Talk:Sai Baba of Shirdi

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Good article Sai Baba of Shirdi has been listed as one of the Philosophy and religion good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
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  1. Sansthan including its wealth and controverys about government confiscation, possibly a separate article
  2. spin off and inspiration to other gurus, incl. Upasni Maharaj and indirectly to Meher Baba (via Upasani (sp.) Maharaj) (partially done)
  3. write about the Sri Sai Satcharita
  4. Please remove any reference to other Sai Baba altogether it is a controversial statement rebirth as another sai baba.
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[edit] Baba

Baba has no Sanskrit origins, but the word is used frequently in day-to-day (spoken) Marathi meaning "father". --Redtigerxyz (talk) 05:48, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Very interesting. It means "father" in Arabic too. I wonder whether this is due to language adaptation brought about during the Muslim invasion of India? I checked out some online sources but was unable to come up with anything definite, although the majority of Arabic-English online dictionaries translate "Baba" as "father". Rigopoulos mentions that Baba means "father" in Hindi, this is obviously wrong since the "correct" term for father in Hindi is "pita". Sanskrit is pitṛ.
It's kinda hard to strike a balance betwen relying on reliable sources and staying away from original research. On the one hand, it is possible that the Marathi terminology of Baba could be employed, and on the other hand, the Arabic term of 'Baba' could be an indicator of his Muslim/Sufi origins. Very interesting... I'll look into it further, most of the sources I have are rather silent on this matter and prefer to dicuss the 'Sai' part of his name. I hope we don't run into problems over that lol! Ekantik talk 07:15, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
The Sanskritic "pita" is also used in "written" Marathi. Thus Rigopoulos may not be wrong in saying Baba means "father" in "spoken" hindi. Another version of Baba is simply "Ba" (father) used in names of local dieties - Vithoba (brick-father), Khandoba (sword-father), Jyotiba (light-father) etc. --Redtigerxyz (talk) 04:30, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
I think "Bābā is a word meaning "father" used in Indian languages" is Ok , it to be Arabic in nature (in context of Sai baba) needs a ref, if it is to be added again.--Redtigerxyz (talk) 04:41, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
I think one may as well as for refs to show how 'Baba' is used in Indian languages. Apart from Marathi as per your words above, there is no indication that 'Baba' means father in any other Indian languages? As for the Arabic, one only has to look at Wiktionary to see that Baba is a Persian word. Based on this information, I take back my statement that it is Arabic but if no one objects, I'll change the text back tomorrow to refer to "Baba's" ultimately Persian origins. Looking at the text as it is, it seems ultimately redundant as the point about Persian origins was already made earlier: "The name 'Sai Baba' is a combination of Persian ... Sāī (Sa'ih) is the Persian term for "holy one" or "saint", usually attributed to Islamic ascetics...." - Ekantik talk 05:29, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
On the other hand, this Arabic language manual (PDF) for spoken word recognition says that Baba is Arabic. Not a highly reliable source, but... Ekantik talk 05:34, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
See Wikibooks for marathi use of baba and Rigopoulos for Hindi use.--Redtigerxyz (talk) 09:59, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
That's a user-created manual, not really a reliable source. :) But never mind, I've checked the source material and they're either silent on the origin of 'Baba' or they follow Rigopoulos and term it of Hindustani origin. Makes no difference, I think we can just leave it for now, "used in Indian languages" amounts to the same thing. Ekantik talk 23:26, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 11 Sayings

Just wondering if anyone has a source for the famous "11 Sayings" that are published everywhere in ShSB literature? How did it originate, etc? Warren mentions that it is hagiographical, does anyone else know of a source for it? Thanks, Ekantik talk 23:45, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Those sayings need a ref. Raised by me in Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sai Baba of Shirdi/archive2 when i opposed. One of things that needs refs among others. Also i remember adding a fact tag, somebody just removed it without supplying a ref.--Redtigerxyz (talk) 03:39, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing me to that, I wasn't aware of that page. Those are things that definitely need some work. Do you think that the 11 sayings should be removed, or would it be enough to mention Warren's "hagiographical" comment in a footnote? Pending further editing of course, it is likely that those 11 sayins may end up somewhere else in the article. Ekantik talk 01:54, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
The material is better suited for Wikiquote, than this article.--Redtigerxyz (talk) 05:22, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Right column templates

I just took away the project Islam and project Hinduism side templates from the article as they pushed down and out of their proper places all the images. If the templates must be present in the article, please make sure they don't mess the placement of the images. One way I found (but there may be a much better one) is to enclose the whole article (up to the categories section) in one table cell and have the side templates in the next cell. The downside of this is that someone may not see what the table code is for and remove it or mess it up. Hoverfish Talk 11:39, 28 May 2008 (UTC)