Thousands of devotees thronged the southern Indian headquarters of Sathya Sai Baba yesterday, a day after the death of the Hindu religious leader, who was revered by millions of people across the world.
His body had been placed in a glass casket in a large hall inside his ashram or spiritual retreat on Sunday, after he died at the nearby Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences where he had spent nearly a month on breathing support and dialysis.
The news of the 84-year-old’s death brought an outpouring of grief from his followers, including high Indian officials, who remembered him as a pious person who worked selflessly to help others with the billions of US dollars donated to his charitable trust.
Yesterday, hundreds of volunteers — the men dressed in white trousers and shirts and blue scarves and the women in saris and yellow scarves — guided the mourners in an orderly line around the casket that was decorated with marigold flowers.
A life-sized portrait of the guru in his trademark orange robes stood over the coffin.
Indian cricket star Sachin Tendulkar, a longtime devotee, visited the ashram along with his wife.
Police, heavily deployed since Sai Baba was hospitalized on March 28, controlled road traffic and crowds.
Hundreds of thousands are expected to pay last respects in Puttaparti, where his body will lie on display through today and a funeral with state honors is planned for tomorrow morning.
Sai Baba had a huge following, with ashrams in more than 126 countries and devotees in India, including high-placed politicians, movie stars, world-class athletes and industrialists.
He was said to perform miracles, conjuring jewelry, Rolex watches and vibhuti — a sacred ash that his followers applied to their foreheads — from his halo of wild, frizzy hair.
However, rationalist critics led campaigns against him, calling him a charlatan and his miracles fake. Several news reports alleged that he sexually abused devotees — accusations he denied as vilification campaigns.
Born on Nov. 23, 1926, as S-athyanarayana Raju, he was said as a child to display a tendency toward spirituality and unusual intelligence, which he expressed through music, dance and writing poetry and plays.
In 1940, he declared himself an “avatar,” or reincarnation, of another Hindu holy man called the Sai Baba of Shirdi, a town in the western state of Maharashtra, who died in 1918.
Health woes during recent years had forced Sai Baba to cut down on public appearances. He survived a stroke and a series of heart attacks in 1963. In 2005, he began using a wheelchair and a year later he fractured his hip when a student fell from a stool onto him.
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