No sooner has news of the demise of Satya Sai Baba spread than there are predictions of his rebirth. A family in Mysore claims that Baba will be reborn as Prema Sai in 2012 near the Ambegala Krishna temple in Doddamalur in Maddur taluk of Mandya district.
“This is not our prediction. Sai Baba himself revealed it to my mother Kannamma and grandmother Nammagiriamma during one of his visits to our residence in Mysore,” a Satya Sai devotee, Mr Shankar, retired deputy director of the Central Food Technological Research Institute, told this newspaper. Mr Shankar also claimed, quoting his mother Kannamma, that the Baba will be born to Narayana Kasturi, who authored the first four volumes of Baba’s biography Satyam Sivam Sundaram (Life of Satya Sai Baba). It is in this book that Baba first claimed, in 1963, that he would be reborn.
Several generations of Mr Shankar’s family are diehard devotees of Baba and the 90-year-old Kannamma is one of the closest devotees of the seer, who has visited her residence in Mysore six times. Kannamma’s diaries describing her experiences with the Baba were published in the form of a book titled Sri Satya Sai Anandadayi, which also talks about Baba’s third incarnation. In the biography Satyam Sivam Sundaram, Baba was quoted as saying: “This avatar came as a trinity and the complete unity among all will be achieved when Prema Sai comes.” The trinity he referred to began with the Sai Baba of Shirdi. Satya Sai Baba in a landmark discourse on July 6, 1963, on Guru Purnima Day revealed that the Sai avatar is a triple incarnation of the Siva-Shakthi principle: Siva as Shirdi Sai Baba, Shiva and Parvathi embodied as Sri Satya Sai Baba, and the Shakthi principle that will incarnate as Prema Sai in the Mandya district of the state of Karnataka. It is also said that Baba has given an exclusive picture of Prema Sai to one of his devotees, Mr John Hislop, with a ring. Satya Sai Baba invariably frequently referred to the Shirdi Baba (1835-1918) as “my previous body”. Many devotees of the Shirdi Baba have had experiences confirming the unity of the two. It is said that just before he shed his mortal body in 1918, Shirdi Sai Baba had told some of his devotees that he would reappear in the Madras Presidency in eight years’ time. Sri Satya Sai Baba was born in 1926 and claimed that he was the reborn Shirdi Baba.