During visits to Prasanti Nilayam I was able to inspect the village of Satya Sai Baba's birth and talk to members of his family living there. The village, Puttaparti, lies about a quarter of a mile from the ashram itself. It is a small, sun-bleached place of whitewashed houses and narrow, sandy streets.

The actual house where Baba first saw the light of day is now reduced to a few bits of broken brick wall, but his two elder sisters and a younger brother still live in the village in houses of their own. His older brother resides in another town, his mother lives in the ashram and his father is dead. However, although I met and talked to members of the family and some old friends, it was from the historian Kasturi that I had the main facts about Sai Baba's background, birth and childhood.

The most outstanding figure in his family background was his paternal grandfather, Kondama Raju. This gentleman seems to have been a small landlord, owning farmlands even some distance away from Puttaparti. He was not rich but sufficiently well-off to dedicate a temple to the goddess Satyabhama, the consort of Lord Krishna. He is remembered chiefly for the devout religious life he led. Also as an outstanding musician and actor he took a leading part in the village religious dramas and operas, produced at Puttaparti and other centres nearby. In those days this was the main form of village entertainment. Many of the dramatic performances were drawn from the great Indian spiritual epics such as the Ramayana. One version of this very long work is given as a series of songs, and Kondama Raju knew the whole of it by heart.

In his old age his many grandchildren used to gather around him in the cottage where he lived alone, as he brought to life the wonderful Ramayana tales of gods and god-men. A constant member of his young fascinated audience was the little boy Satyanarayana, known today as Satya Sai Baba. This education of the grandchildren in the mythology and spiritual lore of the great epics and puranas went on for many years; the grand old man lived to be 110, dying in 1950 at Puttaparti with a song of the mighty Rama on his lips.

Twenty-four years earlier in the year 1926 at the home of Kondama's son, Pedda Raju, a coming event was being signalled by some strange signs. Pedda's offspring at this time consisted of one son and two daughters and now, following a long period of hopes, prayers and pujas to the household gods, his wife Easwaramma was again pregnant. Her prayers had been for another son, and as the time drew near her hopes were high. But she was puzzled too, for many unheard-of things were happening in the house.

For instance, the big tamboura leaning against the living-room wall would sometimes twang in the middle of the night when no one was near to play it, and the maddala (drum) on the floor would throb in the darkness as if an expert hand were beating it. But no hand could be seen. What could be the meaning of such things?

A priest, learned in the lore of the unseen, told them that these events indicated the presence of a beneficent power and foretold an auspicious birth.

The year 1926 was known as Akshaya, meaning the "Never-declining, Ever-full" year, and November 23rd is always, according to the old calendar, a day to be devoted to the worship of the god of great blessings, Siva. Moreover in this year a certain juxtaposition of the stars made the day even more auspicious for Siva worship. So the villagers were already out chanting the names of Siva when the rising sun outlined the purple rocky hills beyond the yellow sands of the Chitravati river. And it was just at that moment as the sun showed its face above the horizon that under the eaves of Pedda Raju's cottage the child Satyanarayana was born. He was given this name because the mother's pujas and prayers had been to that particular form and name of God. Actually Narayana is another appellation for Vishnu, the second in the Hindu Trinity, while - satya is Sanskrit for truth, or reality; so "Satyanarayana" can be taken to mean the "true all-pervading God". There is nothing odd or profane in the Indian custom of naming a child in this way; most Indians, men and women, bear one or more of the thousand names of God.

Soon after his birth the baby was placed on some bedclothes on the floor. Presently the women in the room saw the clothes moving up and down in a peculiar way as if there were something alive underneath. There was. A cobra. But the snake did not harm the child.

Whatever the people present may have thought at the time, this appearance of a cobra in the lying-in room is now regarded by many of Baba's devotees as very significant, the cot a being one of the symbols of Siva. Also Sai Baba of Shirdi had, it was said, on several occasions appeared to his followers in the form of a cobra.

From the beginning the baby was the pet of the village, loved for his beauty, ready smile and sweet nature. When Satya began to run about the dusty street and adventure across the mud of the paddy fields and the barren hills beyond, there were certain characteristics that made him stand out from his young companions. Unlike most boys he had a tender heart for all creatures, human or otherwise. He could not bear to cause or to see suffering. This made him a natural vegetarian from an early age among the meat-eaters around him.

Said Mr. Kasturi: "He kept away from places where pigs or sheep, cattle or fowl were killed or tortured, or where fish were trapped or caught; he avoided kitchens and vessels used for cooking flesh or fowl. When a bird was selected and talked about by someone in connection with dinner Satyanarayana, the little boy, would run towards it and clasp it to his bosom, and fondle it as if the extra love he poured on it would induce the elders to relent and spare the fowl. He was called by the neighbours Brahmajnani on account of this type of aversion and his measure of love towards creation."

