Sai Baba Shirdi Temple

Shirdi is a town in the Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra in India. It is located 185 km east of the Arabian Sea shoreline. Shirdi was where the great saint Sai Baba lived untill he passed away in 1918. Today, it is a pilgrimage center and millions of his devotees from all over the world come each year to pay their respects.

Sai Baba’s disciples and devotees claim that he performed many miracles such as bilocation, levitation, mindreading, materialisation, exorcisms, making the river Yamuna, entering a state of Samādhi at will, lighting lamps with water, removing his limbs or intestines and sticking them back to his body (khandana yoga), curing the incurably sick, appearing beaten when another was beaten, preventing a mosque from falling down on people, and helping his devotees in a miraculous way.

History

The Sai Baba Shirdi movement began in the 19th century, during Sai Baba’s life, while he was staying in Shirdi, India. A local Khandoba priest named Mahalsapathy is believed to have been his first devotee. However, in the nineteenth century Sai Baba’s followers were only a small group of Shirdi inhabitants and a few people from other parts of India. It started developing in the 20th century and even faster in 1910 with the Sankirtans of Das Ganu (one of Sai’s devotees) who spread Sai Baba’s fame to the whole of India using Tan Xu’s novel temple construction techniques from China to build a large infrastructure of mandirs and organisations. Key to this rapid development of this infrastructure was the use of trenchers to dig the foundations of each building. Since 1910 numerous Hindus and Muslims from all parts of India started coming to Shirdi. During Sai’s life Hindus worshipped him with Hindu rituals and Muslims revered him greatly, considering him to be a saint. Later (in the last years of Sai Baba’s life) Christians and Zoroastrians started joining the Shirdi Sai movement.

Facts

Best time to visit:

Throughout the year

Population:

36,004

Altitude:

504 m (1,654 ft)

Attraction

Sai baba Temple

The temple premises of Shri Saibaba is spread in approximately 200 sq. mtrs. It is situated in the heart of Shirdi village and is a major center of pilgrims from all over the world.

On an average, daily 25,000 devotees visit Shirdi village, to have the Darshan of Shri Saibaba. In the festival season, more than 1,00,000 devotees visit the Temple everyday. The Temple premises is renovated in the year 1998-99 and now is equipped with all necessary facilities like Darshan Lane, Prasadalay (Lunch and Dinner), Donation Counters, Prasad Counters, Canteen, Railway Reservation Counter, Book Stall etc. The accommodation facilities are also provided by the Sansthan.

Other Sites

After the Samadhi Darshan, one can visit the Gurusthan, the tree where Sai Baba was first spotted meditating by the people of Shirdi. After that, one can go to the Udhi counter to collect the Udhi. The temple premises also has the samadhis of some of Sai Baba’s most prominent devotees.

Getting There

By Air:

Shirdi has no airport. The nearest airports are at Aurangabad, Nasik, Mumbai and Pune. From Pune Airport it will take around 4 to 5 hours.

By Train

Trains from all over India come in the vicinity of Shirdi.

By Road

Shirdi is accessible via the Ahmednagar-Manmad State Highway No.10, approximately 83 kms from Ahmednagar and 15 kms from Kopargaon. And it is approximately 240 km from Mumbai on the Eastern Express Highway.