This year the Gurpournima festival will be celebrated at Shirdi for three days from Saturday the 23rd of July, 1983 to Monday the 25th of July, 1983. The main day of the festival will be the 24th of July, 1983 as Gurupournima comes on that day. Shri Sai Baba is the Guru of all His devotees and therefore He is worshipped with great reverence by every devotee either at Shirdi or elsewhere on this day. Though every devotee of Shri Sai Baba longs to go to Shirdi for the festival, it does not become possible for every one to attend the festival at Shirdi. Therefore those devotees, who are able to go to Shirdi during the festival should consider themselves to be specially fortunate.
Every religious sect has a tradition and a holy place where the followers of that sect are expected to go for darshan and for other religious ceremonies. In the warkari sect Pandharpur is considered to be a very holy place, as the temple of Vithoba or Pandurang is located there. Every able bodied warkari is also expected to attend Pandharpur on the Ashadhi and Kartiki Ekadashi for the Wari (visit). The devotees of Shri Datta consider Mahur, Ganagapur, Narsoba Wadi, Audumbar etc. as their holy places as Shri Datta is supposed by them to have stayed at these places in person or through His incarnations. However to the Sai devotees Shirdi itself is their Pandharpur and one bhajan expressing that supposition is sung at Shirdi everyday at the time of noon aarti viz.
FIRST WORSHIP
At present the devotees, who do “Abhishek” at the Samadhi Mandir, worship the Samadhi of Shri Baba and garland His marble statue. Others who only come for darshan hand over their “pooja” material to the priest on duty and it is placed on the Samadhi by the priest. Before the statue of Shri Sai Baba was installed in the Samadhi Mandir, the devotees used to worship only the Samadhi, where the body of Shri Sai Baba is interred. It would however be interesting to know how the devotees used to pay their respects to Shri Sai Baba when he existed in flesh and blood. Of course the devotees might remember that Shri Buti’s Wada (The present Samadhi Mandir) was then under construction and therefore Shri Sai Baba was for most of the time in Dwarakamai, where many of the incidents described in Shri Sai Satcharit had taken place.
From the description given in Chapter eleven of the Sai Satcharit it appears that Dr. Pandit was ever the first devotee to worship Baba in Dwarkamai. Shri Dabholkar describes the incident as follows :-
*****
(Once Dr. Pandit, who was a friend of Tatyasaheb Noolkar, came to Shirdi for taking darshan of Shri Sai Baba. On entering Shirdi, he went to the Masjid and after bowing to Baba, he sat there for a while. Then Shri Baba Said to him, “Go to the house of Dadabhat in this direction” and pointed out the direction with his hand. Dr. Pandit went to Dada (Kelkar) who welcomed him cordially. Afterwards when Dada started to go to the Masjid for the worship of Baba, he asked Dr. Pandit went to the Masjid along with Dada, who worshipped Shri Baba as usual; but upto that time no one had dared to apply gangha (Sandalwood paste) on Baba’s forehead. Let any devotee come; but Baba never allowed him to apply gandha on his forehead. Only Mhalasapati used to apply it on Shri Baba’s neck. Others used to apply it to His feet; but this Dr. Pandit was emotional and simple. He took from Dada the plate in which the sandalwood paste, was kept and applied it on Baba’s forehead from left to right.)
Though no date of the above incident is given in the Sai Satcharit by Shri Annasaheb Dabolkar, still it appears from the detailed description given there that before Dr. Pandit, other devotees were not allowed to worship Shri Baba as they worshipped God and after Dr. Pandit was allowed to worship Baba in this fashion, all other devotees started worshipping Shri Baba likewise and it became a common practice at Shirdi to worship Shri Baba as a God by applying the sandalwood paste on his forehead.
Another reference to Shri Baba’s pooja is found in chapter 37 of Shri Sai Satcharit. In that chapter the Chawdi procession is referred to as follows by Shri Dabholkar :-
(Now I will first describe the chawdi procession. Shri Baba used to sleep on alternate days regularly in the chawdi. One night He would be in the Masjid and He would spend the next in the chawdi. Shri Baba continued this programme upto His Samadhi. Later on, on the 10th of December 1909, the worship of Shri Baba was started in the Chawdi )
Here Shri Dabholkar definitely mentions the date of starting, of the Chawdi procession and Shri Baba’s worship in the Chawdi as the 10th of December 1909. Of course Dr. Pandit has been described before as the first devotee to worship Shri Baba. Therefore that incident must have taken place prior to the above date.
