Shri Saibaba Samadhi Mandir, Shirdi

Deity

Sai Baba at his samadhi, with the Dwarkamai and Chavadi

Where

Ahmednagar, Maharashtra · 19.77N 74.48E

Usual hours

4 am – 11.15 pm, with four aartis — hours change with festivals and the season; check before travelling. Were these right when you went?

Grahas

Sani

Visited for

Thursday is Baba’s day, and Ram Navami, Guru Purnima and Vijayadashami are its three festivals. Visited through Sade sati and for patience in a long trouble.

Nobody knows where Sai Baba came from. He appeared at Shirdi as a young faqir, went away, and came back to stay; no birthplace, no family and no earlier name are established, and he did not supply any.

He lived in a disused mosque he called Dwarkamai, kept a fire burning in it, begged his food from a few houses in the village and gave away what came to him. The stories people tell of him — the lamps lit with water, the illnesses that turned, the arrival of someone who was not expected — are the ones collected in the Sri Sai Satcharita, and they are told as experiences rather than as puranas.

Sai Baba lived at Shirdi for about sixty years and died there on Vijayadashami in 1918. The samadhi mandir stands over his grave.

The Sri Sai Satcharita, compiled by Govind Rao Dabholkar, was written from the accounts of people who had known him, and is the principal source for his life. The temple is run by the Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust and is among the busiest and best-endowed in the country.

Thursday is kept as his day, a practice that began in his lifetime.

The samadhi mandir holds a white marble image seated above the grave. The queue moves past it steadily and is managed through a large hall system outside.

Dwarkamai, where he lived, still has the dhuni fire burning and the stone he used for grinding. The Chavadi, where he slept on alternate nights, is a short walk away, and the Gurusthan with its neem tree marks where he was first seen.

Lendi Baug, the garden he planted, and the prasadalaya, which feeds very large numbers every day, are the other parts of the complex.

Three festivals fill the town: Ram Navami, Guru Purnima and Vijayadashami, which is kept as his punyatithi.

Thursdays are heavy all year. Four aartis are performed daily — before dawn, at midday, at dusk and at night — and most visitors plan around one of them.

Also called

Shri Saibaba Samadhi Mandir, Shirdi Sansthan

Period

The samadhi mandir was built in the early twentieth century, and the complex has grown around it since

Reaching it

Shirdi is in Ahmednagar district, about 85 km from Nashik, 185 km from Pune and 250 km from Mumbai. Sainagar Shirdi railway station is a few kilometres away, and there is an airport near the town.

• Shri Shanaishwara Temple, Shingnapur 67.9 km · Other
• Saptashrungi Devi Temple 73.9 km · Sakta (Amman)
• Grishneshwar Jyotirlinga 78.3 km · Saiva
• Shri Girijatmaj Temple, Lenyadri 87.7 km · Ganapathi
• Shri Vighneshwar Temple, Ozar 89.4 km · Ganapathi
• Trimbakeshwar Jyotirlinga 100.9 km · Saiva

Been to this temple? The things that change — whether the hours on this page were right, whether the sannidhi was open, how long the queue was on a Saturday — are exactly what no printed source keeps current, and what the next person travelling here needs.

• Were the hours right when you went?
• Is anything on this page wrong or out of date?
• A photograph of the gopuram, the tank, or the notice board

A contribution carries a name, so a reader knows whose account it came from. That is why it needs an account, and it is the only reason.

Sign in and add yours