As has been shown in preceding chapters, Maharashtra has long been home to a variety of Muslim and Hindu holy men, saints and mystics, each possessing varying degrees of orthodoxy, spirituality, and miracle-working powers. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in Maharashtra, there were a number of unorthodox Sufi mystics such as Tajuddin Baba of Nagpur, Hazrat Babajan of Poona and Noori Maharaj of Thana, who were contemporaries of Hazrat Sai Baba of Shirdi. Among the Hindu saints were Manikaprabhu of Manikanagar [near Gulbarga], Narayan Maharaj of Kedgaon, Sri Swami Samarth of Akkalkot and Vasudevananda Saraswati alias Tembe Swami of Garudeswar who lived on the banks of the river Narmada. The villages and towns where these saints established themselves have today evolved into bustling pilgrimage centres with shrines, temples, dargahs or memorials honouring their memories, each run by a local Sansthan or Trust.1 This is especially so of Shirdi which is now one of the major pilgrimage centres, and is run by the local Shirdi Sansthan. Muslims and Hindus alike are known to flock to these shrines seeking healing and blessings.2
Although heterodox for the most part, these ninteenth century saints were revered by local people for their spiritual eminence; and more importantly for their ability to help the common man with his day-to-day problems. It was due to this pragmatic element that in Maharashtra a saint’s Hindu or Muslim affiliation or sectarian allegiance was considered to be of secondary importance, as it was popularly accepted that God-realization and its attendant powers transcended the narrow confines of established othodoxy.
Meher Baba (1894-1969), the Parsi holy man of Ahmednagar, considered by his followers to be an
avatar, declared that there are five qutbs or Perfect masters on earth at any given time, who administer to the
spiritual needs of humanity. Meher Baba identified the five Perfect masters as three Sufi saints and two Hindu saints currently living in Maharashtra at the turn of the century. The Sufis were Hazrat Tajuddin Baba, Hazrat Babajan, and Hazrat Sri Sai Baba of Shirdi and the Hindus were Sri Narayan Maharaj and Sri Upasani Maharaj. A short biography of Narayan Maharaj has already been given in a previous chapter, and Sri Upasani Maharaj was a devotee of Sai Baba who after the latter’s death became a famous saint in his own right in the 1930s. A biographical sketch of Sai Baba’s two Sufi contemporaries -Hazrat Tajuddin Baba and Hazrat Babajan is given below, highlighting their similar backgrounds, healing powers and psychic inter-connectedness on a non-physical level, and their affinity with Sai Baba.
Hazrat Tajuddin Baba
Hazrat Tajuddin Baba, known more familiarly to his devotees as Baba Sahib, was born in 1861 and in his youth joined the Madras Regiment of the British army as a sepoy. There was much unrest in India before and after the sepoy uprising of 1857. As a result the British army was extended in order to maintain law and order putting great pressure on young men to join up at this time. Like Tajuddin Baba, Sai Baba may also have enlisted when he was around the age of nineteen in 1857. There is one enigmatic reference to Sai Baba having been in the army at the time of the battle with the Rani of Jhansi in the 1857 War of Independence, although it is not clear on which side. In an interview with Narasimhaswami on July 26, 1936, Balakrishna Govind Upasani Sastri, the brother of Sai Baba’s devotee Kasinath Upasani who, by the time of the interview, had become the famous saint of Maharashtra, Sri Upasani Maharaj, gave his reminiscences of Sai
Baba both on his own account and in relation to his famous brother. In the course of his conversation he commented: ‘Sai Baba mentioned some autobiographical reminiscences of his own. He said he had been at the battle in which the Rani of Jhansi took part. He was then in the army.’3 Narasimhaswami makes use of this piece of information in his biography Life of Sai Baba, where he says, ‘Baba declared that in the first great war of Indian Independence, that he had been in the army with the Rani of Jhansi.’4 There is a discrepancy here, for Sastri’s comment leads us to believe that Sai Baba was at the battle, leaving it unclear which side he was fighting on, although the subsequent sentence that he was then in the army, would presuppose the British army. Narasimhaswami has transposed this idea, leading us to believe Sai Baba was fighting on the side of the Rani, fighting the British to win independence. These two related references are the only ones linking Sai Baba with the 1857 Sepoy Revolt, or as it later became known, the ‘War of Independence’.5 The story of the Rani of Jhansi and the historical background to this incident makes fascinating reading, as the story reads so differently depending on the perspective of the reader, the Rani being classed as either an arch-villain from the British side or a courageous freedom fighter from the Indian [see Appendix C]. Narasimhaswami has placed Sai Baba on the Indian side for he adds a further comment, ‘That is, he was a fighter for Indian Independence in 1857.’6 Unfortunately there is no further evidence either way, but the fact that Tajuddin Baba joined the British army suggests the opposite. In any event, we can conclude that it is not incompatible with later sainthood for a Sufi faqir when young to have joined the army. A fuller discussion of the events surrounding the 1857 uprising, and the story of the Rani of Jhansi is given in Appendix C.
