Ovi to Ovi english Translation - Foreword

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When Nanasaheb Chandorkar came here, there was not a single wada23 to stay for the people, who came for darshan. But Maharaj remedied this deficiency very shortly. Rao Bahadur Hari Vinayak Sathe was the Deputy Collector of the Zilla. A long time had passed since the death of his first wife. But he had no desire to remarry. As he had no son his circle of friends was urging him to remarry. Later, it was decided that he would take Maharaj’s darshan and act according to his wishes. Accordingly he came for darshan. Maharaj told him to remarry and also blessed him

with the boon of a son. Rao Bahadur selected a girl and asked her father Ganesh Damodar Kelkar to present her to Maharaj. Accordingly when that girl came there Maharaj filled her sari ‘pallu’24 with a watermelon and applied kumkum to her forehead. Later, at the proper time, the marriage took place and soon thereafter, as suggested by Maharaj, he purchased the land surrounding the margosa tree, already described earlier and built a wada there. Thereby, the people coming for darshan had residential facilities. Later after three years, Maharaj got a wada built by the undersigned and thereafter got a wada built by the Nagpur millionaire Gopalrao alias Bapusaheb Buty. This wada is huge and being built of stone is strong and it cost a lot of money. It appears that there is no comparable building in Shirdi or in the nearby vicinity or taluka. Maharaj’s samadhi

is in this wada. Soon, Shirdi took on the trappings of a samsthan25. Aratis26 were done of Maharaj and, at the time of the arati, whisks, parasols and other insignia of royalty were used. When Maharaj went to the chavadi musical instruments, horse, palkhi27, chopdar28, singers of bhajans29, flags and banners and all such paraphernalia accompanied him. The Chavadi was decorated with mirrors, lamps, chandeliers and photographs. The Masjid’s and the chavadi’s floorings were laid with tiles etc. All the credit for this goes to Sundarabai Kshirsagar alias Radhakrishna- ayi. It would not be out of place to say that she was the guru of loving bhakti. She did not have wealth, but surrendering her body and mind to Maharaj she had obtained from different devotees of Maharaj different items and thus well established the Shirdi Samsthan. By ill luck her life ended early, that is

when she was only 35. She was here only for 8 to 9 years. But in that short time she achieved what perhaps might have taken another 25 years or more. It was due to this lady, that Maharaj’s night aratis and the kakad aratis in the early morning hours started in the chavadi. Maharaj did not even allow His puja30 in the earlier times. The first puja was allowed to be done by Mhalsapati. After quite a while, Nimgaon’s Sitaram Dengle came to do

puja but Maharaj got angry with him, allowing His puja in the end. Some time later Nanasaheb Chandorkar’s younger son Mahadev alias Bapu was allowed to do puja satisfactorily, and thereafter all got general permission to do puja. But at that time Maharaj did not allow his aratis to be done. After some time the privilege of doing the first arati was received by Tatya Saheb Noolkar. Being the Civil Judge at Pandharpur, he had become ill and came here on leave; with the desire that he should leave his job and spend the rest of his life at Maharaj’s feet; and in the end, that is what happened. Devotees can read this book from the Book Section of http://www.saileela s.org/books/ sss/index. htm

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