Furthermore, although fleet of foot, fond of outdoor sports and a leading scout, Satya would have nothing to do with sports involving ill-treatment to animals, such as cock-fighting, bear-baiting, or the cruel bullock-cart races that were sometimes held in the soft sands of the dry river-bed.

Many beggars came to the cottage door and if little Satya were there none would be turned away without something to eat. More than this, when he met cripples and blind people in the street he would bring them home and insist that his mother or elder sisters gave them food. Sometimes the family became irritated by these constant and expensive demands. Once his mother said. "Look here! If we give the beggars food you will have to starve yourself." This threat did not daunt the child at all. He agreed at once that he would stay away from lunch that day - and he did. Nothing could persuade him to come to his plate.

The same thing happened frequently, and it was through such events that the family had a first glimpse of the strange things which were to take place concerning the child. On one occasion when he had really outshone himself with beggar-feeding from the family larder he decided to stay away from meals for several days. Although he persisted in this he showed no indications of hunger, and he carried on his activities without any signs of weakness. When his worried mother begged him to eat he told her that he had already filled his stomach with delicious balls of milk-rice. Where did he get them, she asked. Why an old man, Tata, had given them to him. No one had ever seen or heard of such a person, and the mother would not believe little Satya's story. But he held up his right hand for her to smell, for like most Indians the Raju family ate with their hands rather than with cutlery. From the boy's palm the mother inhaled a fine fragrance of ghee, milk and curds - of a quality she had seldom experienced before. So the child whose sympathy for hungry strangers robbed his own plate was nourished by some mysterious unseen visitor. What could this mean?

Satya began his formal education at the village school where he showed himself bright and quick in learning. His special talents were, like those of his grandfather, for drama, music, poetry and acting. He was even writing songs for the village opera at the age of eight.

At about that age he went on to the Higher Elementary School at Bukkapatnam about two and a half miles away. One of the teachers who knew him there remembered him as an "unostentatious, honest, well-behaved boy". Another wrote in a book, published in 1944, that Satya often used to come a little early to school, collect the children around him, and conduct worship (puja) using a holy image or picture and some flowers he had gathered for the purpose. Even if the boys were not attracted to the religious ceremony in itself he had no difficulty in gathering them around him because of the things which he used sometimes to "produce" for their pleasure or help. From an empty bag he would take sweets and fruits, or if a comrade had lost a pencil or rubber, he would "produce" one of those from the bag. If someone was sick, he would bring out "herbs from the Himalayas", and give these as a cure.

When the children asked him how he performed such wonderful, magical feats he would say that a certain "Grama Sakti" obeyed his will and gave him whatever he wanted. The children had little difficulty in believing in unseen beings, or in accepting that Satya had a faithful invisible helper. After all, he was their leader in most activities - in dramatics, athletics, and scouting for instance, and some boys began to call him their "guru".

So when Satya went on to the high school at Uravakonda, he found that his fame had spread there before him. Mr. Kasturi writes in his book[4] on Sai Baba: "Boys told each other that he was a fine writer in Telugu, a good musician, a genius in dance, wiser than his teachers, able to peer into the past and peep into the future. Authentic stories of his achievements and divine powers were on everybody's lips

"Every teacher was anxious to be assigned some work in the section to which he was admitted; some out of curiosity, some out of veneration, and some out of a mischievous impulse to prove it all absurd. Satya soon became the pet of the entire school ... He was the leader of the school prayer group. He ascended the dais every day when the entire school assembled for prayer before commencing work, and it was his voice that sanctified the air and inspired both teachers and taught to dedicate themselves to their allotted tasks."

Satya's elder brother, Seshama, was a teacher at this High School, and he did his best to promote the family's ambition that young Satya might be educated for a good position as a government officer. But things were moving rapidly towards an event that was to change all such worldly ambitions. It was one of these profound and shattering experiences which, in one form or another, seem often if not always to precede the missions of great teachers and inspirers of mankind.

At seven o'clock on the evening of March 8th 1940, Satya, while walking barefooted on the open ground, leapt into the air with a loud shriek, holding one toe of his right foot. In the area there were lots of big black scorpions and his companions immediately thought that he must have been bitten by one. But in the dusk they could not find the black culprit. Everyone was very concerned because of the local belief that no one could survive either a snake or scorpion bite in Uravakonda. This superstition seems related to the fact that Uravakonda is dominated by a hill crowned by a hundred-foot boulder in the shape of a hooded serpent. In fact, the place name itself means "Serpent-hill".

