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Divinity, Miracles and Charity in the Sathya Sai Baba Movement of Malaysia
Come to me with empty hands. I shall fill them with gifts and grace. sathya sai baba
(quoted in Murphet 1975:77)

Alexandra Kent
Gteborg University, Sweden

abstract This paper examines how a Hindu revitalisation movement addresses the modernisation in Malaysia. Modernisation entails material development and nation-building, but also the weakening of the authority of religious institutions and the internalisation of faith. The following of the Indian guru, Sathya Sai Baba, is largely urban-based, attracting many Indian business people, scientists and professionals. The paper elaborates theoretical debate on the gift, pioneered by Marcel Mauss, and explores how contractual and sacrificial religious giving is articulated within this movement in a way that reconciles spirituality with modernity. This articulation enables devotees to bid for a position as the custodians of morality within a modern, ethnically plural society, in which the elite of the Indian minority is marginalised in several respects. keywords Sathya Sai Baba, Malaysia, gift, modernisation, Mauss his paper concerns the way in which a Hindu revitalisation movement in Malaysia attempts to address some of the spiritual and social changes that accompany modernisation. Among these changes are the celebration of the sovereign and independent individual (Guerra 1994), material development and nation-building, but also the weakening of the authority of religious institutions and the internalisation of faith: religion becomes a matter of personal preference (Gombrich & Obeyesekere 1988). Bharati (1970:268) notes how the idiom of the Hindu Renaissance, harnesses technological simile and parable to vindicate or exemplify ancient truths, thus enabling basic religious values to be reiterated in the garb of modern, Western culture. Some Hindu academics argue that there is an inherent congruity between Hinduism, seen as a set of universal and eternal doctrines, and modernisation (Balasubramaniam 1985). Lee (1997) proposes that Hinduism accommodates
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modernity by repeatedly reissuing its religious tenets in novel, syncretic amalgamations, through historically apposite, charismatic individuals. This he contrasts with the theocentric worldview of Islam, which, he contends, gives primacy to the word of God and tends therefore to collide with the competitive pluralism of modern institutions. One of the most influential contemporary, charismatic revitalisers of Hinduism is the living godman, or avatar, Sri Sathya Sai Baba a renowned miracle worker who was born in 1926 in a village called Puttaparthi, in Central India, where he still lives. Although he almost never leaves his country, he has attracted a substantial global following, represented by Sai Baba organisations in over one hundred and thirty countries. The living Sai Baba, who claims to be the second of three Sai Baba incarnations, appeals particularly to Westernised, middle-class Hindus (see Bowen 1988; Klass 1996; Swallow 1976). But he also attracts European and North American followers and, in Malaysia, a number of Chinese (Kent 2000). The movement is largely urban-based and includes business people, scientists and professionals in its membership. As of 1995, Malaysia was home to thirty-five registered Sai Baba centres and thirteen so-called devotional groups altogether controlled by one hundred and forty-four office bearers. Registered members of the Sai Baba organisation represent a small fraction of the normal congregations of the centres, which may number anywhere between ten and a hundred and tend to fluctuate somewhat over time since many people are active in other religious organisations as well. I want here to look at the way in which religious gifts operate within the Sai Baba movement in order to illuminate a central feature of the Sai value system: the relationship between what I shall call here contractual and selfless sacrificial giving. In terms of Sai philosophy, contractual giving, which underlies material progress and therefore the project of modernity, is ideologically subordinated to selfless sacrifice. This relationship, I suggest, shows how Sai Baba enables Hindus who have been acculturated to a modern way of life and its rationality to nevertheless feel that they are living in accordance with the ancient tenets of Hinduism. Although Sai teachings hold particular appeal for the prosperous middle classes and make allowance for their continued material progress, they ultimately reconcile personal gain with Brahminic Hindu ideas of spiritual elevation by promoting an ideal of socially-directed selfless sacrifice charity. Using various ethnographic threads from the Sai Baba following in Malaysia, I intend to show how the interestedness motivating contractual gift-exchange is transformed into the disinterestedness of
