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Sai Baba Man of Miracles – Howard Murphet

Mrs. Nagamani Pourniya, who lives in Bangalore, is the widow of a Government District Transport Officer and the mother of the popular novelist Kamala Taylor, who is married to an Englishman and lives in England. Nagamani first met Sai Baba in 1945 and spent many long periods at his ashram. I found her always happy to talk about Baba and she helped fill out my mental picture of the early period, confirming the main features and adding some new ones to the bright tapestry of those years.

Nagamani has herself written a book on Sai Baba, but there are one or two of her experiences that bear repeating here. Many have described to me Sai Baba's miraculous production of figures - usually statuettes of Hindu or other gods - from the sands, and I have seen it myself. But Nagamani told me that on one occasion when a party went with Baba to the sands of the Chitravati river she saw idols rising up out of the sand themselves. Baba simply scraped away a little sand to reveal the top of the head, then the figure itself began to rise, as if driven up by some power beneath.

First, she said, came a figure of Siva, then his consort Parvati, and then a lingam. As each rose a few inches above the sand Baba pulled it out and threw it quickly to one side. This was because the objects were made of metal and were quite hot - too hot to hold for more than a second. After they had cooled, he took them back to the old Mandir for puja (ritualistic worship).