Sathya Sai Baba's MagicAuthor(s): Lawrence A. BabbSource: Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 56, No. 3 (Jul., 1983), pp. 116-124Published by: The George Washington University Institute for Ethnographic ResearchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3317305Accessed: 03/11/2010 09:59

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SATHYA SAI BABA'S MAGIC 1

LAWRENCE A. BABB

Amherst College

This paper is an excursion in the anthropology of credibility. Regarded as a living deity by his many followers, Sathya Sai Baba is one of the most important of lndia's modern religious figures. Thepaper explores the role of the miraculous in his cult. Miracles attributed to the deity-saint are shown to be vehicles for establishing and maintaining relationships between him and his followers utilizing a transactional framework of general importance in the Hindu world. The indeterminacy ofthe miracles, farfrom being viewed as a disconfirmation of their author's claims, is understood to exemplify an unaccountability that is a necessary feature ofdivinity. Their ultimate plausibility and persuasive energy derive from a link, established within the symbolic world of the cult, between a devotee's belief in their divine authorship and his or her commitment to a transformed sense ofidentity. To the degree that the new sense of self is valued, the miracles must be accepted as genuine.

It would be easy not to take the cult of Sathya Sai Baba seriously. Centering on modern India's best known deity-saint,this cult is certainly a highly prominent feature of the modern religious landscape in India. But because of its veneer of jet-age modernity and the apparent estrangement of its mostly bourgeois adherents from "grassroots Hin- duism" (Bharati 1981:87) it would be tempting to dismiss the cult as in some sense inau- thentic, a less-than-best avenue to an under- standing of things Hindu. In my view, however, this would be a mistake. Not only is this cult deeply and authentically Hindu, as I hope to show, but the very cultural alienation of its main constituency sets in bold relief certain critical features of the Hindu tradition that we might not otherwise see as clearly.

The materials with which I am concerned were gathered during a program of field- research on Hinduism in an urban context undertaken in Delhi in 1978-79. I was inter- ested in every aspect of urban religious culture that I could find, and inevitably this brought me into contact with various guru- centered cults of middle - and upper- middle class Delhi. One such group was the local (Delhi) following of Sathya Sai Baba. I began with an essentially casual interest in this cult. However, as I began to attend cult-related activities and talk to devotees I soon realized that I was in contact with a religious style that is clearly very meaningful to at least some members of a highly sophisticated and cosmo- politan bureaucratic, political, commerical and academic elite. And I also found myself con- fronted with what appeared to be a puzzle, one having mainly to do with miracles.

The cult of Sathya Sai Baba seems to invert

what common sense would lead us to expect. There is certainly nothing new about the miraculous in the Hindu world. Indeed, in this world the credibility of contraventions of expectations of how the world normally works is never really the main issue; what matters most is what such occurrences, in specific instances, actually mean. However, as many observers have noted, the cult of Sathya Sai Baba has a notably cosmopolitan constit- uency consisting of many people who at least outwardly are as strongly attuned as anyone to the more international cult of scientific rationality. And yet the miraculous is absolutely central to this religious move- ment. This circumstance pushes to the fore questions that we might not otherwise ask From what, exactly, do these miracles derive their convincingness, a plausibility so great that it seems to pull people into convictions ostensibly at odds with what their own sub- culture deems to be common sense and considered judgment? What is the source of the energy of Sathya Sai Baba's "magic," an energy that is apparently strong enough to have life-transforming effects on his devotees? Does it arise merely from cunning theatrics? Or is its true source something else?

Sathya Sai Baba was born in 1926 in the village of Puttaparthi in what is now the state of Andhra Pradesh in southern India. Accord- ing to the literature of the movement (see esp. Kasturi 1977) his birth was heralded by miracles and he exhibited uncanny powers from childhood. In 1940, at the age of fourteen, he proclaimed himself to be a re- incarnation of the celebrated Sai Baba of Shirdi-a saint who became famous in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,

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and who has continued to be the focus of a cult since his death in 1918. Sathya Sai Baba's emergence from local renown into national prominence was completed during the 1950s. In 1963, he announced himself to be an avatair (incarnation, descent) of Shiva, and is so regarded by his many followers today. It must not be imagined that the acclaim is universal. He has many detractors and is frequently accused of fraud and/or favoring only the rich and powerful. However, the size and influence of his indigenous (as opposed to international) following certainly justifies ranking him among the most important of modern India's religious personalities.