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genuine sacrifice. This reconciles modernity with spirituality for Malaysian Sai Baba followers in a way that is peculiarly appropriate to the Malaysian political context, in which ethnicity plays a pivotal role. Their advertisement of Sai Babas mission offers them and the broader following they represent hope of becoming significant contenders in an arena of competing ideologies where social legitimacy is negotiated within the framework of nation building. In Malaysia, the Malay ethnic group by definition Muslim and representing some 54 percent of the population broadly controls political power. The Chinese some 34 percent of the population are identified with economic dominance. The Indian population represents only some 10 percent of the total and is not only numerically weak but is also politically and economically relatively insignificant. Sai Babas Malaysian following is largely middle-class and is led by a small group of urban, bourgeois Indians who derive largely from Ceylonese (Jaffna Tamil) and South Indian Malayali stock. Once favoured by the British colonial rulers, these groups are now politically marginalised both within the nation and among the Malaysian Indian community, which is predominantly of South Indian Tamil extraction. Against this background, the Sai-inspired struggle by a small, doubly marginalised group for Indian supremacy in the realm of spirituality holds particular import. The Gift and Danadharma This paper is not concerned to embark on the long anthropological debate concerning the gift but will dissect out and present a small cross-section of it in order to clarify my own theoretical approach to the material at hand. At the apex of the debate is Marcel Mauss classic work The Gift (1990), where he so adroitly handles the issue of gift exchange. It is to his analysis that I pay tribute here in my use of the notion contractual. In 1985, Parry levelled pointed criticism at Mauss use of Hindu ethnography to illustrate his argument. It is in the tension between these two stances that a resolution may be teased out and fruitfully applied to the material from the Sai Baba movement. Mauss thesis is essentially that gift-giving entails an expectation of return, and thus puts the recipient under obligation to the donor. Reciprocation then binds the two parties in a form of bilateral and essentially symmetrical social contract. In order to establish the universal relevance of his thesis, Mauss applies his idea to various ethnographic examples, including the Hindu phenomenon of danadharma (law of religious gifts, gifts offered to Brahmins) in order to show that here too the donor is motivated by interest in returns,
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and that the gift inspires a balanced reciprocity: The thing that is given produces its rewards in this life and the next (p. 56). Parry (1985) firmly rejects this application of the contractual ideal to danadharma. He declares that Mauss, in his eagerness to establish the viability of his theory, has forced the Indian ethnography to fit and thereby violated the nature of danadharma, in which the reciprocity obligation is conspicuously absent. Where Mauss proposes that the spirit of the gift stimulates an obligation to reciprocate, Parry argues the contrary; the essential point about the danadharma gifts is that they must not be reciprocated, but must be transferred away from the donor in an attempt to expiate the negativity attaching to his soul. Accordingly, the power of this gift be it in cash or kind is its ability to convey badness (attachment, desire, greed, selfishness, envy) away from the giver. It is a personal sacrifice or offering up of a part of self the givers spirit is cleansed through the disinterest (in tangible gains) with which he unburdens himself of his gift. Also, the ideal recipient is a Brahmin who has no interest in accepting such an offering. Should he receive willingly, then he not only condemns himself by his attachment to materia, but he also condemns the giver whose increments in merit depend on his choice of a worthy and disinterested recipient. The Brahmins duty is to neutralise the negativity inherent in the gift by practising austerities or Vedic learning. For danadharma, Parry notes, the rule is that pure asymmetry must obtain (p. 461). The unwilling Brahmin recipient must not reciprocate, and the only benefit the donor should seek is that of karmic merit. The contractual nature of gift-giving is eclipsed as the expiatory is brought into focus, and the two aspects, Parry claims, exist in inverse proportion to one another: Where we have the spirit, reciprocity is denied; where there is reciprocity there is not much evidence of spirit. The two aspects of the [Mauss] model do not hang together (ibid.: 463). The giving away of worldly possessions, when accompanied by a disinterested state of mind, enacts the sought-after ideal of liberation from attachment to comfort and fortune, The unreciprocated gift becomes a liberation from bondage to it, a denial of the profane self, an atonement for sin, and hence a means to salvation (ibid.: 468). Brahminical Hinduism glorifies world-renunciation as the preferable path to salvation and this necessitates abandonment of contractual exchange and interest in returns. Detachment from the physical and social world is promoted over commitment to it. Parry argues, therefore, that giving a religiously charged gift with any hope of reciprocation in this world would debase and destroy its spirit utterly. In this paper I would like to take a step beyond the Mauss/Parry impasse
