Miracle Cures for a Suffering Nation

Sai Baba of Shirdi

Bibliographic Data

ID2108904
AuthorsDavid Hardiman (University of Warwick, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume57
Issue2
Pages355-380
Publication date2015-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueComparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0010417515000067
OpenAlexW2111370626
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited17

Sai Baba of Shirdi, who died in 1918, was raised as a Muslim but is today revered as a Hindu saint. One of his most important perceived qualities was his ability to provide miraculous cures for his devotees, and this has continued after his death. I argue here that the emphasis in the Hindu tradition on saintly figures healing the sick is a relatively modern phenomenon. Earlier, though such figures were renowned for their miracles, healing played a very minor part in this. Their miracles were generally designed to worst religious rivals and to enable them to speak truth to power. In the modern era, however, such saintly figures can gain a reputation through healing in a way that is presented as beyond the comprehension of modern medical science. Such people are seen to provide living evidence of the superiority of Indian civilization and its religious beliefs. This move became entangled with nationalist sentiments, so that getting the better of the 'English' doctor became a means to reveal the limited scope of Western science and culture. Although this appears to suggest that many Indians have rejected the biopolitics associated with Western modernity (as defined by Foucault), I argue that certain elements of such biopolitics are central to this process, and illustrate this through a study of Sai Baba, a village holy man taken up by the Indian middle classes and made into a pan-Indian figure, with a now global presence

Aesthetics · Art history · Civilization · Epistemology · Hinduism · Miracle · Modernity · Modernization theory · Political science · Power (physics) · SAINT · Sociology · Theology · Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies · Theological Perspectives and Practices

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