Shirdi Sai Baba

Sai Baba was an itinerant renouncer who settled down in the village of Shirdi in western India in the mid-nineteenth century. Sai Baba means “saintly faither,” and little is known with historical certainty of his early years, including where and when he was born, what his birth name was, and what religion he was born into. Various hagiographies composed by his devotees provide different answers to some of these key questions. What is known with some historical certainty is that the man who came to be known as Shirdi Sai Baba arrived in Shirdi in the late 1850s, when he was a young man of approximately twenty years, and he died there in 1918. During the decades that he lived in Shirdi, Sai Baba gathered both Hindu and Muslim followers from the surrounding region. Some of his followers were drawn to his reputation for possessing miraculous powers, and others for his ability to help them progress down their individual spiritual paths. In the century since Sai Baba’s death, his following has only continued to grow. Shirdi Sai Baba has now acquired a pan-Indian and increasingly global devotional following, and the village of Shirdi has transformed into one of India’s most popular pilgrimage destinations.