However, Satya slept that night without any signs of pain or sickness and seemed quite normal next day. Everyone was greatly relieved. Then at seven in the evening, twenty-four hours after the supposed scorpion bite, the thirteen-year-old boy fell down unconscious; his body became stiff and his breathing faint. His brother, Seshama, brought a doctor who gave an injection and left a mixture to be taken when the boy regained consciousness. But Satya remained unconscious throughout the night.

Next day consciousness returned but the boy was by no means normal in behaviour. He seemed at times to be a different person. He seldom answered when spoken to; he had little interest in food; he would suddenly burst into song or, poetry, sometimes quoting long Sanskrit passages far beyond anything learned in his formal education and training. Off and on he would become stiff, appearing to leave his body and go somewhere else. At times he would have the strength of ten, at others he was "as weak as a lotus-stalk''. There was much alternate laughter and weeping, but occasionally he would become very serious and give a discourse on the highest Vedanta philosophy. Sometimes he spoke of God; sometimes he described far-off places of pilgrimage to which - certainly during his life as Satyanarayana Raju - he had never been.

The parents came from Puttaparti, several doctors were consulted and prescribed various treatments, but there was no change in the patient. Many people thought that an evil spirit had taken possession of the boy perhaps as a result of someone's black magic. So a number of exorcists tried their arts to invoke the evil spirit and transfer it to a lamb or fowl. But all to no avail.

Finally the parents took Satya to a place near Kadiri where there was an exorcist of great repute. This expert in devil-craft was a Shakti worshipper before whom, it was said, "no evil spirit dare wag its poison tail". His appearance alone was enough to scare minor fiends away: he was of gigantic stature, with blood-red eyes, wild aspect and untamed manners. He seemed to work on the general principle that if he made the body of his patient suffer sufficiently the occupying demon would grow tired of the discomfort and leave it.

First of all the fierce exorcist went through the ritual of sacrificing a fowl and a lamb and making the boy sit in the centre of a circle of blood while he chanted his incantations. Then he shaved Satya's head and with a sharp instrument scored three crosses on the scalp, scratching so deeply that the blood flowed. On these open wounds he poured the juice of limes, garlic and other acid fruits.

The parents, who were watching this treatment, were appalled at its severity; they were also amazed that Satya made not the slightest murmur and gave no sign whatever of suffering. Apparently, if there was a spirit tenant he too was immune, for he gave no notice of intention to quit.

The relentless exorcist arranged that every day in the early morning, 108 pots of cold water be poured over the markings on the scalp. This was done for several days, while other rough treatments went on, such as beating the boy on the joints with a heavy stick.

Finally the Shakti-worshipper decided to use his strongest weapon, reserved for the most recalcitrant demons. This is the "Kalikam", which is described as a mixture- of all the painful acidic abracadabra in the repertory of torture. He applied the "Kalikam" to Satya's eyes. The boy's body shook under the impact of pain, his face and head turned red and swelled beyond recognition, the eyes shrunk to thin tear-exuding slits.

The parents and elder sister, who was also present, wept in anguish at the sight. Satya did not speak, but made signs for them to await him outside. When he came out he asked them to go and fetch a remedy he knew. It was brought and applied to the boy's eyes: the swelling subsided and the eyes opened to their normal size.

When he discovered what had happened the witch-doctor was enraged at this "interference with his treatment", as he called it. He had been within an inch of driving the demon from the boy, he fumed. But the parents had witnessed quite enough. They paid his fees and mollified him with the statement that they would build up the boy's stamina and then bring him back for a further course of the great man's learned exorcism. Then they took Satya away, still evidently possessed by the "demon" who would quote long Sanskrit verses, discourse learnedly on Vedanta philosophy and cryptically on ethics, could sing lovely sacred, songs and call for the performance of Arati (a sacred ritual and song) because "the gods are passing across the sky".

The parents continued to take Satya to medical doctors and various kinds of healers, but no treatment seemed to make any difference. Two months passed by in this vain endeavour to get the boy back to a "normal state". He had not returned to high school, and was still at home in Puttaparti.

On the morning of May 23rd Satya called around him the members of the household, except his father who was busy at his produce store. With a wave of his hand the boy took from the air sugar candy and flowers and distributed them among those present. Soon the neighbours began to crowd in. Satya in a jovial mood "produced' more candy and flowers, and also a ball of rice cooked in milk for each person. The news that his son was performing apparent siddhis before a crowd of people reached Pedda.

