SREE SAI SAMARTHA SATCHARITA – Foreword Part 6

SREE SAI SAMARTHA SATCHARITA – Part 6
-Foreword to First Marathi Edition by Hari Sitaram Dikshit alias Kakasaheb Dikshit

Nanasaheb’s second major service was to publicise Maharaj’s fame and let people have the benefit of Maharaj’s blessings. As he had been a Mamlatdar and later, a Deputy Collector, earlier on he had to go on a lot of tours. Nanasaheb was also responsible even for the benefit of a darshan of Maharaj for the undersigned author.

Thousands of persons from Bombay and Thane District took the benefit of Maharaj’s darshan and were filled with joy. Nanasaheb was responsible for that. Two other persons besides Nanasaheb, were responsible for drawing and attracting the people from Bombay. One of them was Ganesh Dattatreya Sahasrabudhe alias Das Ganu. He used to work in the Police Department earlier. He was very engrossed with ‘tamasha’21. He came for Maharaj’s darshan due to Nanasaheb; and slowly, slowly Maharaj had such an effect on his mind that he left his job and began the work publicising the story of the saint through ‘kirtans’22 and books. He continues this work even to-day. He has authored Bhakta Leelamrut, Sant Kathamrut, Bhaktisaramrut
relating to the lives of saints; besides he has commented in simple and beautiful Marathi on the
Isavasyo Upanishad and Sree Dñyaneshwar Maharaj’s Amrutanubhava. Besides these, he is the author of several other books. By bringing him from Bombay, Nanasaheb Chandorkar provided the residents of Bombay with kirtans full of the nectar of bhakti and through them the pleasure
of hearing about Maharaj’s attributes and nature. Thanks to his kirtans, large crowds from Bombay and places close to Bombay became keen to take Maharaj’s darshan and also went for the darshan. The second person mentioned above, was the undersigned author himself. By his staying at Maharaj’s feet, at this time, for long spells naturally withdrawing from the social activities he got publicity as having become a ‘Baba’, (that is a sanyasi or vairagi) in Parsi and other newspapers, and therefore considerable number of persons came for darshan of Him who was instrumental in effecting this transformation. From 1910 approximately, the numbers coming for Maharaj’s darshan began to increase substantially.

When Nanasaheb Chandorkar came here, there was not a single wada23 to stay for the people, who came for darshan. But Maharaj remedied this deficiency very shortly. Rao Bahadur Hari Vinayak Sathe was the Deputy Collector of the Zilla. A long time had passed since the death of his first wife. But he had no desire to remarry. As he had no son his circle of friends was urging him to remarry. Later, it was decided that he would take Maharaj’s darshan and act according to his wishes. Accordingly he came for darshan. Maharaj told him to remarry and also blessed him with the boon of a son. Rao Bahadur selected a girl and asked her father Ganesh Damodar Kelkar to present her to Maharaj.

Accordingly when that girl came there Maharaj filled her sari ‘pallu’24 with a Watermelon and applied kumkum to her forehead. Later, at the proper time, the marriage took place and soon
thereafter, as suggested by Maharaj, he purchased the land surrounding the margosa tree, already described earlier and built a wada there. Thereby, the people coming for darshan had
residential facilities. Later after three years, Maharaj got a wada built by the undersigned and thereafter got a wada built by the Nagpur millionaire Gopalrao alias Bapusaheb Buty. This wada
is huge and being built of stone is strong and it cost a lot of money. It appears that there is no comparable building in Shirdi or in the nearby vicinity or taluka. Maharaj’s samadhi is in this
wada.

Soon, Shirdi took on the trappings of a samsthan25. Aratis26 were done of Maharaj and, at the time of the arati, whisks, parasols and other insignia of royalty were used. When Maharaj went to the chavadi musical instruments, horse, palkhi27, chopdar28, singers of bhajans29, flags and banners and all such paraphernalia accompanied him. The Chavadi was decorated with mirrors, lamps, chandeliers and photographs. The Masjid’s and the chavadi’s floorings were laid
with tiles etc. All the credit for this goes to Sundarabai Kshirsagar alias Radhakrishna-ayi. It
would not be out of place to say that she was the guru of loving bhakti. She did not have wealth,
but surrendering her body and mind to Maharaj she had obtained from different devotees of Maharaj different items and thus well established the Shirdi Samsthan. By ill luck her life ended early, that is when she was only 35. She was here only for 8 to 9 years. But in that short time she achieved what perhaps might have taken another 25 years or more.

It was due to this lady, that Maharaj’s night aratis and the kakad aratis in the early morning hours started in the chavadi. Maharaj did not even allow His puja30 in the earlier times. The
first puja was allowed to be done by Mhalsapati. After quite a while, Nimgaon’s Sitaram Dengle came to do puja but Maharaj got angry with him, allowing His puja in the end. Some time later
Nanasaheb Chandorkar’s younger son Mahadev alias Bapu was allowed to do puja satisfactorily, and thereafter all got general permission to do puja. But at that time Maharaj did not allow his
aratis to be done. After some time the privilege of doing the first arati was received by Tatyasaheb Noolkar. Being the Civil Judge at Pandharpur, he had become ill and came here on leave; with the desire that he should leave his job and spend the rest of his life at Maharaj’s feet; and in the end, that is what happened.