印度最具爭議性人物賽巴巴.

　　Obituary;Sai Baba;

　　訃告;賽巴巴;

　　Sathya Sai Baba (Satyanarayana Raju), one of India&aposs most controversial gurus, died on April 24th, aged 85;

　　薩提亞·賽巴巴(賽提亞納拉亞納·喇舉)，印度最具爭議的上師之一，死于4月24日，享年85歲;

　　With a mere circling wave of His Hand, Sai Baba could make objects materialise out of the air. Gold rings, amulets and necklaces; blocks of sugar candy; images of Shiva made of topaz and sapphire; bottles of tonic and packets of blue pills; rosaries, silver vessels and even medallions inscribed with the name of the recipient, the day and date. He could produce vibhuti too, holy Ash that poured from under His fingernails. On average a pound a day flowed from Him as He gave darshan, allowing His followers a sight of God as He moved among them, a tiny ochre-robed figure with an immense black afro, or halo, of hair. The Ash might be salty or sweet, blackish or white. Smeared on the body, it forgave sins; taken in water, it helped digestive complaints.

　　賽巴巴僅僅揮手劃一個圈，就能夠使空中突然出現(xiàn)很多東西： 金戒指、護身符、項鏈、冰糖塊、黃水晶與藍寶石制成的濕婆神像、藥瓶、汞丸袋、 念珠、銀器、甚至是刻有接受者名字和年月日的紀念章。 他還能夠變出圣灰，它們從他的指甲下流出。 賽巴巴身材較小，穿著赭黃色長袍，一頭巨大的圓蓬式黑發(fā)象光暈一般，當他賜福時，通常一天變出一磅的圣灰，他在信徒中走動，使他們能夠瞥見一眼神性。 圣灰的味道或咸或甜，顏色略黑或白。 把它涂在身上，可以消除罪障;它吸水后有助于消除心中的抱怨。

　　Sceptics were always trying to show how it was done, saying that the Ash was a pellet crushed between His fingers, or that the gold and silver ellipsoidal lingams (the Form of the Formless) that He coughed up at certain festivals were in fact hidden in His handkerchi. The BBC made a documentary, and slow-motion videos were all over YouTube. Sai Baba laughed at their forts. His miracles were as trivial, in comparison with His Reality, as a mosquito to an elephant. But at least 6m people, probably closer to 100m, in 126 countries of the world, accepted them as tokens of the Divinity He personified. And He was dended by figures no less than Manmohan Singh, prime minister of India, and Sonia Gandhi, leader of the Congress party, who journeyed to pay their respects bore his state funeral.

　　懷疑者總是企圖揭露這一過程，他們說，圣灰是在賽巴巴的手指間碾碎的小球，在某些節(jié)日上賽巴巴咳出的金質(zhì)和銀質(zhì)的橢圓體形男根雕像(無形濕婆神的象征物)實際上藏在他的手帕里。 BBC拍攝過一部紀錄片，慢鏡頭視頻在油條吧上隨處可見。 賽巴巴對他們的企圖不屑一顧。 因為與實相相比，他的神通是微不足道的，就如同蚊蟲比之于大象。 但是在世界上的126個國家里，至少有六百萬，或許接近于一億人，相信它們是賽巴巴所代表的神的象征物。 擁護他的人數(shù)不亞于曼莫漢·辛格和索尼亞·甘地，前者是印度首相，后者是國大黨領(lǐng)袖，信徒們在賽巴巴被國葬之前遠程而來表達敬意。

　　Besides, he said, all the enquiries and science in the world could not begin to explain the other things that He, as an avatar of God, could will to happen. He could raise people from the dead, even when ants were already crawling over them. He could hold back the rains. He could leave His own body, letting it slump stiff and lifeless in His chair for five minutes while He travelled to the Kashmir Front or the seashore at Mumbai. Sufferers from duodenal ulcers would find Him operating on them, materialising the instruments from thin air. He could change water into petrol or diesel on which cars ran for many miles.

　　此外，他曾說，這個世界上的所有探索和科學都絕不可能解釋作為神之化身的他所做的其他一些事情。 他可以使死人復活，即使螞蟻已經(jīng)爬滿他們的身體。 他可以使下雨停止。 他可以離開自己的身體，讓它在椅子里陷入僵直和毫無生氣的狀態(tài)達五分鐘，此時他飛往克什米爾前線或者孟買的海濱。 十二指腸潰瘍患者找他做手術(shù)，他可以使手術(shù)器械從虛空中突然出現(xiàn)。 他可以將水變成汽油或柴油，很多汽車加上這些油可以跑好幾英里。

　　A number of more straightforward good works could also be attributed to Him. At remote Puttaparthi in Andhra Pradesh, His birthplace and the site since 1948 of His ashram. He established an airport, two sports stadiums, a free super-speciality hospital and an institute of higher learning rated A++ by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council. He set up free primary and secondary schools all over India, had another free hospital built at Bangalore, and paid for drinking water to be piped from the Krishna river to Chennai and from the Godavari river to upland Andhra Pradesh. Perhaps 2m people benited. This helped to muffle, though never to quiet entirely, controversies about His $5 billion trust fund and claims of sexual abuse of His boy disciples.

