Sathya Sai Baba’s (un)Birthday (not born on 23 November 1926)

The birthday of Sathya Sai Baba to be celebrated on Monday (23 November) is in doubt, because documentary and diverse circumstantial evidence makes it most likely that his birth date has been falsified. The evidence is summarised here, mostly from the well-balanced and painstaking researches of Brian Steel, who writes:-

“… the publication in October 2000 of the meticulously researched first volume of a planned definitive 6-volume biography of Sai Baba by the well-known Puttaparthi publisher Sai Towers, Love is My Form, shows the quoted 1940 to be three years premature. This evidence changes the chronology of the early years of his mission. In fact, SB spent the school years 1936-1940 in the Elementary School in Puttaparthi, and the year 1940-1941, not engaged on his Mission, as we have been told by all previous commentators, but in Form One of the Middle School at Kamalapura, some 200 kilometres from Puttaparthi, where his elder brother, Seshama, had begun his teaching career.

The compilers of LIMF offer photostats from School registers in Bukkapatnam and Uravakonda (pp. 68-69 and p. 132 and a table on pp. 128-129) to show clearly that Sathya Narayana Raju (whose date of birth is given as 4-10-1929) entered the Bukkapatnam school (17 kilometres from Puttaparthi) on 5 July 1941 and left on 6 April 1942 – apparently without taking the E.S.L.C. Examination. The other Register records Sathya’s arrival at the distant Uravakonda High School (at which brother Seshama was then teaching) over a year later, on 1 July 1943, but it shows no leaving date. (Incidentally, for future researchers, on this second photostat, Sathya’s date of birth is given as 4-10-39 – an obvious mistake, corrected to 4-10-29, but with a signed clarification, “fourth October Nineteen Twentynine” dated, as far as the writing is legible, 11-8-76.

LIMF ‘s new chronological evidence, backed up by interviews with SB’s contemporaries shows that it was on 20 October 1943 (and NOT in 1940, as has always been claimed) that SB threw down his school books and made the famous declaration: “Maya has left; I am going; my work is waiting.” (LIMF, 147; Kasturi, Vol 2, pp. 42-43)
The compilers of LIMF also state that the preliminary declaration: “I am Sai Baba.” “I am of the Bharadwaja Gothra”, took place at the end of this illness, on 23 May 1943, a few months before the other more dramatic Mission Declaration in October.

Click on image to enlarge

1)    According to Indian matriculation levels, Raju was in the 8th Standard at the time.
2)    Raju was a student of the school  July 5 1941 as the date of the record itself shows.
3)    Mention is made of an exam scheduled for April 6 1942.

Raju (Sai Baba) is listed as Entry No. 466:

Since 1950 Sai Baba’s birthday has been celebrated on the date of November 23, 1926. He says he declared his divinity in May 1940, leaving leave home to start his ‘Mission’ later that year (October 20, 1940). The dating of these events are ostensibly contradicted by his school records. (See more on this )

A reason to select November 23, 1940 for his birthday was 1) that it had the signs of unusual astrological auspiciousness (very important for would-be ‘holy men’ and 2) the much revered ‘saint’  Sri Aurobindo declared that “November 24, 1926, was the descent of Krishna into the physical. A power infallible shall lead the thought. In earthly hearts kindle the Immortal’s Fire, even the multitude shall hear the voice.” Aurobindo followers maintain that he was referring to his own body, having been in a very long-lasting meditative trance until November 24 when he made his declaration. However, Sai Baba chose a day BEFORE that as his own birthday, which is another discrepancy of importance. See more on this here

Another indication that Sathya Sai Baba was considerably younger than he claimed was inadvertently given by his official biographer, N. Kasturi, who never questioned him seriously about his alleged birthdate and other such discrepancies or ‘sensitive’ claims. (See text scan here – right – where Kasturi’s first impression when meeting Babas on moving to Prashanthi Nilayam in 1948 was that he was much younger than claimed – which sheds new light on the school record dpocuments which puts his birth date at October 4, 1929… three years later than Sai Baba claimed. Hence, Sai Baba could boast of greater youtfulness than was the fact, putting it down to his purity, patience and perseverence. Following Kasturi’s ever-repeated lead, blind devotees would put everything untoward down to ‘His Mystery’ and call it “His divine leela” or the like.

