were assumed when, to save Prahlada, the Su-
preme Person came; The attributes and qualities which were assumed when, to save
the elephant, the Lotus-eyed came; The attributes and qualities which were assumed
when, to save the poor Kuchela the Lord of Veda came; The attributes and qualities
which were assumed when, to save the boy, Dhruva, He came from Heaven; Now,
with all the attributes, all the qualities has come, He whom the gods adore, the Ref-
uge of the Rejected. The Lord of all the worlds, the Lord of Infinite Glory, As all Ex-
istence, as all Knowledge and All Bliss in one Form embodied As Puttaparthi Sathya
Sai, the Over-lord of all that Is.
23
And Sathya Sai Baba’s devotees sometimes do take his Vaiṣṇava identity as pri-
mary—Leo Howe (1999:118), presumably reiterating views presented to him by
Sathya Sai Baba devotees in Bali, writes that Sathya Sai Baba:
proclaimed himself the reincarnation of the nineteenth-century saint Shirdi Sai
Baba… whom Sathya Sai Baba claims was the first reincarnation of Krishna. The link
to Krishna is therefore direct, and this is the reason why the Bhagavad Gita is the
movement’s most important holy book.
The explicit connection here with Kṛṣṇa is in fact absent from Sathya Sai Baba’s
own views on Sai Baba of Shirdi, but it is true that in referring to the events of the
Śiva-Śakti story quoted above (which he situated in a previous world “age”
24
) he
sometimes does identify himself with Kṛṣṇa: ‘To fulfil the promise made in Thretha
Age, Achyutha has incarnated on this earth, Vaasudheva, Shrihari, has come into
the world’
25
. And there is nothing completely anomalous about such an identifica-
tion—Bhagavad-Gītā 10:21,23 has Kṛṣṇa identify himself with both Viṣṇu and Śiva,
and, as we will see (especially in Chapter 4), other traditions that may have im-
pinged upon Sathya Sai Baba’s views similarly invoke both of these deities.
More to this effect, Bowen (1985:144-145) notes in the ‘hymnody’ of the Brad-
ford Sathya Sai Baba Centre a preponderance of epithets associated with Śiva, but
21
Sathya Sai Baba (17-10-1969) S9 25:136ff. NB These are famous purāṇic characters.
22
Sathya Sai Baba (1-6-1977) S13 38:253 NB On prema (love), see p.265 below.
23
(23-11-1985) http://sssbpt.info/ssspeaks/volume18/sss18-25.pdf [14-6-2007]. NB Again, the Te-
lugu Bhāgavata-Purāṇa might be a good place to look for a prototype for his proclamation here.
24
Sathya Sai Baba (6-7-1963) S3 15:91 NB On the traditional “ages” of the world see p.204 below.
25
(23-11-1979) S14 43:272 NB These epithets are traditionally exclusively applied to Kṛṣṇa [MW].
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also points out ‘the prominence of one of the names of Vishnu [i.e. “Nārāyaṇa”] in
the arati [“closing”, benedictory] prayer’. In his conclusion (1985:476), he calls for
‘a full analysis of the theology of the bhajans sung by Baba’s devotees’, and, whilst
I will not attempt such an analysis here
26
, it is interesting to note that, in the cur-
rent edition of the official compendium of these songs, the greatest proportion of
bhajans are devoted to the avatars of Viṣṇu—Rāma and Kṛṣṇa. It is also perhaps
significant that two of the three most popular bhajans composed by Sathya Sai
Baba himself are similarly inclined
27
. Similarly, whilst Bowen (1985:153ff.,160)
describes an abundance of icons associating Sathya Sai Baba with Śiva, he himself
notes another which depicts Sathya Sai Baba as Viṣṇu, and he goes on to note that:
the place of birth of Sathya Sai Baba is associated by his devotees with the epic and
puranic stories of Rama and of Krishna… he is believed to be the epic prince re-
turned to earth…. Baba is reputed to have exalted the feats that he can be expected
to perform over the accomplishments of Krishna himself.
28
Here, then, is yet further confirmation of the important place that Vaiṣṇava tradi-
tions and symbolism occupy in Sathya Sai Baba’s persona.
In contrast to this, Arvind Sharma (1986:230) reinforces the view that we saw
promoted by Swallow earlier of Śiva as being Sathya Sai Baba’s dominant identity,
summarizing what Swallow’s article has to say to this effect, and adding that:
It has often been maintained that Śiva was an ‘alien’ god who was assimilated into
the Hindu pantheon… If such was indeed the case, then which god would be better
qualified than Śiva to preside over the integration of the influences of an ‘alien’
West with Hinduism? Moreover, the fact that Śiva is a god more concerned with
cosmic change, unlike Viṣṇu, who is more concerned with cosmic stability, makes
him ideally suited for mediating transition in a society undergoing widespread and
rapid social change.
A problem with this, however, is that it is, for the most part, only Indologists who
have seen Śiva’s integration into Hinduism in a positive (or neutral) light. When
this idea has been taken up at a popular level—as it has long been by Tamil na-
tionalists
29
—it has been put to the purpose of cultural separatism, rather than in-
26
NB As one familiar with a great number of these devotional songs, I would suggest that such an
analysis would be a comparatively fruitless undertaking—many of them have been adopted into the
Sathya Sai Baba hymnody on the whim of devotees from a wide variety of religious backgrounds,
others, composed by such devotees, are no less diverse. The overwhelming majority of these songs
merely identify, with little elaboration, Sathya Sai Baba with one or more traditional divinities.
27
Viz.: “Prema mudita manase kaho Rama Rama Ram”, and “Hari bhajana bina sukha shanti nahi”,
the third being “Manase bhajore”—devoted, rather, to Shiva and Sai Baba of Shirdi [see SBM].
28
I.e. lifting a mountain aloft and stimulating the growth of his home town (see pp.118,219).
29
See, e.g., Sumathi Ramaswamy (1997) [especially the third chapter of the online edition].