Suddenly the father overflowed with anger and resentment. Wasn't it enough that the boy had caused them all this worry and strain over the last two months. Now he must be making a public show of himself with stupid tricks; hiding things and producing them by sleight-of-hand, no doubt - although where the boy had learned such legerdemain he had no idea. As Satya had for a long time been able to do inexplicable things, perhaps it was not just jugglery after all but something worse black magic, sorcery!

Thus with bitter thoughts Pedda found himself a stout cane and went to the house. As he pushed through the crowd someone ordered him to go and wash himself before approaching the giver of boons. This incensed and angered him still more. Standing before his 13-year-old son and waving the stick threateningly, he shouted:

''This is too much! It must stop! What are you? Tell me - a ghost, or a god, or a madcap?"

Satya regarded his wrathful, distraught father and the upraised stick. Then he said calmly and firmly, "I am Sai Baba. ''

Pedda stood staring silently at his son, while the cane slid from his hands. Satya continued, addressing all present, "I have come to ward off your troubles; keep your houses clean and pure."

A member of the family - approached him and asked: "What do you mean by 'Sai Baba'?"

He replied enigmatically: "Your Venkavadhoota prayed that I be born in your family; so I came."

In the Raju family there was a tradition of a great sage named Venkavadhoota, an ancestor who had been looked upon as a guru by the people of hundreds of villages around the area. But only a few of the old folk gathered that morning around the. Raju cottage had ever heard of anyone called "Sai Baba". Those who had heard the name had no idea who he was. "Baba" was, they all knew, a Muslim word and Pedda thought that perhaps his son was possessed by the spirit of a Muslim fakir.

The villagers who heard about it felt some trepidation and a great deal of wonder. That there was something special about little Satya, they had long known. Otherwise how could he do such strange miraculous things? And now since his illness he often spoke like an old sage or seer. But who was this Muslim, "Sai Baba"? And what could he possibly have to do with the little boy they had all known, admired and loved for nearly fourteen years?

There were a few people in the district who had heard of a great wonder-working fakir named Sai Baba. Some thought he was still alive while others declared that he had been dead for years. Some said that he was a Muslim, others that he was a Hindu saint with a great following. But in any case he seemed very remote from the Raju family and the village of Puttaparti.

Then some friends told the family that there was in Penukonda, a town twenty-five miles away, a visiting government officer who was supposed to be an ardent devotee of the fakir, Sai Baba. It was decided to take Satya Raju to him: perhaps that would clear up the mystery, or at any rate throw some light on the boy's strange announcement and behaviour.

Satya was quite willing to go, and the government officer condescended to see him. But when they met the officer could not accept the idea that his great guru, who died at Shirdi in 1918, had been reborn as this wild-talking boy.

"It's mental derangement," he told the adults, "the child should be taken to a psychiatric institution for treatment."

Here young Satya interposed: "Yes, it's mental derangement, but whose? You're just a pujari; you can't recognise the very Sai whom you are worshipping." Saying that he took handfuls of ash from nowhere and, scattering it in all directions, left the room.

Reincarnation is part of the Hindu religion, and Satya's acquaintances had no difficulty with that idea in itself. But how were they to accept the boy's statement that he was actually Sai Baba of Shirdi reborn. The government officer had not helped them to swallow this big improbability.

Of course, considering Satya's miraculous powers, it could be true. It might be true. But they needed some proof, some strong convincing sign.

Thursday is regarded as guru's day in India, and on each Thursday some people gathered around their new guru, young Satyanarayana Raju. Once, soon after the visit to Penukonda, someone at a Thursday meeting voiced the desire that was in many minds.

"If you are really Sai Baba, show us a sign."

Satya saw the need of this. "Bring me those jasmine flowers," he said, pointing to a large bouquet in the room.

The flowers were placed in his hands, and with a quick gesture he threw them on the floor. All present looked in awe: the flowers had fallen to form the name "Sai Baba" in Telugu script, the language spoken in the village. This flower-writing was not something that required imagination to help; the words were strikingly clear, as if arranged with meticulous skill, all the curves and convolutions of the Telugu letters perfectly reproduced.

As the days and weeks passed there were other outward signs that the claim coming from the boy's lips was more than a childish fancy, more than something that could be explained away as a "mental derangement".

Nevertheless, in spite of all this, Satya submitted to the family's insistence that he go back to high school in Uravakonda. He returned in June, six months after the mysterious "black scorpion" had bitten his toe - or whatever happened to trigger off the psychic crisis leading to the emergence of new personality facets, and to the shattering announcement.

Thursdays soon became big events at Uravakonda. For, the people gathered around him, Satya Sai would with a wave of his small hand produce items which linked him with the deceased Shirdi saint: photographs of the old body, gerua cloth which he said was from the kafni that Shirdi Baba used to wear, dates and flowers which he declared came directly from the shrine at the Shirdi tomb, where they had been taken as offerings by worshippers.