He is, among other things, a teacher, and there exists an extensive literature in which his views on a great variety of matters are presented. However, I think it is quite clear that Sathya Sai Baba's teachings, as such,are not what is most important about his cult. Devotee-informants rarely dwell on matters of doctrine, which is not surprising, for in fact there is relatively little to dwell upon, or at least nothing very distinctive. His philo- sophical views are simplistic, eclectic, and essentially unoriginal. His ethics are basically common-coin, though certainly not to be dismissed on that account. Whatever else he might feel, it is very difficult to imagine a Hindu auditor or reader of Sathya Sai Baba's discourses reacting with surprise.

Rather, what is important about what Sathya Sai Baba says is not its content, but the fact that he is the one who is saying it. When devotee-informants talk about him one does not hear about theology, but about the "pres- ence," in a variety of senses, of the deity- saint himself in their lives. What emerges as a general theme in these accounts is the same kind of visual, tactile, and even alimentary intimacy that is so central to devotional Hin- duism generally. His devotees long to see him, to hear him, to be near him, to have private audiences with him, to touch him (especially his feet) and to receive and con- sume, or use in other ways, substances and objects that have been touched by him or that originate from him.

The most striking feature of this cult, however, is the extremely strong emphasis given to the miraculous. On this point let there be no mistake: Sathya Sai Baba's miracles are crucial to what this cult is all

about. One is sometimes told, I think defen- sively, that the miracles are but a superficial aspect of his mission, but this is not the view of most of my devotee-informants who took great delight in telling of miracles they had experienced, witnessed, or of which they heard. Nor is it the view of Sathya Sai Baba himself who has characterized the miracles as "evidence" (nidarshan) of his divinity(Kasturi 1975:139) and an important means for effect- ing the kinds of inner changes in his devotees necessary for their spiritual welfare. Nor indeed is it apparently the view of non-devotee onlookers, to whom Sathya Sai Baba tends to be known primarily as a miracle worker, and who usually link the question of his credibility to the meaning and/or validity of his miracles.

The miracles in question are quite various. He is said to leave his body to aid his devotees in distant places. He cures incurable illnesses,and is even said to have raised the dead. He has turned water into gasoline by dipping his hand in it. His most important miracle-style, however, is the apparent materi- alization of objects and substances, including such things as images of deities, sweets, books, pictures of himself, amulets, jewelry, watches, and much else besides. But of all of his magical productions, the most significant by far is sacred ash (vibhuti), of which he is reported to materialize an average of over one pound per day (Kasturi 1977:140). He usually does so with a wave of his right hand, and the result is given to devotees which they consume, apply to their bodies, or use in other ways. The ash is believed to have an active power deriving from its source.

His physical presence is not necessary for miracles to occur. Many involve his appearance in dreams. He has been reported, for example, to have performed surgery on devotees while they were dreaming. It is believed, indeed, that he appears in dreams only when he wills it; thus, every dream of him is a kind of miraculous communication. Moreover, there are several "miracle-house- holds" in Delhi in which his magical influence is said to be manifested from afar. Footprints of sacred ash appear on floors, mysterious bites are taken out of edibles, garlands over his picture change position, writing appears in closed notebooks, and his pictures exude sacred ash,kumkum (a red powder) and amrit ('ambrosia,' a sweet-tasting liquid). In one

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such household devotees deposit envelopes containing inquiries and petitions at the family altar. In some of these sacred ash will appear indicating an affirmative response.

What is the meaning of these miracles? In the remaining pages I offer a few suggestions. My perspective is informant-oriented. I have never met Sathya Sai Baba,but he is not my true subject in any case. What interests me are his devotees and what they make of him, themselves, and their relations with him, and I have tried to distill from what they told me something of the inner rationale of Sathya Sai Baba's magic.

To begin with, it is clear that the miraculous is often an important factor in recruitment to the cult. Most of my informants were highly voluble about their conversion experiences which they tended to see as deeply important episodes in their life histories. The religious "alienation" noted by Bharati (1981:87) is clear in the self-portrayal of many of these informants. Their prior acquaintance with Hindu practice and doctrine appears fre- quently to have been relatively slight, and some characterize themselves as having been worldly skeptics prior to their contact with Sathya Sai Baba. Some of them were also very troubled people, though whether or not they were more troubled than India's higher bourgeoisie generally is impossible for me to say. Frequently, however, details of truly serious life difficulties emerged in their dis- course: illnesses, family problems, financial difficulties, and - something that should never be dismissed as trivial - the ennui of retirement from active professional life. I am certain that a significant number of devotees were impelled into the cult as a result of such difficulties.