Some time after this, Tajuddin Baba came into contact with a Sufi master called Hazrat Dawood Chishti and through his spiritual influence had an experience of God-realization, but the date and circumstances were not recorded. He was considered to have received the ‘taj’ or crown of spiritual ‘perfection’, hence the epithet Tajuddin, which was the name by which he became well-known throughout Maharashtra. He left the militia and travelled to Nagpur where people flocked to him to receive his blessings. This in turn attracted more visitors who often annoyed him with their ‘foolish questions’. One day he appeared naked on a tennis court where some Europeans were playing, and acted like a madman. He was apprehended, and admitted to a lunatic asylum. He was completely indifferent to his immediate surroundings and stayed in the asylum for seventeen years, but even there he attracted innumerable visitors, eager for his blessing and healing touch. Many miracles and supernatural acts are attributed to Tajuddin Baba, ranging from the cure of incurable diseases and deformities and bringing the dead back to life, to setting injustices right and promoting the welfare of people who came to him.7 In the last year of Tajuddin Baba’s life he was persuaded to leave the asylum at the insistence of the Chief of Kampti near Nagpur, and was given a place to live in his palace.
Tajuddin Baba exhibited many similarities with Sai Baba which were often remarked upon. Neither cared for worldly comforts or possessions nor were they concerned with their outward circumstances - Tajuddin Baba living in a lunatic asylum and Sai Baba in an old dilapidated mosque. Both often showed fierce anger - Tajuddin by throwing stones, and Sai Baba by terrifying even his close devotees with his outbursts of rage, his eyes glowing red, stripping off his clothes or shouting and also on occasion throwing stones. People came to visit both saints for various reasons, but the most frequent request was that the saint should cure their barrenness in order to obtain progeny. Both also were well-known as miracle-workers, specifically for their healing powers. One delightful story related about Tajuddin Baba concerned the son of the British Police Commissioner stationed at Nagpur, who was very sick. Many doctors had been consulted but all hope had been given up for the life of the young boy. The officer ’s driver, observing the agony of the English couple watching their son waste away, at last spoke out and told them that Tajuddin Baba, a local Nagpur faqir, was renowned for healing diseases, and suggested that they could not lose anything by taking the boy to see the saint. In desperation they agreed to go, only to be greeted by a hail of stones thrown at them by the uncommunicative saint. He did however signal the boy to be brought to him whereupon he lightly brushed his forehead with his hand and then waved him away. Immediately the boy began to recover to the utter amazement of the parents. Later, when the boy was completely well again, they went back to thank the saint and asked what they could do to show their gratitude. Tajuddin Baba suggested that they start a school for local children, which they did, and today this school has grown to be the main High School in
Marianne Warren Ph. D.: Unravelling The Enigma Shirdi Sai Baba In The Light Of Sufism
Nagpur, called the Anjuman High School. There are several reported incidents where Sai Baba similarly healed a person miraculously, even after the doctors had given up hope. For example, it was reported by Khaparde in his Shirdi Diary, that Sai Baba completely cured his dying son who was afflicted by the plague.8
Similarly, a doctor conducting a difficult surgery, got some of the patient’s infected matter in his eye. As a result the Civil Surgeon of Nasik thought that the doctor would lose his eye, but after intense prayer to Sai Baba, it healed within the week.9
Many Hindu sadhus visited Baba Sahib to pay their respect and homage and for his spiritual guidance. There is also an interesting story told in the biography, Hazrat Baba Tajuddin: Noor-E-Mubeen - The Divine
Light of Allah, of a young learned scholar in Islamic Philosophy called Yusuf Shah, who was sent to Nagpur