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by examining the issue of gift-giving and receiving in the context of the Sai Baba movement. As we shall see, Sai Baba promotes the purposive utilisation of mans interestedness, engaging it as a means towards a final goal of sociallycommitted selflessness. The crux of this is the way in which it enables the transformation of interestedness into disinterestedness, of worldliness into sublimity. My ethnographic exploration here is in part intended to show how the centrality and infinite versatility of the gift in human culture may stimulate continued theoretical debate about it. Divine Gifts The ethnography presented here traces the passage of gifts between the profane and the divine realms realms that are realised partly by dint of the attitudes of donor and recipient. Sai Baba preaches a universalist and modernist form of Hindu devotionalism. He declares all religions to be simply different paths towards the same final Godhead, which devotees understand to be manifest in the world as Sai Baba. This interdigitation between the profane and the divine the world has divine potential inherent within it and divinity has the potential to manifest in the world permeates the material. Sai Babas devotees strive to realise their inherent potential divinity in a forum of gift-giving and receiving that is not renunciatory. I shall explore here various kinds of gift transmission. Each elaborates the central theme of embracing yet transforming attachment and self-interest. This theme achieves several things. It guides the individual in his spiritual quest, provides the Sai Baba community with a yardstick against which to measure the spiritual prowess of others, and it offers a politically viable strategy for presenting Sai philosophy to Malaysian society at large. Gifts from the Divine Person Sai Baba as divine incarnation (avatar) has the ambiguous status of being both God and man. His acts and proclamations are consequently both human and divine events. When he gives, he does so both as a person who has a measure of human interestedness in reciprocity and as the supreme, disinterested Godhead. Sai Baba is best known for his reported ability to manifest objects out of thin air and for healing the sick. These miraculous powers are repeatedly alluded to and often described in great detail in the apologetic literature. Onetime sceptics write of how their confrontation with these inexplicable events
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led them first to wonderment and stupefaction, and finally to an utter transformation of their understanding of the nature of the world (e.g. Sandweiss 1975). Indeed, Babb (1983) argues that it is the miraculous that is the absolute axis of the movement since the teachings contain nothing unique or remarkable they are typical of Hindu devotionalist (bhakti ) movements in general. The miracles not only suggest that there is a reality beyond human comprehension but they also attract followers with their promise of divine rewards. Sai Baba explains that the miracles exploit the baser attributes of human desire in order to catalyse spiritual metamorphosis, I give people what they want in order that they will come to want what I have to give. Although he belittles the materialisations as trivia, it is clear from devotees stories that the miracles are the primary agents that transform people into devotees. The miracles initially create a quasi-contractual relationship between Sai Baba and the devotee. They forge a social bond and in this sense the objects he materialises compare with the hau of the Maori taonga (the spirit of the thing given), which, Even when it has been abandoned by the giver ... still possesses something of him (Mauss 1990:12). The gift exerts a grip upon its recipient, obliging him to receive and later to reciprocate. On one level, Sai Baba is interested in making his devotees beholden to him. Many of the objects he materialises (necklaces, watches, rings) are intended for wearing on the body, so that Sai Babas imperceptible presence becomes physically contiguous with the recipient, constantly reminding them of his hold over them. Sai Baba has proclaimed a manifesto for charity, education in universal human values, worship and meditation and has dictated that an international Sai Baba organisation should be established to execute it. As a social actor, he puts his devotees under contractual obligation to him, commanding their participation in the implementation of the mission, in exchange for his possible delivery of Gods grace, Improve and expand our Organisation as you go back to your places. Just dont stop here ... Then only can you call yourselves as true devotees (Sai Baba in Rao, n.d. 8:11). Sometimes he gives his gifts together with very specific instructions, such as in the case of the lingam he materialised for a Malaysian devotee,
He ... moved his hand and materialised a black elliptical shaped stone, about the size of an egg. Atma lingam, Jyothi lingam. He repeated placing the lingam on my palm. Do Abishega [ritual bathing]! Can do anytime of the day. Do it for sick people, mental troubles, anything!! (Jegadesan n.d. Journey to God iii:69).

