Shri Sai Satcharitra · Chapter 01

TL;DRThe first chapter functions as a literary doorway.

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Editor’s note

The first chapter functions as a literary doorway. Hemadpant follows the ancient Marathi devotional convention of beginning with elaborate salutations — to Ganesha, to the rishis and the saints of the bhakti lineage, to his own ancestors — and only then arrives at the incident that compelled him to write. That incident, an apparently trivial scene of Sai Baba grinding wheat one morning around 1910, becomes the hermeneutic key to the whole book: what looks like ordinary action is in fact a saint's silent intervention in the suffering of his community (a cholera epidemic was approaching the village). The chapter therefore sets the reader's expectation: every later "ordinary" scene in the Satcharitra is to be read in two registers — the visible event and what Hemadpant calls its philosophical significance.

Chapter I — Salutations; The Grinding of Wheat and its Philosophical Significance

Source: Shri Sai Satcharitra, trans. Gunaji
Marathi original: Sai Satcharita (archive.org scan) · Devotee testimonies: Narasimha Swami 1936 (Internet Archive) · Full bibliography: /sources.html

URL: https://www.saibaba.org/satcharitra/sai1.html

Sections

Salutations

Hemadpant opens the work with the traditional sequence of salutations: first to Ganesha (whom he equates with Sai), then to Saraswati, then to Brahma, Vishnu and Shankar; then to his tutelary deity Narayan Adinath, his clan-rishi Bharadwaja, the named Rishis (Yagyavalakya, Bhrigu, Parashara, Narad, Vedavyasa, Sanaka, Sanandan, Sanatkumar, Shuka, Shounak, Vishwamitra, Vasistha, Valmiki, Vamadeva, Jaimini, Vaishampayan, Nava Yogindra); to the modern Saints (Nivritti, Jnanadev, Sopan, Muktabai, Janardan, Ekanath, Namdev, Tukaram, Kanha, Narahari); to his grandfather Sadashiv, father Raghunath, mother (who left him in infancy), paternal aunt who raised him, and elder brother; finally to his Guru Shri Sainath, "an Incarnation of Shri Dattatreya."

The Grinding of Wheat — c. 1910 A.D.

One morning, Hemadpant went to the masjid in Shirdi for darshan and was wonder-struck to see Baba preparing to grind wheat.

"He spread a sack on the floor; and thereon set a hand-mill. He took some quantity of wheat in a winnowing fan, and then drawing up the sleeves of His Kafni, and taking hold of the peg of the hand-mill, started grinding the wheat by putting a few handfuls of wheat in the upper opening of the mill and rotated it."

The villagers were perplexed: Baba possessed nothing, stored nothing, lived on alms — what business had he with grinding wheat? Four bold women from the gathering crowd pushed past Baba, took the handle, and — singing his Leelas — finished the grinding themselves. They then divided the flour into four portions and prepared to carry it away. Baba, calm until that point, became angry and spoke:

"Ladies, are you gone mad? Whose father's property are you looting away? Have I borrowed any wheat from you, so that you can safely take the flour? Now please do this. Take the flour and throw it on the village border limits."

The women, abashed, went to the outskirts of the village and scattered the flour as directed.

When Hemadpant asked the villagers what had happened, they explained: a cholera epidemic was spreading. Baba's grinding was the remedy. He had not been grinding wheat but the cholera itself, "pushed out of the village." From that time the epidemic subsided.

Hemadpant was moved to record Baba's life.

Philosophical Significance of the Grinding

Hemadpant adds a philosophical reading: Baba ground daily not wheat but "the sins, the mental and physical afflictions and the miseries of His innumerable devotees." The two stones of the mill — Karma (lower) and Bhakti (upper); the handle — Jnana. He cites a parallel story of Kabir: seeing a woman grind corn, Kabir wept at the agony of "being crushed in this wheel of worldly existence like the corn in the hand-mill," and his guru Nipathiranjana told him to "hold fast to the handle of knowledge of this mill, as I do… and turn inward to the Centre."

Verbatim Sai Baba quote documented in this chapter

(To the four women) "Ladies, are you gone mad? Whose father's property are you looting away? Have I borrowed any wheat from you, so that you can safely take the flour? Now please do this. Take the flour and throw it on the village border limits."

Frequently asked about this chapter

What is the central incident of Satcharitra Chapter 1?

Hemadpant's first eye-witness account of Sai Baba grinding wheat on a hand-mill at the masjid around 1910. Four village women joined in, and Baba then ordered the flour scattered at the village boundary. The villagers later explained that what was being ground was not wheat but a cholera epidemic threatening the village.

When did the wheat-grinding incident take place?

The Satcharitra dates it as "sometime after 1910 A.D." The cholera epidemic referenced was active in the Shirdi region during the same period.

Why does Hemadpant begin the book with salutations?

He is following the traditional Marathi mangala-charana convention used in Mahipati's earlier biographies and in Marathi sant literature generally — invoking Ganesha, the rishis, the bhakti saints, his ancestors and his guru — before turning to narrative. The structure both protects against authorial pride and locates Sai Baba within a recognised sant lineage.

What does Hemadpant mean by the "philosophical significance" of the grinding?

He reads the hand-mill allegorically: the two stones are Karma (lower) and Bhakti (upper); the handle is Jnana. The grinding of wheat figures, on a hidden level, the daily grinding-down of devotees' sins, mental afflictions and miseries. He cites Kabir's similar reflection on the corn-mill as evidence of the metaphor's antiquity.

Who is "Hemadpant"?

The name is the author's own self-given title. His given name was Govind Raghunath Dabholkar. The historical Hemadpant was a 13th-century minister to the Yadava kings of Devgiri, learned, and the originator of the Modi script. Dabholkar's adoption of the title is both self-deprecating (against the historical Hemadpant's learning) and slyly proud, given the cleverness he showed at his first meeting with Baba (see Chapter 2).

Source: Shri Sai Satcharitra by Govind Raghunath Dabholkar (Hemadpant), 1929. English adaptation by N. V. Gunaji. Original chapter text: saibaba.org/satcharitra/sai01.html. This page is a factual summary with verbatim quotations from the source. We add no commentary attributed to Baba.

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Ch. 02 — Object of Writing; Hemadpant title; Necessity of a Guru