Avatar for Our Age: Sathya Sai Baba and the Cultural Contradictions of Late Capitalism

Urban, Hugh B.

doi:10.1016/s0048-721x(02)00080-5

Cited by 17 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…2 2 It is to be mentioned here that Sathya Sai Baba (born 1926), a contemporary Hindu Holy Man figure with a national and international reputation, claims to be an avatar or successor of Shirdi Sai Baba (Urban, 2003; Srinivas, 2008). The Goan and, as far as I can see, Indian followers of Shirdi Sai Baba, however, do not relate, let alone confuse the two. …”

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Crossroads of Religions: Shrines, Mobility and Urban Space in Goa

Henn

2008

Int J Urban Regional Res

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Wayside shrines - representing Hindu and Catholic divinities and saints - show an astonishing dynamic in the cities of Goa and India. Not only do they persist in a milieu of drastic modern change that often seems to be at odds with their traditional locations, aesthetics and purposes, but also some of them surpass temples, churches and mosques in popularity. The popularity of these seemingly marginal religious monuments is a response to three forms of mobility characterizing modern Indian urban environments: cultural mobility - the diversification and fluctuation of religious ideas and practices; social mobility - the diversification and fluctuation of people from different castes, social classes and geographical regions, as well as the change of caste and class status due to socio-economic change; and physical mobility - the movement of and movement around increasingly dense and complex flows of motorized traffic. The shrines modify and transform the centuries-old spatio-religious system of Hindus and Catholics to fit the conditions of late-modern city life. They allow a culturally diversifying, socially changing and geographically fluctuating population to engage with a variety of personalized deities and saints whose charismatic authority is not only quite independent from formalized local social hierarchies, but often also cuts across orthodox divisions between religious traditions. Copyright (c) 2008 The Author. Journal Compilation (c) 2008 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Crossroads of Religions: Shrines, Mobility and Urban Space in Goa

Henn

2008

Int J Urban Regional Res

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“…On India's urban middle classes, see, for instance, Appadurai and Breckenridge (1995); B6teille (1991);Froystad (2003); Lakha (1999); Mazzarella (2003); Robison and Goodman (1996); Urban (2003); Varma (1998).…”

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Guru choice and spiritual seeking in contemporary India

Warrier

2003

Hindu Studies

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One of the most dramatic and important developments in present-day Hinduism is the growth of popular and high-profile devotionalist organizations led by charismatic Indian gurus. The more successful of the gurus head vast institutional empires, financed by generous donations from hundreds of thousands of affluent devotees both in India and abroad. Many guru organizations today have a transnational reach, with branches and centers not only in India's towns and cities but also in the affluent countries of the West and elsewhere in places with a sizeable population of Indian immigrants, such as Singapore, Malaysia, and the Caribbean islands. They make extensive use of modern means of communication and the mass media in order to keep in touch with devotees scattered across the globe. Most necessitate a high volume of traffic between India and the rest of the world. Foreign devotees throng the ~ramas of Indian gurus in the quest of spiritual enlightenment, and leading Indian gurus and/or their disciples go on tours abroad to spread their message of spirituality.Within India, these organizations attract mainly persons from urban educated middle-class backgrounds. From the point of view of these middle-class urbanites, the world of spiritual gurus in contemporary India is marked by rich diversity and offers a range of possible pathways of spiritual questing. Gurus today vary widely in appearance and personal style, ranging from slick, modern healers in business jackets and ties to wild sddhus with matted hair and ash-smeared bodies. The spiritual wares they offer include discourses on scriptural Hinduism, meditation techniques, stress relief and relaxation methods, specialized ritual prescriptions intended to effect specific outcomes, and methods of spiritual and physical healing. These persons are a visible presence on television, in the myriad journals and magazines on religion and spirituality readily available for public consumption, at websites maintained by spiritual International Journal of Hindu Studies 7, 1-3 (2003): 31-54 © 2005 by the Word Heritage Press Inc.32 / Maya Warrier groups, and in advertisements in the print and electronic media announcing a guru's spiritual discourse here or a prayer session there. Pamphlets and newsletters, posters, audiotapes, and video cassettes, often produced by guru organizations as part of their publicity and promotion efforts, circulate widely to provide potential devotees with a sampling of the available wares. This variety and diversity is an important and immediate reality with which guru seekers are forced to contend in the course of their spiritual questing. In such a context, it becomes imperative to ask how it is that individuals make sense of the bewildering variety that they encounter in the world of gurus and guru organizations. How do they make their choices and selections from the vast array of gurus available for their spiritual gratification? This is an aspect of guru devotion largely neglected in existing studies of guru organizations and their adherents. ~ M...

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“…Srinivas 2002T. Srinivas , 2010Swallow 1982;Urban 2003;Weiss 2005). The Sathya Sai faith, which is seen by some scholars as a sect of Neo-Hinduism (Kent 2004), is largely based on the charismatic authority of Sathya Sai Baba as an embodiment of divine love (prema) and his magical, miraculous powers (siddhi) (Babb 1986).…”

Section: The Sathya Sai Movement: a Brief Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As I traveled and met Sai devotees and former devotees, it seemed to me that they were struggling with a different kind of globalization problem-that of a politics of practice intermeshed indivisibly with a politics of identity. I returned to Puttaparthi and Bangalore in 2001, 2003, 2006, 2008 for short intense bursts of fieldwork, which continued until the summer of 2009. These various engagements bought home to me that culture is never just itinerant.…”

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Building Faith: Religious Pluralism, Pedagogical Urbanism, and Governance in the Sathya Sai Sacred City

Srinivas

2009

Hindu Studies

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Avatar for Our Age: Sathya Sai Baba and the Cultural Contradictions of Late Capitalism

Cited by 17 publications

References 10 publications

Crossroads of Religions: Shrines, Mobility and Urban Space in Goa

Crossroads of Religions: Shrines, Mobility and Urban Space in Goa

Guru choice and spiritual seeking in contemporary India

Building Faith: Religious Pluralism, Pedagogical Urbanism, and Governance in the Sathya Sai Sacred City

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