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Conversely, devotees often expect, or at least hope for returns for their efforts and they usually interpret miracles as repayment for their spiritual achievements. When these hopes are dashed, explanation is sought and usually found through the theodicy of karma, He did not cure me because then I would simply have to pay for my past sins later. There is clearly a worldly, social dimension to these divine gifts, one which involves social bonding and the obligation to reciprocate. The beneficiary of a miracle becomes indebted to Sai Baba as person, and should repay by participating in his utopian programmes. From the other side, there is a conception that human spiritual endeavour may bring miraculous rewards. However, the alliance these gifts create is far from bilateral and symmetrical. It is intrinsically hierarchical and asymmetrical. In all cases, the conduct and attitude of the mortal is crucial while Sai Baba is free from obligation and codes of morality. This is because everything he does, no matter how bizarre, unpleasant and capricious, is assumed to be in the spiritual interests of mankind. His divine unaccountability means he is not constrained by the norms of contractual relations that bind his mortal followers. While they understand themselves to be obliged to him, he is under no equivalent obligation towards them. A devotees relationship to his guru is therefore neither properly reciprocal, nor is it symmetrical. It would seem then that although interestedness plays a role for both parties in this form of gift-giving, the model of bilateral contractual gift exchange does not fit accurately. To stop the analysis at this point would also be to miss the further development and final resolution of the issue of giving in the Sai Baba movement. Not only is the devotee-deity relationship inherently lopsided, but all interestedness, for both parties, is finally resolved in an ideology of disinterestedness. On the one hand, Sai Babas humanlike interest is ultimately subsumed within divine indifference, and on the other, devotees desires for divine returns are subordinated to the ideal of pure, selfless sacrifice. Gifts of Divinity Sai Baba is not only a person for his devotees, but he is also an instance of universal divinity that has supposedly manifested through its own volition. As far as he is concerned, the benefits of his gifts are designed to accrue to mankind only. He himself has no need of them, God does not desire anything. There is nothing that God wants. Love is what you need to give God (Rao, n.d., 1:6). Since he is divine, Sai Baba is free from the worldly interests that enslave mankind. He claims to be unaffected
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by the use or abuse to which his miracles are put. They are, he declares, simply means to help mankind achieve its own spiritual realisation. If the recipient fails, it is he who will suffer. Divinity remains impassive and unaffected,
I have come to give you the key of the treasure of ananda, or bliss, to teach you how to tap that spring ... If you waste this time of saving yourselves, it is just your fate ... I do not cause either joy or grief. You are the designer of both these chains that bind you ... The establishment of dharma (righteousness): that is my aim ... These miracles as you call them are just a means towards that end ... I call you to me and even grant worldly boons so that you may turn Godward ... I am always full of bliss. Whatever may happen, nothing can come in the way of my smile (Sai Baba 1968 in Sandweiss 1975:8991).

Devotees see Sai Baba and his teachings as unquestionable truth the direct outpouring of universal divinity. This universal force is the animating spark of selfhood; it is the ultimate Self , that participates in all beings. Thus, the recipient of a divine gift finds himself, somewhat circularly, finally obliged to the Self , which is resident within himself and all beings. The spiritual benefit to be gained through giving and receiving is that of approximating Sai Babas compassionate yet unaffected state of being, He who has no trace of hatred towards any creature, who is friendly and compassionate towards all, who is free from the bondage of I and mine, who takes pain and pleasure as equally welcome and who is forbearing in spite of provocation (Kasturi n.d.: 208). The materialised items remind devotees of the spiritual purpose Sai Baba defines for them, which is to become close to Sai Baba both as person and as a state of being. At the worldly level of illusion (maya), the devotee is made beholden to Sai Baba as person, but through and beyond this, in a universal and transcendent sense, he is supposed to become beholden to Sai Baba as divinity, the selfsame divinity that dwells as a potential within the receiver himself, You are God ... Swami [Sai Baba] has no trace of selfishness. All the time He thinks of helping somebody somewhere or other and never for Himself. You will be divine if you develop such a feeling (Sai Baba in Rao, n.d., 1:5). The interestedness Sai Baba shows through his gifts is really an interest in bringing about disinterestedness in his devotees, I am interested in the work, in the loving heart, in the self-less service (Sathya Sai Council of Malaysia Publications 1984: 22). Every time the recipient looks at or touches his miracle gift, he is reminded of Sai Babas insistence that divinity is present, that it exists in human form and that everything and every place is imbued with