Perhaps the most interesting phenomenon was his regular production of ash. Shirdi Sai had always kept a fire burning to have a ready supply of holy ash, which he called udhi. Now young Satya Sai took it as if from an invisible fire in hidden dimension of space. This was a miracle that he had not performed until after the announcement of his identity with Sai Baba. The announcement also marked the beginning of the mysterious flow of photographs, drawings, paintings, and figures of Shirdi Baba which still goes on as I personally experienced on a number of occasions.

A strange story of the production of a colour print of Shirdi Sai is told about these early days. It seems that before Satya returned to Uravakonda from Puttaparti his eldest sister, Venkamma had asked him for a picture of this Shirdi Baba about whom he was talking and composing bhajan songs. He promised to produce one for her on a certain Thursday.

However, on the day before that particular Thursday Satya returned to his high school. "Well," Venkamma thought, "he has forgotten; it can't be helped; some day he will give it to me, no doubt."

But on the promised Thursday night she was awakened by a strange sound as if someone was calling outside the door. She sat up but all seemed quiet so she lay down again. Then there was a sound behind bag of jowar in the room. Perhaps it's a rat or snake, she thought, so she lit a lamp and searched. She found something white sticking out from behind the bag: it was a roll of thick paper. She unrolled it in the lamplight to find a picture of an old man seated with his right leg resting across his left knee. Soft but penetrating eyes looked out at her from below a knotted head-cloth. "It must be the promised picture," she thought, "delivered to me by some invisible messenger." Venkamma still has this coloured picture of Shirdi Sai and showed it to me when 1 visited her once at Puttaparti.

But high school was not really the place for a boy who, like Jesus in the temple, could teach the teachers; in fact several of them, including the head master, used to bow before him, and seeing through the illusion of his youthful body would listen to his inspiring words.

The final break from schooldays came on October 20th 1940. That morning at his brother's house where he was residing Satya threw away his books, and announced that he was leaving. "My devotees are calling me. I have my work," he said. His sister-in-law says that when she heard these words she saw a halo around the boy's head which almost blinded her, so that she covered her eyes and cried out in alarm.

Nevertheless, she and her brother tried to persuade Satya to remain and continue his schooling. But he marched off to the home of an excise inspector who was very much attached to "little Baba". There the boy spent three days mostly under a tree in the garden while people gathered around him. Some brought incense and camphor for ritualistic worship, some came to learn, some to pry into this great curiosity, and some to have a good laugh.

Satya led the group about him for hours in bhajan songs. Here in the garden another phenomenon occurred linking him further to Sai Baba of Shirdi. A photographer arrived to take a photo of the little newsworthy prophet. A large crude stone seemed to spoil the composition of the picture so the photographer asked Satya Sai to change his position. But no co-operation seemed forthcoming, so the photographer clicked his camera and hoped for the best.

He got more than the best. When the film was developed and printed, it was found that the obstructing rock had become an image of Sai Baba of Shirdi. Both forms of Sai were in the picture though only one had been seen by the people assembled there.

During the three days Satya spent in the garden his parents arrived again at Uravakonda. Deciding at long last that school was out of the question they asked Satya to come home. He refused. They pleaded. Finally, after they had assured him that they would not in future obstruct or interfere with his mission, he agreed to return to Puttaparti. There he began to gather more devotees around him; first in his father's home, and later in the spacious house of a disciple.

Throughout the years since the fourteen-year-old boy in the obscure village of Puttaparti made the astounding claim that he was the reincarnation of India's most mysterious and powerful modern saint, there has been much interesting outward evidence to support that claim.

One story related in detail by Mr. Kasturi in his book on Baba's life tells how, about a year after the announcement, when Satya Sai was fifteen, he was visited by the Rani of Chincholi. Her late husband, the Raja, had been a very ardent devotee of Shirdi Baba and used to spend a few months every year at Shirdi. It is stated by the Rani and some old servants of the Palace that Shirdi Baba on several occasions came and stayed at Chincholi. He would, they say, ride with the Raja far out of town in a tonga drawn by bullocks. Incidentally, this tonga was later taken from Chincholi to Puttaparti and left there.

During her visit to Puttaparti to see this reincarnation of the old saint, the Rani persuaded him to accompany her to Chincholi. Perhaps he wanted to test him. There had been a number of changes at the Palace since the days when Shirdi Baba visited there. Although theoretically accepting the boy as a rebirth of the Shirdi Saint, the Rani was startled when he immediately commented on the changes. He asked what had happened to a margossa tree that had once been there; he mentioned the previous existence of a well which had been filled up and was no longer in evidence; then pointing to a line of buildings he said. "They were not built when I was here in my previous body." This was all true.