But what seems to have been the critical precipitating factor in many of these cases was a direct experience of the miraculous. A powerful theme in these accounts is that of a passage from indifference or skepticism to faith through a personal confrontation with Sathya Sai Baba's powers. Thus, an ex- beefeating former military officer reported that his attitude of amused skepticism changed completely when a picture of Sathya Sai Baba seemed to appear in one of his wife's earrings. For him this was the decisive break with the past, although his faith was further consolidated when Sathya Sai Baba materi-

alized ash on his behalf and demonstrated an apparent ability to read his mind. Another informant, a U.S.-educated Panjabi business- man, recalls accompanying his father-in-law, basically as a lark, to see Sathya Sai Baba in Bangalore. Upon seeing an ash-material- ization with his own eyes he became a staunch devotee. A Panjabi chartered accountant tells of the anguish he and his wife felt upon being told by the attending physician that their soon-to-be-born child was dead in the womb. As a last resort he prayed to a picture of Sathya Sai Baba while his wife's mother (a devotee) rubbed sacred ash on his wife's body. This was the first time in his life, he says, that he had ever "really prayed." The child was born alive, and he and his wife subsequently became mainstays of the Delhi community of "Sai" devotees.

In the literature of the movement there is a personal account of a conversion that seems to be paradigmatic of the type. One of India's most distinguished scientists, an erst- while director of the All India Institute of Science, was jolted out of what was evidently a case of moderate scientific dogmatism when, before his very eyes, Sathya Sai Baba apparently produced for him a copy of the Bhagavad Gita out of a handful of sand. Having witnessed more occurrences of the same kind, he reports himself as having had to admit that he was having experiences that were beyond the capacity of his rational mind to explain; that, as he put it, Sathya Sai Baba is "beyond science" (Bhagavantham, 1976: 233).

I consider this instance paradigmatic be- cause it seems to exhibit features that are important in many conversions to the cult. That the subject is a distinguished scientist is an exemplification of the worldly sophistica- tion that seems characteristic of many of Sathya Sai Baba's key followers. And the attention given in his account to the tension between his scientific training and his belief in Sathya Sai Baba is but a particularly clear articulation of what seems to be a widely shared perception among devotees, namely that scientific rationality is fundamentally challenged and in some sense transcended by Sathya Sai Baba's magic.

Moreover, this case also illustrates well what appears to be the "threshold-crossing" or"bridge-burning" character of many conver-

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sions to the cult. For many there appears to be a moment, though it may be a protracted one, of intellectual surrender, after which what is taken to be evidence of personal experience is accepted in a way that eclipses what are, perhaps, less immediate and less felt scientific abstractions about what the world is like. It is apparent from their accounts of themselves that many converts were search- ing for something in which to believe in any case, and for them the miraculous seems to have been essentially catalytic in its effects. What is probably crucial in this process is the acknowledgement that occurs when a changed view of things is expressed in verbal or other forms of behavior (on this see Fest- inger 1964). Having said, or acted as if he believed,that the miracles are in some sense genuine, the believer is then held fast in a net of behavioral and attitudinal consistency; he cannot turn back without making nonsense of what is now a coherent pattern of conviction and action visible to an audience consisting of himself and others. At this point belief may become both stubborn and defensive in a way that is likely to drive the believer into the company of fellow believers.

But this does not advance matters very much. To suggest that Sathya Sai Baba's miracles are essentially a recruiting device would be quite misleading. For one thing, it would ignore the fact that it is possible to "believe" in the miracles without believing in Sathya Sai Baba. Many non-devotees are quite convinced that Sathya Sai Baba can materialize ash and all the rest, but do not see this as evidence of divinity. Indeed, some consider his powers to be quite sinister. But even more important, to see the miracles merely as a blandishment to potential converts would be to fail to take into account the most crucial fact of all, that the miracles have not only to do with the inception of belief, but also with its consolidation and fulfillment. If devo- tees in some sense "surrender," it is to some- thing that is apparently very meaningful to them, and it is to this that I now turn.