to Baba Sahib. On his arrival he was disappointed that there was no library, no khanqah, and he observed that the Muslim shariat was not being strictly followed. He wondered how he could gain from a saint lost to the world living in ecstasy. Reading his mind Baba Sahib threw him out, but later plucking up courage the boy went back to him, whereupon the saint took off his khuta and threw it at Yusuf who immediately put it on. He at once experienced the state of ecstasy, and Baba Sahib got him to live in a well for some time, resulting in his further spiritual upliftment. There are many parallels here with Sai Baba. A learned pandit and Sanskrit scholar Kasinath Upasani came to Sai Baba, and he sent him to the Khandoba temple to live in a state of total renunciation. Sai Baba promised his total spiritual upliftment would take four years, whereupon he would be a great saint, a prediction that came to pass. Sai Baba also tells of his own experience in a well, the result of a well known Sufi technique, which will be described in detail in the next chapter.
Hazrat Babajan
The other Sufi saint, noted by Meher Baba as a Perfect master, was the female saint Hazrat Babajan, who is today viewed as one of the most famous Sufi majzubs of Maharashtra, with striking points of similarity with Sai Baba in terms of lifestyle and miraculous powers. From 1903 until her death in 1931, she lived under a
neem tree at the Char Bavadi in the cantonment area of Poona. This short, wrinkled lady was instantly
recognizable with her thick mane of white hair and blue eyes with an impenetrable expression, and most of the recorded memories of her, as in the case of Sai Baba, are from this later period of her life. In fact little is known of her early life or significant dates of her biography, but it is generally acknowledged that she came from an aristocratic family in Afghanistan, and was known by the name Gul-Rukh meaning ‘rose-faced’. As a young woman she was an accomplished hafiz-e-Qur’an or one who knows the Qur’an by heart, and possessing a mystic nature she spent her time in meditation and prayer. At the age when young aristocratic girls such as herself were to be married, she violently opposed the idea and left home. She escaped to India, arriving first in Peshawar, then Rawalpindi, and lived a poor ascetic life until she met a Hindu saint who initiated her into the spiritual path. Years passed and she moved to Multan and met a Muslim majzub who bestowed God-realization upon her. On one notable occasion, in a moment of divine ecstasy, she uttered words indicating her own divine status, much as al-Hallaj uttered ana’l Haqq or ‘I am God’. For this blasphemy she earned the orthodox Muslim punishment of death by being buried alive. Left for dead, she miraculously survived and escaped, eventually arriving in Poona. It was only after some young Baluchi
sepoys, who had been present at her ‘death’, saw and recognized her as the same saintly figure whom they
had witnessed being buried alive, that her spiritual greatness became known. For the next thirty years or more she lived under the neem tree in Char Bavadi, where she gave darshan, accepting only tea from devotees, and occasionally performing some miracle of healing. Meher Baba commented that as a qutb she could operate equally in both the spiritual world and the physical world, for the benefit of others, possessing both divinity and gnosis -haqiqa and marifa.10
Apart from the obvious similarities of sitting under a neem tree, holding darbar or audience, and having a number of devotees, the few recorded miracles she performed are extraordinarily similar to those of Sai Baba. Unlike Sai Baba, Babajan did not have an apostle-type scribe like Narasimhaswami to interview all the people who came to see her and collect their experiences; however, Meher Baba did record a few and Dr
A.G. Munsiff also chronicled a number. In total these miraculous occurrences constitute a twelve-page booklet which serves as her biography.11 By contrast, Narasimhaswami chronicled the experiences of dozens of Sai Baba’s devotees in a three-part book, entitled Devotees’ Experiences of Sai Baba.