Later he told her that there should be in the Palace a small stone image of a certain kind which, as Shirdi Baba, he had given to the Raja long ago. The Rani did not know of its existence but a thorough search was made and the image found. These were some of the many extra-cerebral memories that helped to establish the truth of the reincarnation.

And there is significant interest in the experience of His Holiness Gayathri Swami, a disciple of the Sankaracharya of Sringeri Peetam. It happened while he was on a visit to Prasanti Nilayam ashram, after Satya Sai had moved there from his home village. The Swami had once spent a whole year with Baba at Shirdi back in 1906, and often visited him in the later years. He was perhaps only partly convinced that Satya Sai was his old guru reborn. Anyway, on the night before he left Prasanti Nilayam he had a vision. In this Shirdi Baba came to him and said that he had returned from his Mahasamadi (the word used for the death of a great yogi) after eight years, and that he had brought all his 'properties' with him fifteen years later. "What could this vision mean?" the Swami wondered.

He understood its meaning next morning. When discussing his vision with devotees he was told that Satya Sai was born eight years after the passing of Shirdi Baba, also that he assumed the name of Sai Baba in his fourteenth year and was manifesting the full powers associated with Shirdi Baba by his fifteenth year. These powers, the Swami felt, must be what his guru meant by 'properties', and the vision had been given to confirm in his mind that his Lord was again walking the earth.

Sai Baba of Puttaparti has given many people visions of his old Shirdi form when they have requested it - and sometimes without request. One way in which he does this is to hold out both open palms to show on them bright shining images of the Shirdi and Puttaparti bodies, one on each palm. Another way is to lead the person to be blessed with the vision into some quiet secluded room of whatever house he happens to be in. There in a corner of the room is seen the glowing, three-dimensional figure of Shirdi Baba.

One woman described such a vision in these words: " there sat Shirdi Sai Baba on the floor in his characteristic pose, but with eyes closed and ash marks on his forehead and arms. The incense sticks before him were burning, and the smoke was rising straight into the air. His body was glowing with a strange effulgence, and there was a beautiful fragrance around."

It might be argued however - and perhaps rightly - that the power to produce hallucinations of the Shirdi form is no proof that Satya ever lived in that form. But there are many other types of evidence pointing to the fact that the two Sais are in spirit one and the same.

The men who as adults were close disciples of Baba at Shirdi have most of them passed on with the passing years. But there are still a few old gentlemen around who as boys visited Shirdi when the old saint was still there. These he recognises even though their own mothers would not easily see the boy of long ago within the aging body.

One of these is Mr. M.S. Dixit who, having retired, now lives at Sai Baba's summer retreat at Whitefield near Bangalore. While I was there with Baba one summer, I had many wonderful talks with Mr. Dixit on his experiences of the two Sais.

He was born in 1897, the son of Sadashiv Dixit, an advocate who was at one time Diwan (Prime Minister) of the royal state of Kutch. Sadashiv's eldest brother, Hari S. Dixit, was a solicitor in Bombay and a member of the Legislative Council. It was this Hari Dixit who became a close devotee of Shirdi Baba. In the company of his uncle Hari.

M.S. Dixit told me, he made his earliest visits to Shirdi; first in the year 1909, and again in 1912. Before this second visit he had been suffering what he called "half-headaches". At sunrise half his head would start to ache agonizingly; then a little before sunset it would stop. This would go on each day for about two months at a stretch; it was very distressing. His uncle took him to Sai Baba hoping for a cure of the strange headaches. Mr. Dixit recalls vividly how he was sitting near Sai Baba one day when Baba suddenly said to him: "Why are you sitting here - go home!"

Young Dixit replied that he had a bad headache and the heat of the fire near which he was sitting brought him some relief. But Baba insisted that he must go. It was the custom when leaving to take some ash from the fireplace and put it in Baba's hand, so that he might with it give his parting blessing. The fourteen-year-old boy did this. Baba held the udhi for a moment and then applied it to the lad's forehead with some force.

Young Dixit felt that he had been slapped on the head as well as, ordered to go away, so he told his uncle that he would not visit Baba anymore.

Hari Dixit replied: "Are you a fool? The slap means that your headache will not recur."

This turned out to be true. The strange and terrible half-headaches, never came back after that day, and young Dixit understood that Baba had been in his enigmatic way ordering, not the boy, but the headache, to go away.