On this point it is best to begin with the obvious, namely that Sathya Sai Baba does not just produce impressive spectacles; he also produces things, things that are usually given to others. And even when physical items and substances are not involved, his miracles usually have a context, and this context consists of relationships between him and

particular devotees. As far as the things and substances as

such are concerned, it is obviously significant that Sathya Sai Baba materializes more sacred ash than anything else. As White has pointed out, this is a clear link with Shirdi Sai Baba, also an ash dispenser, whose reappearance Sathya Sai Baba claims to be (White 1972:874). Sacred ash is also deeply implicated in the symbolism of Shiva, and therefore, as Swallow has shown, the ash is a vital element in Sathya Sai Baba's sacred persona as the "living lingam in the yoni" (Swallow 1982:145, 147ff.).

However, what may be most important about his miraculous productions is not what he materializes, but what he does with it, for almost invariably he gives it to someone, which suggests that what matters most is not the thing in itself but the way it connects him with others - in short, its significance as a vehicle for a relationship (see also White 1972: 874). Seen in this light, it is clear that the passage of materialized objects and sub- stances from Sathya Sai Baba to his followers mobilizes very familiar patterns in Hindu devotional worship. The practice of receiving a deity's or august personage'sprasad (grace- as-leavings) has been too well described to require much comment, save to note that among other things it seems to involve the transfer of some desirable quality of the donor (the deity) to the ingesting recipient who is thereby benefitted (Marriott 1976). Uningestible objects can have the same properties; the garland or garment recovered from the altar are examples. In the case of Sathya Sai Baba the ash, the amrit, the sweets, and all the other paraphernalia of his magic are obviously functional equivalents of this. Produced by his power, they in some sense embody his power, which is then trans- ferred beneficially, his "grace," to the recip- ients. Thus, the ash cures illnesses, and the amulets and all the rest, far from being mere souvenirs, protect the ingestors and posses- sors from harm.

Indeed, these items and substances seem to be conceived as media for their donor's actual presence. When Sathya Sai Baba presents his devotees with materialized ob- jects he often says that through them he will be close to the recipients. One informant recalled that when "Baba" (what he is usually called in conversation; also "Swami") pre-

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sented him with a materialized ring he stated that between the ring and himself there was a "golden thread" which would insure that as long as the ring was worn he would always be there. This same motif of "presence" seems to be involved in most of his miracles. When he transports himself to other locations it is, of course, to be near some devotee in a time of great need. And the real meaning of the startling phenomena in the miracle-house- holds - the footprints, the materializations of ash and amrit from pictures, and so on - is that he is really there, even if he does not appear to be. What all this suggests is that the power that is carried or manifested by the substances and objects he gives to others is not simply an impersonal force of some kind, but arises in the context of interactions and relations between the deity-saint and particular others; it is not power "as such," but power-as-presence in the life of specific persons.:

But I have not yet touched upon another crucial feature of Sathya Sai Baba's miracles, and indeed of most of his acts, and this is their apparent indeterminacy. Though not as evident in the literature of the cult, one of the most striking themes in informants' accounts of their relationships with Sathya Sai Baba is the apparent capriciousness of what he does. Nobody ever really knows when or for whom he will produce ash or objects, or when or on whom he will bestow other kinds of favors. He often does so when least expected, "out of the blue." He surrounds himself with an atmosphere of surprise; he is playful and mischievous (natkhat, a word used by a Hindi- speaking informant), and even a bit of a tease. For example, in early 1979 many devotees believed that he would be coming to Delhi in March. One informant, a strong devotee, recalled to me later that he had asked him to come and that "Baba" had told him that he would. But he did not come, and when my informant related this tale to some people who are quite close to the deity-saint they laughed and said, "You didn't actually believe him, did you?" This remark and the incident that occasioned it are entirely conso- nant with the atmosphere of the cult. Another informant told of how during a visit to the ashram at Puttaparthi "Baba" had refused to allow him to touch his feet, but then later quite inexplicably called him for that most

desirable of boons, a personal interview. This kind of thing, he said, is "Baba's lila" (play, sport), then adding, "he does what he wants." Such stories are extremely common.