Among her alleged powers was the ability to see events at a distance. For instance on one occasion, a performance was to be given at a small theatre in Talegaon about twenty miles from Poona. The show proved to be so popular that the hall was filled to capacity, and the management decided to lock the doors. A fire suddenly broke out which spread rapidly, endangering many lives. Back in Poona, Babajan suddenly began to behave quite excitedly and angrily shouted, ‘It is fire, it is fire, doors are locked and people are burning. O, you fire get extinguished!’12 People at the theatre reported that amazingly the locks suddenly flew open and most people were saved. On tracing the exact time of Babajan’s exclamation in Poona, and the time that the theatre locks spontaneously opened in Talegaon, they proved to be identical. There is a similar story in the biography of Sai Baba where he was sitting in front of his perpetual fire called his dhuni, when suddenly he thrust his hand and arm into the flames as if recovering something. While some devotees dragged him away from the fire to attend to his burnt arm, he said he had saved the life of a child from a furnace. Some time later it was confirmed that a blacksmith’s wife in a distant village was indeed holding her child when she got up hastily to work the bellows, and forgetting the child, let it slip into the furnace. They said that an unseen hand seemed to rescue the child before it could be harmed.13
Babajan was also known for her ability to clairvoyantly find missing things. For instance there is a story concerning Babajan finding a lost horse. A man approached Babajan saying he had lost his horse. She merely pointed in one direction and told him he would find it if he followed her finger. This he did and found the horse coming towards him. In gratitude he brought a load of sweets for Babajan to distribute. In a similar vein there is a story about Sai Baba locating a lost mare. The Muslim Chand Patil had lost his mare two months previously and came upon a faqir, namely Sai Baba, who told him to look in the nearby cutting. Amazingly he found the mare right there, causing him to proclaim Sai Baba to be an awliya or saint.14
Babajan was also well-known for healing by unusual methods. For instance it was recorded that she once restored a person’s eyesight by blowing on their eyes. Similarly Sai Baba reportedly cured eye problems by placing pieces of onion or other unusual substances on the person’s eyes. Towards the end of her life, Babajan had a septic finger which swelled up and was full of pus. A devotee brought her some mango pickle to eat, but she immediately put some on the affected finger, which normally would infect it further, but it healed up well.15
Hazrat Babajan, like Sai Baba, had a death experience long before her physical demise when she was buried alive as punishment for her heretical statements. She survived to live for another thirty or more years. Sai Baba also had a death experience for three days in 1886, when local authorities wanted to bury his body, so convinced were they that he had expired. But, having warned his devotee to care for his body, he too returned to life and survived to live another thirty-two years.16 Babajan’s dargah is located in the cantonment area of Poona under the very same neem tree where she sat for so many years, and it is still frequented today by people requesting favours.
We have examined several significant correspondences between Sai Baba’s teachings and Sufi thought of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, as demonstrated by the writings of the great Sufi poet-saints: Shah Muntoji Bahamani, Shekh Mahammad and Shah Muni. There are also correspondences between Sai Baba’s ascetic Sufi lifestyle and that of his nineteenth century contemporaries, Hazrat Tajuddin Baba and Hazrat Babajan. One of the most important of these correspondences are the attempts at accommodating Islam to Hinduism. Shah Muntoji by his concordance of terms and concepts; Shekh Mahammad by clarifying the steps of the Sufi tariqat in current Hindu terms; and Shah Muni by pointing out that the concept of the