DETAILED ACCOUNT ON BABA'S SECOND ARRIVAL TO SHIRDI

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DETAILED ACCOUNT ON BABA’S SECOND ARRIVAL TO SHIRDI

Ramgir Bua, a devotee of Sai Baba writes about Sai Baba’s second arrival at Shirdi: -

"As a boy I studied in the school at Shirdi. I was a pupil when Sai Baba came to

Shirdi. He was then accompanied by one Patel of Dhupkheda who came to settle the

marriage of a girl with Hamid, the son of Aminbhai of Shirdi. Baba appeared to

be 25 or 30 years old at that time. He stayed there as a guest of Aminbhai. He

had long hair flowing down to his buttocks. He wore a green kufni, a skullcap

next to his hair and over it a bagawi topi (kashaya or ochre coloured cap). He

carried danda (a small baton) in his hand along with a chilm pipe and match

box... He got his bread by begging." ("Devotees’ Experiences)

Four or five months after his arrival at Shirdi, Baba started wearing a white

gown and headdress. Even after his second advent at Shirdi, Sai Baba seems to

have lived under neem tree for some time and a particular incident was

responsible for Baba’s changing his residence to the old dilapidated

mosque in the village. The details of the incident that I could gather, are as

follows:

Once there were very heavy rains at Shirdi and a large portion of it was

flooded. After a long while some of his very early devotees remembered the

homeless fakir and wanted to see how he fared and where he took shelter from

the rain. Mahlsapathy and a few others rushed to the margosa tree and were

stunned to see that Sai Baba was there under the same tree, half-reclining, in

a state of Samadhi. Water flowed all over him. All the rubbish and filth

gathered over his body. They dared not wake him up from that state. A few hours

later, when water had drained away, they returned to see him still lying on the

damp earth; his body and face were completely covered with mud deposited by the

receding water. They felt guilty at their gross neglect of his welfare all the

time when he was their sole protector and guide in all their sufferings. Later,

when he returned to the worldly plane of consciousness, these devotees persuaded

him to take shelter in the small dilapidated mud-built mosque in the village.

Probably the Hindu natives of the village felt that ‘Sai Baba’ was

a Moslem and so unfit to take shelter in Hindu temples as did the other Hindu

saints like Janakidas and Devidas. This shift of his abode seemed to mark a

change in his career. He burst into fame not long after this event.

One Tatya Baba Kote writes that before Sai Baba came to live in the mosque, he

lived for some time in a jungle of thorny trees (Babul or Acacia) and that he

was taken to be a madman by the village urchins who often stoned him. But he

never got angry with them nor protested against their waywardness.

(Written by: Sri Pujya Acharya E. Bharadwaja in ‘Sai Baba The Master")

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