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divine potential. As a selected recipient of Gods grace, he bears a particular responsibility to honour this knowledge he becomes obliged firstly to the person of Sai Baba, but through him to the redemptive mission and finally to the development of his own inner divinity. Overcoming Desire Devotees beseech Sai Baba, as a compassionate, deified human, to deliver divine favour to them in return for their prayers and devotion. Following many of the prayer meetings I witnessed in Malaysia, devotees were urged to stand up and tell of personal experiences of miracles. These stories often made a causal link between the devotees commitment to prayer or charity and worldly rewards. They mentioned how some of the most staunch devotees had been healed, how one devotees shop was saved from a fire which ravaged the rest of the street, how a young devotee was accepted into medical school even though his exam results were inadequate, and how a devotee doctor who had incurred considerable debt had then won exactly the amount of money he owed on a lottery ticket. As a person, Sai Baba interacts partly in the style of contractual relations, offering benefits in exchange for participation in his spiritual mission. There are numerous stories that reinforce the idea of recompense for carrying out Sai Babas will. For example, a blind young man miraculously regained his sight after he had mended a broken statue of the goddess Durga, and Sai Baba explained, I gave his eyesight back because he does too much work Gods work. He mends all the Gods all the time, so now I have mended him (in Jegadesan n.d. i:234). Desire for Sai Babas favours, however, is something most devotees struggle with. They understand that to evolve spiritually, one must progress beyond desire. Many admit to longing for an interview with Sai Baba or a miracle, but they try to overcome this. One devotee I interviewed had gone to Puttaparthi many times and almost all his friends had been called for interviews with Sai Baba, but not he. Although he admitted he was disappointed, he reasoned that Sai Babas nonchalance actually demonstrated his compassion; by refusing to satisfy his longing he was helping him to vanquish the ego with its attendant hopes and expectations. Others explained that Sai Baba apportions grace according to peoples needs and karmic deserts and not according to their desires. Devotees understand that desire is discordant with Sai philosophy, but they ask favours of him as a fellow human who, notwithstanding his divine disinterestedness, is also able to greet them with human concern.
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Giving of and for the Self The discussion above concerns primarily the passage of gifts from compassionate yet ultimately disinterested divinity to mortal. I now want to turn to the gifts that pass in the opposite direction from mortal to divinity. The crux here is that the purity or divinity of both the gift and its donor is actualised by the attitude with which it is given: contractual or sacrificial. In terms of Sai morality, the ideal gift is that given with an attitude of selfless disinterestedness, but not to a Brahmin. The Sai gift is exemplified by the charity activities run by Sai Baba organisations. Charity is exalted because it is directed towards an all-pervasive divinity that is present in all beings, Society is the divine proliferation produced by the will supreme (Sai Baba in Sandweiss 1975:205). However, offering charity is not a divine act per se since it may be accompanied by the wrong attitude. To achieve true Sai charity, devotees are exhorted to give of universal, selfless love,
You have to uproot egoistic tendency, get rid of all sense of mine and thine, and burn to ashes the pride that comes of the feeling that you are offering service to some one poorer and less fortunate ... Seva [charitable service] in all its forms ... is spiritual discipline, mental clean-up. Without the inspiration given by that attitude, the urge is bound to ebb and grow dry; or, it may meander into pride and pomp (Sai Baba in Sathya Sai Council of Malaysia Publications 1984:34).

The gift that is given without self-interest and attachment is divine and manifests the divinity of the donor,
These are the intangible gifts of love that every devotee can and should aspire for the gift of sharing and caring; for, the ability to give and receive love without fear or favour, without expectation or reward, to give love even to those who would hate and despise us, is the greatest gift that Baba can give everyone of us. This in fact is the greatest gift of spirituality and religion to make a devotee as perfect as our father in heaven is perfect, to become as children, to give love and receive love selflessly for God is love (Jegadesan n.d. iii:71, italics original).

Of special interest in Sai philosophy is the fact that the self-interest driving contractual exchange is encouraged and utilised as an integral part of the spiritual process. Ultimately, it is transformed into the ideal of selfless sacrifice. It is acceptable to long for materialisations from Sai Baba if the items are then put to spiritual use and it is acceptable to be wealthy and influential if these resources are used for the benefit of the needy. Sai Baba and his devotees generally deplore the classic Hindu celebration of world-renunciation. The rhetoric criticises hermits, recluses and worldethnos, vol. 69:1, march 2004 (pp. 43 62)

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renouncers for their failure to fulfil their worldly moral duty or dharma, which Sai Baba defines very much in social terms,
Neither performance of Tapas (austerities), nor pilgrimages to all holy places, nor study of all Sastras, nor immersion in Japa, will ever help one to cross the Ocean (cycle of birth to death). The only path that will help you to be liberated from Samsara is dedicating yourself to the service of others (Sai Baba in Sathya Sai Council of Malaysia Publications 1984:37).

