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Nabhadās, which White (1972:865,n.8) cites as being an important source on ‘the
identification of actual persons with the incarnations of [the deity] Viṣṇu’, but nei-
ther White nor Rigopoulos note the important fact that this work identifies Kabīr
as an avatar—in particular of Śuka
13
, the principal narrator of the most famous ac-
count of the avatars of Viṣṇu, the Bhāgavata-Purāṇa (c. 9
th
-10
th
century
CE
).
White (1972:870) does note of Shirdi Sai Baba that ‘his followers consider him
to be the main incarnation of God in this age’, and he implies (1972:867) that this
may be foreshadowed by the fact that Dattātreya ‘in the Bhāgavata-Purāṇa… is
mentioned as the sixth incarnation of Viṣṇu’. He does not, however, note the po-
tential echoes of these facts that we have seen in the ideas of Sathya Sai Baba.
White (1972:863-866) does list the idea of “incarnation” (avatar) as a traditional
religious role of some significance for these figures, but he concludes that it is
largely interchangeable with the category of ‘saint’ in combining the traditional
roles of ‘guru’ and ‘ascetic’—i.e. teaching and performing miracles or giving bless-
ings. And, like Babb and Elwood above (indeed, like most scholars), White (1972:
873-874) portrays the latter two of these functions as being most important for an
understanding of Sathya Sai Baba.
White (1972:878) takes Agehananda Bharati (1970:283) to task for presuming
that Sathya Sai Baba’s reputation for miracles is merely a testament to: ‘The seem-
ingly boundless gullibility of the modern devotee’, and he finds cause to dispute
several of Bharati’s conclusions on the general historical context of figures like
Sathya Sai Baba. Bharati (1970:272) associates such figures with an ‘anti-scholarly
and anti-intellectual’ ‘Hindu Renaissance’ (a term which he adopts with deliberate
irony)
14
, but White (1972:876) argues that, on the contrary, the figures in his
study, and other similar figures ‘made a distinctive intellectual contribution’. In
this, he is somewhat at cross-purposes with Bharati—whose point is more that ‘the
agents of the Renaissance look at indigenous scholars with considerable suspi-
cion’
15
—but Sathya Sai Baba clearly does not fit Bharati’s characterization.
13
J. Abbott & N. Godbole (1933), p.5.
14
NB Kamakhya Choudhary (1981:79) writes that ‘the renaissance in India was characterised pri-
marily by religious reawakening, whereas the renaissance in Europe was mainly intellectual…. In
the European renaissance the stress was not on the revival of the conclusions arrived at by Plato, Ar-
istotle, or Cicero, but on the incorporation of the Hellenic spirit of free intellectual enquiry’.
Bharati’s point is perhaps that such a spirit did also exist in certain ancient Indian philosophical tra-
ditions, and still does exist to a certain extent at ‘grassroots’ level, but that this spirit is not what has
been revived in the current ‘renaissance’—which has more of a fundamentalist religious character,
often seeking to revive the conclusions, rather than the spirit, of the Vedas and Upaniṣads.
15
NB The real issue, which White (1972:877-878) later picks up on, is Bharati’s obviously problem-
2
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Bharati (1970:272) supports his claim with reference to the popular guru
Sivananda (1887-1963), who he quotes as follows:
Pedantry (vain display of learning) is a special attribute of some Sanskrit scholars…
the son of an orthodox Shastri… a bookworm that lives in a small well… will talk of
high philosophy and quote scriptures. But, his mind is full of vasanas (desires).
In contrast to this, Sathya Sai Baba speaks of traditional scholars with respect, urg-
ing his followers to have:
contact with scholars and those who have experience in spiritual practice, like these
pandits here. Listen to them; revolve their teachings in the depths of your memory;
practise what they advise; yield gladly to their guidance [S5 20:112 (29-3-1965)].
Moreover, Harper (1972:89) cites Sathya Sai Baba as claiming a mission including
‘Vidwathposhana (Fostering of Scholarship)’, and ‘Vedasamrakshana (Preservation
of the Vedas
16
)’—these, as we will see, being traditional tasks of the avatar.
Whilst it is also true that, at least so far as his presentation of himself as an ava-
tar is concerned, Sathya Sai Baba sometimes does makes strong anti-intellectual
pronouncements—as for example at the head of this chapter
17
—these usually criti-
cize modern, rather than traditional scholarship. Perhaps Sathya Sai Baba ought
not to be aligned with the “Hindu Renaissance” at all? Certainly, a further claim
by Bharati (1970:269), that ‘Not only do speakers for the Renaissance not study
Sanskrit, but they overtly or covertly discourage followers from doing so’, does not
apply to Sathya Sai Baba—for Harper (1972:94) notes that he founded:
a school at Prasanthi Nilayam in which young boys are taught to chant the Vedas by
heart… [and an] All India Academy of Vedic Scholars, established in 1965 when two
hundred pundits responded to Sathya Sai’s invitation and assembled in a great con-
vocation.
The study of Sanskrit is also compulsory in the schools and universities that he has
since founded, and he encourages his official organisation to teach Sanskrit to its
members
18
. He also once himself addressed a large audience in Sanskrit
19
.
Furthermore, Sathya Sai Baba has regularly encouraged the performance of
vedic sacrificial rituals—most recently (in 2006 and 2007) the ‘Ati Rudra Maha Ya-
atic definition of “indigenous” or “grassroots scholars” as somehow excluding anyone with modern
or English language influences—it is unlikely, as White points out, that such figures ‘exist anymore
in complete isolation from all modern influences’. White also points out some hostility underlying
Bharati’s views: ‘what Bharati does not like is Renaissance. What he likes is grassroots!’
16
NB On the Vedas, the earliest traditional “revealed” religious works, see Chapter 4 below.
17
See also p.55—cf. p.292, where he raises Pundits to a status approximating his own.
18
See Sathya Sai Baba (18-5-1968 [morning]) S8 20:106.
19
LG 264 NB Anil Kumar notes that Sathya Sai Baba has also composed a number of original verses
in Sanskrit (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/saidevotees_worldnet/message/2061 [10-5-2007]).