Editorial Board
Sit With Sai is a single-editor reference project. Editorial responsibility, source-fidelity decisions, and translation choices are all carried by one person. This page exists for transparency: who, what credentials, what claims this site does and does not make.
Editor
Aditya R. Khare
This site is created and maintained by a single contributor in the Sai-bhakta diaspora. The editor is a software engineer with a long personal interest in Sai Baba's life and teachings; this is a documentation project, not a scholarly publication.
What the editor is: A devotee-reader who has read the Satcharitra closely; capable of cross-checking dates, sources, and translation choices.
What the editor is not: Not a Marathi or Sanskrit scholar; not a member of the Shri Sai Baba Sansthan; not a published Sai-studies academic; not an ordained or lineaged Sai teacher.
How content is produced
- Chapter pages: Each chapter is summarised by the editor directly from N. V. Gunaji's 1944 English translation, with cross-checks against the Marathi original where the translation is contested.
- Verbatim Sai Baba quotes: Always reproduced in English from Gunaji, with Hindi गुणार्थ added in parentheses below.
- Devotee experience pages: Each entry references B. V. Narasimha Swami's 1936 testimony-collection with Internet Archive PDF/page links. Excerpts are quoted directly from the OCR'd full text where available.
- Hindi translations: All 47 chapter pages, 8 devotee bios, and 80 experience pages were produced with AI assistance (Claude, Anthropic). The editor reviews tone and source-fidelity but is not a native-Hindi-speaking Sai scholar. Native-Hindi readers are explicitly invited to flag style or accuracy issues via the contact channel below.
- Editorial framings ("Analytical introduction" sections): Written by the editor; clearly labelled as editorial framing, not as Hemadpant's words.
What this site does not claim
- This is not an official Shri Sai Baba Sansthan publication. The Sansthan is the canonical authority and primary-document custodian; we cite them but are not affiliated with them.
- This is not a peer-reviewed academic Sai-studies publication. Where we cite academic sources (Rigopoulos 1993; Warren 1999; McLain 2014), that is bibliographic — not authorial.
- This is not a lineage-blessed teacher's site. The editor holds no initiation, transmission, or representation from any Sai lineage.
- The 3D model on the landing page is titled "Old Man by the Stone" — an evocative image, not a documented Sai Baba likeness. Documented Sai images (e.g. the Shamrao Jaykar masjid portrait) are referenced separately in Chapter 43-44.
Contact
Corrections, source-pointer additions, and Hindi-style notes are warmly welcomed.
Please send to: editor@sitwithsai.org
Acknowledgements
- Shri Sai Baba Sansthan, Shirdi — for the public-domain Marathi original, Gunaji's English translation, and the Sai Leela magazine archive on which this site rests.
- Internet Archive (archive.org) — for hosting the Narasimha Swami OCR'd text used to populate the 80 experience pages.
- Anthropic Claude — for the AI-assisted Hindi translation and content-building scaffold. The editor takes final responsibility for all editorial choices.