Six years later in July 1918 M.S. Dixit found himself ill again, this time with bad haemorrhoids and an anal fistula. The medical men of Bombay where he was living said he must undergo an operation, but he felt very nervous about having surgery and did not want it. Yet he was suffering a lot and there was much bleeding. He felt very miserable about his condition.

At one of the regular Thursday evening gatherings of Shirdi Baba's Bombay devotees, M.S. Dixit was somehow overcome by the devotional atmosphere combined with his own misery. Although a young man of twenty, he broke down and cried like a child. That night he had a dream in which Shirdi Baba came to him and chided him for "weeping like a girl". Then the old saint told him what to use as a cure for his ailment. After waking, Dixit could remember everything except the name of the medicament which Baba had prescribed. He was very distressed about this, and decided to go to Shirdi as soon as possible and get the name from Baba's lips.

But before he could go he heard that Baba had died. "Now", he thought gloomily, "I shall never know and must go on suffering."

Then at the next Thursday evening meeting, following the news of Baba's passing, he found himself again overwhelmed with sorrow for himself, and wept once more. The same night brought him another vivid dream. In this Baba stood before him again, still in the old Shirdi form. He said, "What! Crying like a girl again." Then he told the young man to take seven seeds of pepper, crush them to powder, and each day take a pinch of the powder mixed with udhi. All devotees, incidentally, kept some of Baba's udhi in their homes.

M.S. Dixit remembered these dream instructions clearly next morning and carried them out. On the third day of treatment the pain stopped; on the seventh the bleeding stopped. A complete cure took place and the complaint never returned. The years passed and the pages of Dixit's life turned over: he was in business; he was married; he was a major and Brigade Education Officer in the army during the Second World War and for some years afterwards. The year 1959 found him back in commercial life in the west-coast city of Mangalore. During leisure time he was reading a famous Hindu religious work entitled Guru Charitra. If this is read through completely within seven days, it is said, great spiritual benefits will ensue.

On the evening of the sixth day of the reading he had a dream. In this he was walking along a broad avenue of trees, and felt that someone was following him. He looked back. There was a man, a very distinctive man, close behind him. Dixit asked: "Who are you and why are you following me?" But there was no reply: the figure just continued to follow silently. After a few minutes Dixit looked back again and saw the man still following him. Neither said anything. Soon the footsteps drew closer, and Dixit felt that something was being poured over his head from behind. He realised that it was ash ...

That was all of the dream he could remember on waking, but very clear in his mind remained the striking, unique figure and face of the man who followed him.

Some months afterwards through an odd set of circumstances he heard that there was a reincarnation of Shirdi Baba but did not believe it. Then later on he heard the same story again from another quarter, and was shown a photograph of Satya Sai. Baba. It was the man who had followed him in the dream. Now his interest was really aroused. He remembered his uncle's story that Shirdi Baba had once told him: "I will appear again as a boy of eight years." Was this the boy, now grown to manhood? He decided to go as soon as possible to Puttaparti and find out all he could.

It was early in 1961 when he managed to get there, as one of a party of about thirty people. The ashram was choked with the Sivaratri thousands, and Dixit stood among them waiting for a view of Satya Sai Baba on the high balcony. When the little red-robed, dome-haired figure with the sweet, lovable face appeared, Dixit knew for certain that it was the figure of his strange dream.

Yet, he thought, how can this be the old saint of Shirdi? With his coloured silks, hair like a woman and the big crowds around him, this man is more like a film star. Shirdi Baba was rugged, homespun, simple: how can this possibly be the same man? Suddenly he wanted to go home.

But he stayed to watch Satya Sai pour huge quantities of sacred ash from a small bowl over the statue of Shirdi Sai, and the same evening take nine lingams from his mouth. Then during a public discourse next day Baba said: "Some who have come here think I am too much like a film star; they object to my bright-coloured robes and the style of my hair . . ." With consternation, Dixit heard all of his own unspoken critical thoughts being repeated from the platform. Then Baba went on to explain the reasons - good reasons Dixit felt - for the striking attire, the unique hairstyle and the other features of this incarnation.

Well, Dixit decided, he is certainly something very special. There is no doubt about his supernormal powers, but . . . he is so different from old Shirdi Baba. Can it really be the same soul?

On a second visit to Prasanti Nilayam three months later he was called into a room with a group of half-a-dozen people for an interview. Baba came in, spoke to a few people, and then went up to M.S. Dixit who was holding a small photo of his uncle, H.S. Dixit, in his hand. Baba took the photo from him, looked at it, and said. "That's H.S. Dixit, your uncle, your father's elder brother, and my old devotee at Shirdi. Now have you any more doubts?"

