Tuesday, September 29, 2009 Sai Baba Arrival

Sai Baba Arrival

Sai Baba sat under the neem tree as if he was rooted to the ground. He was, in a way, because the neem tree stood at the spot which was his gurusthan, or abode of (his) gurus. The neem tree itself was behind the old masjid (mosque).

The simple natives of Shirdi wondered who this young lad was who sat under the tree in deep meditation, foregoing food, even water. It was the curiosity and concern on the part of Bayajabai, wife of Kote Patil the village chief, that made her occasionally enquire after the lad's welfare, and soon she started bringing food for him. Thus grew a bond between Sai and Bayajabai, which took on shades of mother-son belonging.
The village priest, Mhalsapati, was often possessed by Lord Khandoba (Kuladevta of the region) and once while in a trance, he uttered that there was a holy spirit amongst them, pointing to the young lad. The young yogi pointed to the tree and said, dig under it. The villagers did as they were told and lo and behold! There, under layers of earth, was a stone slab, under which was a room where a set of oil lamps burned. There was no air, no oil supply underground, then how did this happen? A rosary and agoumukhi kamandal (cow-mouth shaped vessel) too was found in the same vicinity, on a wooden seat. All this established that this was indeed the place of meditation of a great soul.
The lad clarified that this was the place where his guru of previous incarnations had done tapaya (penance) and hence this was his guru's sthan (abode). He further instructed the awe-struck villagers that instead of worshipping him, they should worship this place and leave it untouched, never to be opened again. Till today, the neem tree sprouting Gurusthan is a first-stop on a pilgrimage to Shirdi and the otherwise bitter leaves of neem are sweet here.
Having established the sanctity of this place, Sai left Shirdi, only to return many years later as part of a wedding party. The chieftain of Dhoop village, a well-to-do Mohammedan called Chand Patil, roamed dejected at having lost his mare. In his search, he passed a fakeer, who asked him why he looked so sad. On hearing of his loss, the mendicant, who was none other than Sai Baba, told him to look far his mare along the riverbank. Patil said that he had just come that way and seen nothing. On being told to look again, a desperate Patil did so and to his delight, found his mare grazing by the riverbank. Pleased he went to the mendicant to thank him. Baba was then in the process of preparing his chillum (clay pipe) and was looking for water to wet the cloth for his pipe. Finding none, he just struck the ground with his satka (short stick) and water came gushing! Next, Baba looked for fire to light his pipe and hitting his satka again, up came a flame to light his pipe. Baba offered Chand Patil a smoke and at this point, seeing all these miracles, Patil was beyond himself and fell at the feet of this great soul. Realizing Baba was an aulia (one who answers prayers and is a saintly guide as per Islamic traditions), Patil requested him to come home, so he could return some of his kindness with hospitality.
When saints and god's messengers decide to enter a scene or space, they create circumstances that make their "entry" plausible and their arrival look natural. So it was that Chand Patil hosted Baba for about a month and further requested that he accompany the family to Shirdi as part of the wedding party of Patil's brother-in-law. Thus, Baba came to Shirdi again as a baraati, or an honoured member of the groom's family.
The travel between Dhoop and Shirdi went without any problems or dacoity, otherwise common those days, and the credit for this trip without mishap was given to Baba's presence in the wedding party. The entourage reached the outskirts of Shirdi and parked their carts under a mango-grove near the Khandoba temple.
Sai walked towards the temple when the priest Mhalsapati welcomed him with the words Ya (Aao) Sai! But as Sai was about to enter the temple, Mhalsapati got agitated that a fakeer, a Muslim mendicant, was defiling a Hindu temple by entering it. Such was the rigidity of religious customs and practices those days that lines between the two communities were drawn rather tightly and without reason.
Sai stopped but questioned the priest, saying God has created us all, so why should such distinctions be drawn? Having stated what he set out to, Sai started walking back but Chand Patil took affront to this treatment and asked why had they insulted his aulia? For Chand Patil, as head of another village and head of the wedding-party, to give this place of honour to Sai meant Shirdi and its denizens too had to be respectful to him.
Mhalsapati then realised that he had met the man many years ago as the young lad of sixteen who sat under the neem tree. Sai was now about twenty. Mhalsapati then remembered he was "possessed" by Lord Khandoba when he had first met Sai, and how Sai had helped establish the sanctity of gurusthan. Realising Sai's greatness, he fell at his feet asking to be pardoned. He welcomed him and insisted Sai stay in Shirdi. Never to return to Dhoop. Sai stayed in Shirdi for another sixty years, till his mahasamadhi in 1918. From such events, Hemadpant, his biographer, puts Sai's birth date around 1838, although there is no clear record; and by another account it is ascribed to 1835.
Prior to making an old masjid his home in Shirdi, he lived in a nearby place called Takia, where he often used to dance in ecstasy with small ghungroos (bells) tied on his ankles. This too was a form of worship, akin to dervish dances in the Sufi tradition.