Of course one might interpret such in- stances as simply the inevitable consequences of the hubbub and confusion surrounding a deity-saint with a national following - "Baba" forgetting to whom he had said what. But this would be to miss an important point, for within the tradition in which Sathya Sai Baba operates unaccountability is an extremely important characteristic of divinity.

In the Hindu world, the gods are playful. David Kinsley has pointed out that divine play expresses the "otherness" of the deities. The gods are free; they act, "...but their acts cannot be understood simply within the struc- ture of theological or ethical systems. In their complete otherness, their actions can only be called lila...'sport,"'play,' or'dalliance' (Kins- ley 1979:xi). But even as the play of the gods expresses divine otherness, it also expresses nearness and intimacy. The gods "play with" their devotees, and their play can therefore define a certain kind of relationship. "Like a love affair, to which it is repeatedly compared," Kinsley writes, "the devotee's relationship to God is constantly changing, full of surprises, hidden delights and ecstacies. It is unpredict- able and spontaneous. It is an end in itself" (1979: 202).

Kinsley's phrasing, it seems to me, captures well a very important aspect of Sathya Sai Baba's demeanor as perceived by many of his devotees. When one devotee recalled feeling a nearly irresistable urge to "pinch his cheek," I believe him to have been expressing a sentiment arising from a powerful image of "Baba" as playful child. His miracles are, of course, evidences of extraordinary powers; but extraordinary powers are nothing new in the Hindu world. However, the fact that his devotees usually refer to his miracles as his "lilas," his sports, puts them in a different perspective. They are not mere "wonders" (chamatkar),nor are they to be likened to the magical "accomplishments" (siddhi) of human adepts. To understand them as lila is to raise them to a much higher level. Their very essence is "play" and as such they are expressions of divine unaccountability. At this level the very haphazardness of his acts becomes a kind of evidence in support of his

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claims. Moreover, the emphasis on the play- fulness of his divine character insists that his acts be understood within a special context, that of relations with particular others, his "playmates." These relationships are intimate, full of surprise and delight (though sometimes pain as well), and, finally, ends in themselves.

But are Sathya Sai Baba's acts unaccount- able in any simple sense? Apparenlty not, for although informants portray an essentially unpredictable "Baba," they also subject his acts to certain kinds of interpretation, and this strikes me as an extremely interesting fact. For example, one informant recalled that Sathya Sai Baba once promised him a golden locket, but then failed to deliver. He now realizes, this informant went on to say, that the only reason he wanted the locket was to "show off," and thus the apparently broken promise was a valuable lesson in humility. Indeed, Sathya Sai Baba himself sometimes interprets his own acts. As every- one knows, he can cure the apparently incur- able. But he does not always do so, for as he himself said to one of my informants, it is occasionally best that the heavy karmic debts of the past be repaid. Therefore, the unaccount- ability of his acts seems in essence to be prospective; one can never be quite sure of what he is going to do next (though he of course knows). But retrospectively his acts are at least susceptible to certain kinds of interpretation.

His apparent capriciousness is obviously compelled by the theodicy dilemma as it impinges on his relationships with devotees. Human ignorance and divine omniscience are the essential conditions for this. Sathya Sai Baba knows everything; we do not. "He knows we are standing here now," one in- formant said to me. He therefore knows, as devotees never tire of saying, everyone's "past, present and future." His favors are certainly bestowed on some whom the world regards as virtuous, but not always; nor is it always clear that they are withheld from the less than virtuous. But it must be remembered that it is not within the power of human understanding to know who, in fact, is de- serving, particularly in a world governed by karmic cause and effect extending beyond single earthly lifespans. Not only do we not know what is hidden in the hearts of others, or for that matter even our own, but we can

have no idea at all of the world-careers of the selves that we are and that surround us. Knowing nothing of these things, even a loving Lord's favor must seem inexplicable to us. All that we can really conclude, in fact, is that even his apparent indifference is his love. Stated otherwise, against the back- ground of the misfortunes that occur even in the lives of devotees, it is possible that Sathya Sai Baba's favor must be unaccount- able to be believable. In this context the very opacity of his acts becomes evidence of his divine omniscience.