Sai Babas updated delivery of Hinduism makes no demand that people relinquish all their worldly acquisitions. On the contrary, he makes it possible and even desirable for them to maintain their prosperity. He simply provides a way to reconcile this with spirituality through an inner, emotional transformation brought about by devotion, love and charity. Making Contracts with God I want now to take a rather different turn to look at a major Hindu festival celebrated in Malaysia. Here, the religious offerings are not necessarily sacrificial either in the strictly unidirectional expiatory sense outlined by Parry, or in the selfless, socially-committed sense commanded by Sai Baba, but may be more explicitly contractual. The Malaysian Sai Baba organisation, while it patronises the festival and tries to establish brotherhood with its participants, implicitly subordinates the goings on there to its own publicly brandished philosophy of sacrifice and in so doing assures itself greater social and political respectability. Its claim to ideological superiority is permeated by hegemonic implications. Thaipusam The Tamil festival of Thaipusam is one of the most striking examples of religious gift-giving among Malaysian Hindus. The festival is celebrated annually on a large scale in Kuala Lumpur and Penang, and in some other smaller cities. It takes place around the full moon day of the Tamil month of thai and honours the god Murugan, son of the great deity Siva. Although some attend the festival and make offerings simply as thanksgiving or to honour the god, many draw up a kind of agreement with the god in the form of a vow. They may pledge to perform certain austerities or to make certain offerings in exchange for and as recompense for a desire fulfilled. The austerities carried out are strongly focused on the senses. Anything from a few days to a month of ritual preparation and purification may be observed in advance of the festival and these involve
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overcoming desire. Vegetarianism, sexual and social abstinence, cold baths, prayers and sleeping on the floor are among the common prescriptions, although there is wide variation in the duration and extent to which these are followed. When the time arrives for the devotee to carry his burden (kavadi ) up the steps to the idol, he or she first bathes in the nearby river where they may be initiated into trance by an experienced kavadi bearer. They may then submit their body to piercing with hooks or skewers through the tongue, cheeks and skin of the upper body. In 1997, in Kuala Lumpur alone over one million worshippers were reported to have attended.1 They took offerings of milk, shaved their heads, pierced their bodies with skewers or carried their babies up the steep climb to the temple at which they entreat or show their gratitude to the deity. Lee (1989) describes how transcendence of the sensory aspects of self is accompanied by the release of raw individual powers, evident in the form of sensational performances of multiple piercing. The austerities not only purify the body and mind, but also produce internal heat, which enables the devotee to carry kavadi and carry out self-mortification. Lee proposes that this is a manifestation of a religious tradition that emphasises a debt bondage between gods and men, and the penalties that are incurred if debt remained unpaid (ibid.: 329). In general, the blessings sought or repaid in this way are tangible personal awards such as health, prosperity and progeny. The Sai Embrace Sai philosophy accommodates this kind of religious activity on several levels. Partly in obedience to Sai Babas insistence that his followers return to their own religious traditions, to rekindle them and their spiritual essence, the Malaysian following is supportive of Thaipusam and readily participates in it. However, Sai Baba and those who lead the Malaysian Sai Baba organisation phrase Sai philosophy as superordinate to instrumental folk Hinduism. When I asked Malaysian Sai Baba devotees about their participation in Thaipusam, they explained that their aim was to raise their level of consciousness and cleanse their minds. They interpreted Murugans spear (vel ) as representing the sharpness, the penetration and the breadth of wisdom and they told me that supplicants should seek wisdom from the deity. Several described the pursuit of worldly benefits from him as the kindergarten stage of spirituality. Although none of the Sai devotees I witnessed in Kuala Lumpur (1997) carried out any form of self-mortification, they expressed no clear consensus about it. Some said it was in principle justifiable if it helped to bring a person
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closer to an experience of God, though others disapproved of harming the body. However, it was clear that the Sai Baba followers did tend to regard the low-caste worshippers who in fact usually carry out the most spectacular forms of self-mortification, as uneducated and ignorant. The Sai Baba organisation is at pains to dissociate itself from what it decries as idolatry and superstition and has taken upon itself the task of educating those who have become illiterate in the language of the gods. One limb of their social agenda, the Education in Human Values Programme, actually involves morally uplifting Indians in the urban squatter settlements, teaching them, among other things, the values of self-sacrifice and charity. During the Thaipusam festivities I witnessed, the Sai Baba organisation leader secured forty-five minutes access to the public address system and he led his group in singing