Sai Baba of Shirdi

by M.V. Kamath and V.B. Kher

Sai Baba of Shirdi is a phenomenon. In all of India's history, there has never been another like him. He is not a conventional saint. He wrote no critique of Bhagvad Gita or the Upanishads or any other holy work. He made no pretensions to scholarship yet he had a profound insight into both Hindu and Islamic scriptures. He founded no ashram or peetham, wrote no tome, initiated no disciple to take over from him. He performed 'miracles' but in no manner of means to impress anyone, devotee or otherwise. Sai Baba in every way remains unique.

Born about twenty years before the 'Sepoys' mutiny in the last century in Marathwada, the home of medieval saints of Maharashtra, he came in his late twenties to Shirdi, an insignificant hamlet in Ahmednagar District and spent fifty years of his remaining life there until his mahasamadhi. Shirdi is no longer an obscure village. To-day it is a center of pilgrimage for lakhs of Sai Baba's devotees.

This book is a complete account of his life and mission.

About the Author:

M.V. Kamath, who retired as the Editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India in 1981, is a senior and prolific columnist. Starting his career in journalism in 1946 as a reporter in the Free Press Journal, he soon became the editor of Free Press Bulletin and Bharat Jyoti. He has been the correspondent at the United Nations for the Press Trust of India and for the Times of India in Bonn, Paris and Washington D.C. He has covered every important international gathering between 1953 and 1978. Kamath was the President of Bombay Union of Journalists in 1953 and also a founder member of the Foreign Correspondents Association, Washington D.C. An author of over twenty books on a variety of subjects, his literary works include among others, Makings of A Millionaire*, Jaico Book of Baby Names*, The Philosophy of Death And Dying, The Pursuit of Excellence, Professional Journalism, B.G. Kher - The Gentleman Premier, etc.

V.B. Kher is a retired personnel executive. A keen student of Gandhism, he has edited for Navjivan Trust, Ahmedabad, seven collections of Mahatma Gandhi's writings in fifteen volumes including a collection of Gandhi's search for the Supreme in three volumes. He was a trustee of Shri Sai Baba Sansthan of Shirdi from 1984 to 1989 and also the Chairman of its sub-committee for publications. His research papers and articles on Sai Baba have been published in Shri Sai Leela and other periodicals and journals.