　　他也直接做了很多善行。 遙遠的安德拉邦的普塔帕蒂是他的出生地和1948年后他的靜修地， 他在這里修建了一座飛機場、兩個運動場、一所免費的綜合專業(yè)醫(yī)院，和一所被全國評估與鑒定委員會評為A++級的高等教育機構(gòu)。 他在全印度建立了很多免費的小學和中學，在班加羅爾建了另一所免費醫(yī)院，為從奎師那河輸送到金奈市、從戈達瓦里河輸送到安德拉邦高地的飲用水付費。 大約有二百萬人受益。 這些有助于抑制關(guān)于他的五十億美元的信托基金的爭論，和關(guān)于他的一些男孩門徒被性虐待而要求索賠的爭論，盡管爭論從沒有完全平息下來。

　　But then there had always been people who had rused to believe in his Godhead —from His father, who in the beginning beat Him with a stick and made a village healer lacerate His scalp and rub it with garlic and lime juice to cure His madness, to the rationalist who sued Him in 1986 under the Gold Control Act for bringing so many gold articles out of the air. (The case was dismissed.) They ignored the obvious signs of His divinity, such as the cobra that had cradled Him at birth, or His ability as a schoolboy to bring forth peppermints out of an empty bag. He mostly hid His Godhead in those years, but found it frustrating, and was glad at 14 to be able to reveal (after a scorpion sting had put Him into a trance) that His previous body had been that of a 19th-century saint called Shirdi Sai Baba, whose statue, in marble, He placed beside His own in His Temples, and whose fresh photograph, in several copies, He would often produce out of the sands of the Chitravathi river.

　　然而總是有一些人，從他的父親到唯理論者，拒絕相信他的神性。 為了治好他的瘋病，起初他的父親用棍子打他，讓一個鄉(xiāng)村醫(yī)生割破他的頭皮并用蒜汁和石灰水摩擦。 1986年唯理論者根據(jù)《黃金管理法》控告他從空中搞出來如此多的黃金制品。 這一訴訟被駁回了。 這些人忽視了明顯顯露他的神性的跡象，例如，在他出生時有一條眼鏡蛇將他放進搖籃，在他是個學童時就能從一個空瓶子里弄出薄荷糖來。 那些年他通常都在隱藏他的神性，但是他發(fā)現(xiàn)隱藏不了，在14歲時，他曾被一只蝎子蟄了，使他陷入神志恍惚，之后他很高興 他能夠發(fā)現(xiàn)他前世曾是一位十九世紀的圣人，叫做舍帝·賽巴巴，在他的寺廟中，他將舍帝的大理石雕像置于他自己的雕像旁;他根據(jù)舍帝的一些摹本，經(jīng)常用齊徹瓦底河的沙子制作舍帝的新圖像。

　　As a boy He demanded to be worshipped on Thursdays; as a man He enforced no particular rites or rituals, save the chanting of Om and the names of God. (He Himself had 108 names, and this was the number of crystals formed by His steps on the shore, and the number of pearls on the garland that was once presented to Him by the sea.) He endorsed no particular religion, though He used the terms of Hinduism, embracing all faiths as valid ways to truth, love and peace. He ignored distinctions of race or caste, and was happy to eat rice from an aluminium plate in the house of an untouchable. If His teachings had any flavour, it came from His background among poor farming folk. The hearts of His devotees were dry, He said, like a village tank bore the monsoon; they had to be ploughed by the mind, watered by prayer, sown with seeds of Love.

　　年少時，他要求每周四被禮拜;成人時，除了念誦咒語“唵”和神的名字外，他沒有舉行特殊的儀式。 他自己有108個名字，這是他踩在海灘上形成的水晶體的數(shù)量和有一次大海送給他的花環(huán)上的珍珠的數(shù)量。 盡管他使用印度教的術(shù)語，但他不認可任何特定的宗教，他利用所有的信仰作為通向真理、愛與和平的有效途徑。 他不理睬種族與種姓的差異，他曾經(jīng)在一個賤民的家里很高興地從鋁盤子里取米飯來吃。 如果說他的教導有什么特色，那么這些特色是來自窮苦農(nóng)民這一背景。 他曾說，他的信徒們的心田是干涸的，就像雨季到來前的鄉(xiāng)間池塘，它們必需要用理智耕耘，用祈禱澆灌，用愛的種子播種。

　　The devotees who crowded the Puttaparthi ashram, hoping for Blessing or stuffing their letters of petition into His hands, never questioned who He was. He was all the multiple forms of God in human shape. Though His forecast that he would die in 2020 was a little out, that did not dent the beli that He would return in a new body to carry on His work. And Sai Baba, patting them on the back, had always told them they were God also. All they needed was, like Him, to know it.

　　擠滿普塔帕蒂靜修處的信徒們，從未懷疑過他是誰，他們期待著賜福，或?qū)⑺麄兊钠矶\文塞入賽巴巴的手里。 他是化身為人的所有的神。 雖然他預言自己將死于2020年有點不大準確，但這并不妨礙他將以一個新的身體回來繼續(xù)他的工作這一信念。 賽巴巴總是輕輕拍著信徒們的后背，說他們也有神性。 他們所需做的一切，就是像他一樣，去了知神性。