naga sai - viii

In Naga Sai Mandir...
esatblished in Coimbatore in 1939...

on the evening of Thursday, January 7, 1943, a miracle happened.

A shining and lustrous Cobra, small in size but possessing an unusually large hood with the divine marks of Tripundra, Shanka and Chakra, appeared before Baba’s picture while the Bhajan was playing to the accompaniment of drum cymbals and other instruments with all the lights on.

The Naga stood in a pose of worship fully entranced in Baba Music! The waving of lights, and aratis had no effect on the Cobra. People who had formed a crowd of a few hundred, stood there in awe and wonder at the sight of the Naga with its spread hood. There was no fear the snake. The proverb, 'even a battalion of soldiers of valour shiver at the sight of a cobra,' was proven wrong then.

Men young and old, women and children began to pour into the spacious land of the Bhajan Madam by the thousands, to witness the Naga that lingered in the same spot for 17 Hours. Baba bhaktas began to shower basket after basket of flowers in worshipful reverence of the Naga. The Cobra was nearly submerged in a mound of flowers, but even then, he was immobile...

On the second day of Naga’s onset, a photographer came to take a photo of the Naga in its majesty, but it was submerged under heaps of flowers. No one had the courage to go near the spot where the cobra was lodged and clear away the flowers. The only course open to them was to pray. The Naga jumped out of the heaps of flowers and appeared for the photograph, as if in answer to the prayers of the multitude.

All who witnessed the sight were sure for the first time, that it was on the week of Sai Baba. The devotees then prayed with fervor and faith to the Naga, to clear out and enable them to resume their routine worship of Baba in the Madam.

Then the immobile Naga showed sign of movement and went around Sri Sai Baba’s picture, and slowly slithered out into the open, and disappeared into the bushes, where later an ant-hill [a snake’s natural habitat] appeared.


~wikipedia~