His doubts were fewer because all that Baba had just said was true. And Dixit had told no one his name at the ashram. He was there incognito - just an unknown member of a crowd of visitors. But Baba had recognised the face of his uncle in the photo at first sight. After that Dixit often made trips to the ashram and, through the years, enjoyed the wealth of Sai Baba's miraculous powers, great compassion and spiritual teachings. Once, speaking of Shirdi Baba's remark to his uncle Hari about coming back to earth "as a boy of eight years", Baba told Dixit that what he had really said was he would return as a boy in eight years, that is, eight years after his death - which he in fact did. Satya Sai added that H.S. Dixit must have misunderstood him. But it was the many, many little things, more than these big ones, that finally convinced him that the two Sais were one, Dixit told me. He went on to describe these important little things: the similarities in the siddhis, the parallels in the teachings and manner of instruction, the subtle echoes from the past in gesture, phrase and attitude. "Sometimes I even see on his face the same old smile that I saw long ago on the face of Shirdi Baba," he said.

Of course, the differences which he felt so sharply at first are indeed there, he admits. But there is, after all, a different body, a different setting, a different period in time - a different environment for the Sai mission. And therefore the mission, while in spirit the same, cannot be precisely the same in form and style, and it is to be expected that the outer personality through which the message comes to the world will also be different. Sai Baba himself comments that he is not as hard or angry now as he was in the earlier manifestation. He is more tolerant and gentle. He explains the difference by means of a simile: "The mother is usually hard when the children enter the kitchen and disturb the cooking; but while serving the food she is all smiles and patience. I am now serving the dishes cooked then. Wherever you may be, if you are hungry and if your plate is ready, I shall serve you the dishes and feed you to your heart's content. "

At another time, concerning the controversy about whether he is the same Baba or not, he said: "When there are two pieces of candy, one square, another circular, one yellow and the other purple in colour, unless one has eaten and realised the taste of both pieces one cannot believe that both are the same. Tasting, experiencing - that's the crucial thing for knowing the identity."

Another person who met Shirdi Baba is an old lady now living at Prasanti Nilayam. N. Kasturi writes in the second part of his Life of Satya Sai Baba that this lady was when a child taken to Shirdi by her father, a Collector in the Nizain's dominions. Later, after all her four children had died, she went again to Shirdi in 1917 and asked Baba for permission to stay on with him for spiritual initiation and training.

But Baba said, "Not now.' I will come again in Andhra; you will meet me then and be with me."

She returned to the Nizam's dominions and spent her life doing welfare and charitable works. During her travels, collecting money and support for her home of refuge for orphan girls, which she had called "Sai Sadan", she heard that there was a boy in Uravakonda who had announced himself as Sai Baba. Remembering what Baba had told her in 1917 about reincarnating in Andhra, she hastened to Uravakonda, arriving there on a Thursday. She joined the crowd that went to visit the young Sai Baba on that day, and sat near him.

She says that Baba spoke to her in a low voice in Hindi, as at Shirdi, "So you have come, my child."

Then he told her that she owed him sixteen rupees, reminding her that of forty rupees she collected for religious celebrations at Shirdi, sixteen were still on loan to a friend of hers. Then smiling he whispered, "I am telling you this only to convince you that I am Shirdi Sai Baba."

The lady is now with Satya Sai Baba at Prasanti Nilayam, Andhra Pradesh, happy that what he told her half a century ago at Shirdi has come true.

Yet it is not the outer but the inner evidence that will lead to conviction in this deep question. People who have stayed with Satya Sai a long time, and also known Shirdi Baba - either directly or the written records - have no doubt that both are incarnations of the same divine being.

A number of books have now been published on Sai Baba of Shirdi, including Narasimha Swami's excellent four-volume work on his life and teachings. I find that when deeply absorbed in these, I often think I am reading about Sai Baba of Puttaparti; I must continually remind myself that these are the teachings, sayings, doings of Shirdi Baba, not the present-day Satya Sai; there is such a profound similarity.

But before describing my further personal experiences with Satya Sai Baba I must return for a while to those early days at Puttaparti. Satya Sai himself has said that the first thirty-two years of this incarnation would be marked mainly by leelas and mahimas (miracles), and the subsequent years by discourses and verbal teachings. But he pointed out that this was just a question of emphasis, that both aspects would be in evidence at all times.

Considering the many miracles I have witnessed during, this, his "teaching" phase, I wondered what life must have been like with Satya Sai during the years of his "miracle" phase. So I sought out and talked to men and women who had known him then. Amongst them were practical men of business and affairs, well-travelled people of the world, high-ranking civil servants and highly educated people of the professions.

All were happy to tell their strange and wonderful stories.