The declaration of ‘His Mission’ is given by Sai Baba as and the Sai Baba literature as 20 October 1940 (when SB was allegedly one month from his 14th birthday). The Golden Jubilee was celebrated on this date in 1990.

‘Love is My Form’ proves that Sai Baba went to Uravakonda in early 1943, and left in October 1943 (one month before his 14th birthday) and began his Mission after the second of his Declarations. This indicates that the actual date of his birth was in 1929, NOT 1926.
It was also celebrated on 23 November in 1950, as Vijayakumari records, with the Inauguration of the new ashram at Prasanthi Nilayam.

Brian Steel presents compelling circumstantial evidence to support the proposition that Satya Narayana Raju was not born when he says, but three years later:-

Reference to Smt. Vijayakumari (Vijayamma) by Brian Steel

It is well proven that – in his supposed all-knowingness – Sathya Sai Baba confuses dates, such as his mistaken dating of Shivananda’s birthday (see http://bdsteel.tripod.com/More/Omnitruth.htm) There we also read:
“SB’s trouble with family dates shows up in his Discourse on 6 May 1998 (Easwaramma Day, in honour of his mother).
“Now it is 30 years since the mother of this body passed away.” BUT she died in 1972 (26 years before).
Quoting a visit from his mother’s spirit: “For 40 years I was with You.” She was with SB for 46 years – 1926-1972 (If SB was born in 1926).
Kondama Raju, SB’s grandfather:”he … lived up to 116 years.
Kasturi (K1A, pp. 4-5) says he was 110 when he died. LIMF (p. 22) suggests 112.
Two remarks SB makes in the Discourse suggest that Kondama died in 1954: “Swami was entering His 9th year” [i.e. in 1935] and “After that, he lived for 19 years.”[=1954]
Kasturi states that Kondama died in 1950. (K1A, p. 5) LIMF (p. 22) gives his dates as 1840-1952. Two years later, SB states more correctly that Kondama Raju died at 112 years of age but he doesn’t mention a year. (1 Oct 2000)”

Brian Steel also writes: “The compilers of LIMF offer photostats from School registers in Bukkapatnam and Uravakonda (pp. 68-69 and p. 132 and a table on pp. 128-129) to show clearly that Sathya Narayana Raju (whose date of birth is given as 4-10-1929) entered the Bukkapatnam school (17 kilometres from Puttaparthi) on 5 July 1941 and left on 6 April 1942 – apparently without taking the E.S.L.C. Examination. (See later exam story.) The other Register records Sathya’s arrival at the distant Uravakonda High School (at which brother Seshama was then teaching) over a year later, on 1 July 1943, but it shows no leaving date. (Incidentally, for future researchers, on this second photostat, Sathya’s date of birth is given as 4-10-39 – an obvious mistake, corrected to 4-10-29, but with a signed clarification, “fourth October Nineteen Twentynine” dated, as far as the writing is legible, 11-8-76. However, before too much is made of the 1929 date ‘discrepancy’, we have been informed, in LIMF, and by other experts on India that such errors were quite common in rural India in those days.)
LIMF ‘s new chronological evidence, backed up by interviews with SB’s contemporaries shows that it was on 20 October 1943 (and NOT in 1940, as has always been claimed) that SB threw down his school books and made the famous declaration: “Maya has left; I am going; my work is waiting.” (LIMF, 147; Kasturi, Vol 2, pp. 42-43) “

For further clarification see Steel’s reconsideration of the date issue here

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Information on the Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization
See also Devotee attacks on the Sai petition and petitioners