Sathya Sai Baba's acts thus represent a curious amalgam of determination and in- determination. It is a question of points of view. From a limited human perspective he seems inexplicable. But imbedded in the discourse of his cult seems to be an as- sumption that there exists some frame of reference within which his acts are but the visible exterior of an activity that is inwardly deeply meaningful. This does not mean that his acts can ever be in any human sense finally accountable. Although he may allude to his purposes in explaining to a devotee why, say, the illness of a child was not cured, I do not believe that the idea that "if one only knew what he knows then everything he does would seem inevitable" is really at the fore- front of devotees' minds. I, in any case, have never heard such an idea deployed in talk about him. But what is implicit in such talk is the idea that his acts are not meaningless.

Hence, a paradox and an apparent con- tradiction in terms: we are dealing, it would seem, with determined indetermination. But somewhere in the conceptual chasm between the accountable and the unaccountable there is another possibility which may be (as the writings of Clifford Geertz suggest; see esp. 1966) uniquely the domain of religious thought and experience. It is possible, that is, for something to be meaningful without being fully accountable. I think Sathya Sai Baba's play is an example of this. When an informant says that the purpose of some instance of apparent indifference is to demolish pride, the point is not only that where Sathya Sai Baba finds pride he demolishes it (though this a major theme in his relations with devotees), but that there is something about his acts, however obscure they may seem to us, that permits such explications - right or

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wrong - reasonably to be made. What we do not know, he knows; and thus even if his play encompasses its own ends, this does not mean that it is pointless.

However, to present Sathya Sai Baba's divine persona as if it were merely some kind of occasion for abstract karmic calculations would be quite misleading. What would then be left out is what is most present in in- formants' accounts of their relationships with him: very powerful feelings. What must be stressed is the strong emphasis on love-in- intimacy that is so characteristic of devotees' accounts of their feelings about him, even when such relations are to all outside ap- pearances far from intimate; indeed, in the ideological framework of the cult such re- lations can and do exist even when there has been no physical encounter with "Baba" at all. Sathya Sai Baba does not so much have relationships with devotees "in general" as he has specific relationships with particular devotees for whom these relationships are charged with deep personal meaning. But what is this meaning? I believe it has in part to do with questions of identity.

In the South Asian religious milieu ques- tions of personal identity are, of course, fundamental, and this, in turn, has to do with the meaning of experience. Everyday ex- perience, the experience of oneself as an organic being, and as an actor and alter in social roles, supplies the basis for a certain conception of self. But this self, defined and sustained through sensory engagement with the world, is in some sense a false self, and the aim of soteriological strategies is to "know" the real self that lies hidden under the detritus of normal worldly endeavor and attachment. Such knowledge, however, is not pure intellection, remote from experience. Rather, it too is grounded in experience, though of an utterly different kind, an exper- ience that is, in many systems at least, intensely inward and achieved through ar- duous cultivation of contemplative insight. Here the real truth about the self is disclosed in a direct, unmediated apprehension. Such an experience ideally leaves as its residue the conviction that this more intensely, strik- ingly and intuitively experienced identity su- persedes the person one previously thought oneself to be.

The fact that human ignorance and divine

omniscience are implicated in the question of what Sathya Sai Baba's acts mean, to- gether with the highly personal dimension these acts seem to possess for many devotees, suggests to me that similar questions of identity may be involved, though somewhat differently modulated. Who is the devotee? The point is, the devotee himself cannot really know. He knows neither the worst about himself, nor in a kind of inversion of Puritanism, the best. But Sathya Sai Baba does know. He knows the real devotee, "past, present and future," that bundle of motives and inclinations embarked on a trans- temporal world career. Or, rather, when he interacts with his devotee the relationship in some measure defines a self, as all social interactions do, but because of his unique character, and especially his omniscience, the self so defined cannot be the evident one. The self known to, watched over, and loved by"Baba" is more inclusive, less partial, and in some sense truer than the one of which the devotee- and all human others- are normally aware.

Interaction with "Baba" is an experience, and a highly vivid one, or at least so the accounts of informants suggest. And given its context, such interaction has the potential to be an experiential basis for a devotee's confidence that he is somehow more than he seems to be, that the identity with which he is familiar is not, after all, the one that matters most. But here the revelation is apparently not, as in other instances, something arising from a cultivated experience of the self, but rather occurs by indirection, borrowed from what the devotees believed to be the reaction to the self of a very special other. 3 I am certainly not suggesting that the result of this is something as simple as mere self-esteem buttressed by apparent divine approbation. "Pride," as we have noted, can be demolished by encounters with "Baba." Indeed, what is remarkable about relationships between the deity-saint and his devotees is that even his apparent indifference or neglect can be seen as somehow positive in implication. Informants speak of what is apparently a very common experience of new devotees: strong affirm- ative reactions from "Baba" at first, followed by coolness and neglect. But this does not matter, for his indifference is only apparent, and never a matter of neglect. The point is,

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beyond mere pride or self-esteem there is something else that devotees, through "Baba," can come to feel about themselves something that, for those who pass the test of his apparent neglect or indifference, is seemingly more valuable than self-esteem.