It might be sometime after these incidents that the devotees must have started worshipping Baba on the Gurupournima day as their guru. The following two references are found in Sai Satcharit where the mention of Gurupournima has been clearly made. In chapter three we find the following verses :-
(In 1916 I (Shri Annasaheb Dabholkar ) retired from Government service on account of superannuation. I got the due pension and I visited Shirdi at that time. It was the Gurupournima day. All devotees had gathered together at Shirdi for the worship of Shri Baba, when Shri Anna (Anna Chinchanikar) made the following recommendation to Shri Baba of his own accord)
The second reference is found in chapter 33 which reads as follows :-
(One Shri Haribhau karnik, who is a resident of Dahanu, is a very devotee of Shri Baba. In 1917 he came to Shirdi on the holy day of Gurupournima for the pilgrimage of Shirdi. I will just narrate in short what happened at that time. He worshipped Shri Baba according to the rites. He gave Him dakshina and cloth and while getting down the steps of the Masjid, after taking due permission of Shri Baba, it occurred to him i.e. Shri Karnik)
It will be seen from the above two extracts from the Sai Satcharita that the Gurupournima was being observed by the devotees at Shirdi in 1916 and 1917. Shri Annasaheb Dabholkar was a devotee of Shri Sai Baba from 1910. During the eight years of his close contact with Shri Sai Baba and Shirdi (1910) to 1918) he had the good fortune to learn and hear so many things about Shri Baba, His devotees, His leelas and the festivals and other activities that took place at Shirdi during the life-time of Shri Baba, Many devotees, who were at Shirdi from the advent of Shri Sai Baba in Shirdi, were living in Shirdi at that time and Shri Dabholkar had the good fortune to mix among them and have heart to heart talk with them. Shri Dabholkar has devoted one full chapter (chapter 6) for describing the origin and development of the Ramanavami festival at Shirdi. His description of that festival is quite graphic and it gives a good number of details of that festival. If therefore the Gurupournima festival also was being, celebrated at Shirdi during Shri Dabholkar’s stay at Shirdi, he might have given its origin also in Sai Satcharit; but unfortunately it is not found anywhere as we find the description of the Ramanavami festival. Only two casual references to Gurupournima festival are found in Sai Satcharit which have been cited above and they refer to the years 1916 and 1917. We have therefore to conclude that this festival is being celebrated at Shirdi definitely from 1916 and it might be being celebrated prior to that also though we cannot name the exact year of starting of this festival from Sai Satcharit.
We have thus tried to find out the origin of this festival at Shirdi and we find that it is being celebrated there for a long time. The guru has a very reverential position in the minds of the Indian people and the full moon day in the month of Ashadha is being observed every year all over India as Gurupournima day in remembrance of Guru. Shri Vyas Maharshi, who wrote the Mahabharat and the 18 puranas is also supposed to have arranged the Vedic hymns and allotted them to his four disciples, which are now known as the four Vedas. This yomen work of Maharshi Vyas is very commendable and therefore in order to show our gratitude to him this day of Gurupournima is celebrated for remembering the debt of Shri Vyas on the manking in general. As Maharshi Vyas is the oldest of the gurus, he is first remembered on this day and allother gurus are also remembered on this day for their blessings to their disciples.
Shri Sai Baba is the Guru of all His devotees. They will therefore offer him pooja on that day wherever possible. Though Shri Sai Baba lived physically at Shirdi and he was seen in flesh and blood by his devotees at Shirdi, we should not think that He is there only at Shirdi. From the various Leelas, which are experienced by his devotees, who are spread far and wide in this country and abroad, we know that Shri Sai Baba is not confined to Shirdi. He has been very active even after His Mahasamadhi in 1918. He is manifesting himself at various places and thus making his presence known to all the devotees. We Sai devotees should consider ourselves to be singularly lucky in having such a Guru to guide and bless us. On the coming Gurupournima day on the 24th of July, 1983, let us all pray at His holy lotus feet for His blessings from the bottom of our heart. Temples of Shri Sai Baba have already come up at various places and many more are coming up. So it is now very easy to resort to any Sai temple for Shri Baba’s darshan; but we need not even to a temple if we are not in a position to got. You have only to pray to Shri Sai Baba sincerely from the bottom of your heart and He comes to you as promised by Him during His life-time.