The growing popularity of ‘guru-devotion’ centres as pilgrimage destinations is an important phenomenon that occupies a central place in contemporary religious practice in India. I argue that while Narasimhaswami's vision for independent India was broadly inclusive, seeking to bring together Hindus and Muslims, his advocacy of Hindu philosophy and ritual as the means for understanding and approaching Sai Baba promoted a divinization of this guru that has impacted his appeal to Hindus and non-Hindus in vastly different measures. Narasimhaswami believed that Sai Baba was a divinized guru with two interconnected missions: The spiritual uplift of individuals and the temporal uplift of India. This article examines the tension between inclusion and exclusion in Narasimhaswami's interpretation of Sai Baba. For the remaining years of his life he worked relentlessly to spread Sai Baba's name throughout India. However, the overwhelming sense of loving union he experienced in Shirdi convinced him that Sai Baba was still accessible from beyond the grave. Narasimhaswami (1874–1956) never met Shirdi Sai Baba face to face, for he arrived in Shirdi eighteen years after Sai Baba's death in 1918. Drawing upon primary devotional materials and ethnographic research, this article argues that one significant reason for the rapid growth of this movement is Shirdi Sai Baba’s composite vision of spiritual unity in diversity, construed by many devotees as a needed corrective to rigid sectarian ideologies.ī. While much scholarship on religion in modern India has focused on Hindu nationalist groups, new religious movements seeking to challenge sectarianism have received far less attention. Over the past several decades, he has been transformed from a regional figure into a revered persona of pan-Indian significance. Behind him are a Hindu temple, a Muslim mosque, a Sikh gurdwara, and a Christian church above him is the slogan, “Be United, Be Virtuous.” In his lifetime, Shirdi Sai Baba acquired a handful of Hindu and Muslim devotees in western India. 1918) gazes out at the viewer, his right hand raised in blessing. In one popular devotional poster the Indian god-man Shirdi Sai Baba (d.
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February 2023
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