But what is it? Or rather, who is this person who is in some way "completed" through a relationship with "Baba"? It is not easy to say; indeed, I am far from sure that devotees themselves have very coherent ideas about this, and in any case the ultimate rewards of devotion to Sathya Sai Baba are certainly idiosyncratic, depending on highly specific features of individual life-experiences. At the level of general symbolism, however, certain broad themes are evident, at least in outer contour. Such a person is certainly a safer person, being under the Lord's direct protection; but of course this does not mean that such a person is unaffected by the often painful vicissitudes of life as it must be in this world. Such a person is also in some sense a more valuable person; but the worth in ques- tion is not necessarily visible on the surfaces of things, for it is fully realized only in the knowledge of an all-knowing other. This is a knowledge the devotee cannot ever share; his only possible communication with it comes from a sense of that divine other's intimate, personal presence in his life. Such a person is also a more loved person, for this love, being all-knowing, is all-forgiving. Cer- tainly too, such a person may have a basis for heightened salvationary expectations, but I must add that there was very little talk of soteriological matters in the discourse of my informants.

In fact I believe that many of his devotees are more serene persons as a result of their relationship with "Baba." This would be consistent with Sathya Sai Baba's own em- phasis on "courage" (Kasturi 1977), and per- haps also with his promise that the sincere devotee will have his darshan (sight) at the

moment of death. When informants speak, as they often do, of the "peace of mind" they get from Sathya Sai Baba I think they are referring to a genuine inner sense of security which the deity-saint's presence, in whatever medium, confers.

In any case, I hope that these points may in some measure help to explain what may seem at first glance to be a mere credulous innocence in people who ought to know better. That such people seem to be the ones who "ought to know better" has at least provoked our query, and if nothing else we have learned that while Sathya Sai Baba's magic is certainly in tension with scientific rationality, it engages with it only obliquely. The so-called miracles seem to derive their real energy from their role as media for deity- devotee relationships. This being so, it is finally these relationships for which the mir- acles are "evidence," and therefore it is on the basis of a devotee's feeling about such relationships that his final assessment of the "validity" of the miracles is likely to be for- mulated. Put differently, the deity-saint's acts, of which the miracles are considered by devotees to be quintessential examples, have as much to do with a devotee's feelings about himself as about Sathya Sai Baba and the things he can or cannot do; or, rather, in this context his feelings about himself and about "Baba" are conflated. This is Sathya Sai Baba's true magic. Whatever the devotee's inner understanding of himself may in the end turn out to be (and here we must be agnostic) to the degree that this understanding is valued by the devotee, he must believe that the miracles are genuine. Therefore, as good as Sathya Sai Baba's theatrics may be, and by all accounts they are very good indeed, the true source of the verisimilitude of his self-presentation lies only partly in physical appearances. At least as important is his devotees' assent to their own hopefulness about themselves.

1 24 ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

NOTES

The research on which this paper is based took place in Delhi between July 1978 and May 1979, and was supported by an Indo-American Fellowship. I would like to thank colleagues at the Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, for the hospitality, help and intellectual companionship so generously given during my stay in Delhi. I would also like to thank the many devotees of Sathya Sai Baba who aided me in my inquiries. A previous version of this paper was delivered toa panel at the annual meetings of the American Academy of Religion in New York, December 1982.

2 To this I must add, however, that the worship of Sathya

Sai Baba has collective, communitarian dim mensions too, as does the worship of any Hindu deity. His devotees are a community of believers, and the ties that bind them can, at least in principle, transcend social boundaries of other kinds. On this point see White (1972:875).

SI think the principle of "borrowed" points of view may be more important in Hindu religious culture than is generally realized. See Babb (1982).

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Anthropological Quarterly July 1983, Vol 56:3