The stories of Sathya Sai Baba’s early days

The ‘official’ biography of Sathya Sai Baba, written by Professor N. Kasturi – a very close devotee through decades, recounts stories collected by Kasturi about the many miracles performed by him as a boy and a youth. Prof. N. Kasturi always advises that we concentrate on what is good, not what is bad in other people, and consequently there is not a single hint of criticism or anything untoward in Kasturi’s writings, though some early contemporaries of Sathya give much more credible accounts of his apparently split personality and actions that do not at all fit the polished image now presented to the world. Kasturi’s constant paeans of praise for the young Sai Baba are unlike any proper biography since they are similar in kind and degree to the traditional stories or mythology about Krishna, whom Sathya Sai Baba eventually claimed actually to have been. Kasturi spent some years after coming to Sai Baba’s ashram in Puttaparti village where Sathya was born and lived apart from some periods in nearby places. There he questioned Sai Baba’s remaining family members and many of those who were still alive from the time of Sai Baba’s youth, forming a picture of Sai Baba as a born Divinity who carried out many incredible feats of clairvoyance, healing, and other virtually Biblical acts. Kasturi was in a constant state of wonder – also expressed strongly in the way he recounts those stories, and – being educated and active as a historian and a poet, he acted as a kind of ‘spin doctor’ and even ghost writer’ for Sathya Sai Baba. Much earlier devotees than Kasturi have written their own first-hand reminiscences of the same period – notably Smt. Vijayakumari (Anyatha Saranam Nasthi – Other than You Refuge there is None) and the wholly uncritical reports of his alleged early miracles as either experienced or heard about by Nagamani Purnaiya (The Divine Leelas of Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba) (see source materials here).

On such a basis it is obviously extremely difficult to expect any reliably sourced reconstruction of actual events in Sai Baba’s youth from so long ago, especially when there has for decades been a very secretive and huge cordon of servitors closely guarding the privacy of the guru, itself protected by an authoritarian world-wide organisation and a widespread cultist movement protecting Sathya Sai Baba from any kind of untoward reports. Despite the difficulties, what is reported can be reexamined with a critical eye and comparative analyses can be made with parallel events in the religious and social culture of Indian gurus. One approach worth exploring is based on the fairly frequent assertions about Sathya Sai Baba as being born a physical hermaphrodite and about the reported kinds of sexuality he engaged in. An outline of such an approach is made in the previous blog seen directly below this one (or click here).