devotional songs glorifying Murugan. This advertised the organisations approval of and desire to participate in the festival. Nevertheless, although Sai philosophy embraces Thaipusam, this is not a mutual arrangement. The working class, low-caste Indians, who constitute the bulk of Thaipusam participants, and non-Sai Baba devotees not infrequently dismiss the Sai Baba movement as simply a rich-mans cult. Why, some ask, does Sai Baba produce gold trinkets for those who are already prosperous? The rhetorical superordination of charity over individual-centred and contractual religious behaviour holds little appeal for those whose participation in charity could only be as beneficiaries. The Malaysian Sai Baba organisation claims privileged access to Truth, both philosophically and also physically through their relationship with a living incarnation of Truth. This, combined with Sai Babas assertions concerning the divinity of selfless charity, which provides the middle-classes with an answer to the classic Hindu equation of material poverty with spiritual purification, asserts the spiritual supremacy of the middle-class Malaysian Sai Baba following over todays politically stronger low-caste, low-class Indian population. The way in which the Sai Baba following participates in Thaipusam even though it is at the same time trying to provide religious education to counteract superstitious practices among labouring class Indians has political implications in Malaysia. The numerically strong, low-status participants at the festival receive substantial support from the Malaysian Indian Congress (mic), the party that represents Indian political interests in Malaysia. The mic is a populist rather than elitist party and it derives its support from the labouring classes. As noted, the Sai Baba organisation leaders come predominantly from a small group of Ceylonese and Malayalis. These two groups of Indians once enjoyed
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privilege and influence under the protectorate. Today, like other elite Indians, they lack anchorage in Indian political representation and the goodwill they show by their patronage of Thaipusam suggests an attempt to secure their belonging in the broader category of Indian. The Transformative Power of Giving Recalling Parrys argument, his material suggests that worldliness and selfinterest are necessarily inimical to divine realisation. Sai Babas philosophy says, on the contrary, that divinity exists not in opposition to the world, but as a potential within it. It is through the transformation rather than renunciation of the world that this potential can be realised and divinity made manifest. Let us take a look at Sai Babas materialisations. The objects are considered to be of divine origin, yet they are inherently equivocal they have the potential both to corrupt and to sublimate, and their final realisation is dependent upon the attitude of the receiver,
every act of outward grace that others can see, admire, praise, develop envy for etc., every ring, amulet and pendant, as much as these are acts of grace and love, each one is also a trap ... a spiritual trap, an ego trap ... that can take me far from the path that I am attempting to pursue. Just because I wear on my person 3 objects materialised by Bhagavan, does this mean that those with no such physical, divine manifestations are any less blessed? ... The moment that thought comes to mind, the moment one begins to measure spiritual strength or the grace of God by the physical trappings of sai grace, that is the day the spiritual trap-door opens and we fall into void, fall away from the divine (Jegadesan n.d. iii:70).

The miraculously conceived object is handed over unsullied to the human world. It contains the potential to awaken divine realisation but also the attendant risk of abuse the attitude of the recipient is decisive for the outcome. In other words, the recipient of a gift from a spiritually superior source has the power to determine the character of the event. Should he transform his person into one driven by selfless love, devoid of jealousy and envy then the divine potential of the gift becomes a potent, actualised force that is capable of affecting the world. Sai Babas major concern is the divine nature that human beings all share and their potential to realise their spiritual equivalence with each other,
The men and women bound by mutual interests in a society are not merely families, castes, classes, groups or kinsmen and kinswomen; they are One Atma ... all mankind is One ... This unity must be experienced by everyone (Sai Baba in Sandweiss 1975: 205, 207). ethnos, vol. 69:1, march 2004 (pp. 43 62)

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The moral directive is that each person should learn to recognise his selfhood in others and try to fulfil the needs of others as if they were his own. A Sai story recited by a devotee at one prayer meeting expressed this thus,
A man was asked by God if he wanted to go to Heaven and Hell. The man said hed like to have a look at both options before deciding. So he was shown Hell first. There was plenty of delicious food but the people were starving and miserable. They each had a two-foot spoon to eat with and couldnt get it near their mouths. In Heaven the same thing, there was the same food and the same two-foot spoons but the people were happy and well-fed. The man asked how this was possible. God answered that in Hell each tries to feed himself whilst in Heaven they each feed their neighbour.

In contrast to Parrys Brahmin recipients of danadharma, the ideal recipient of Sai charity is one with the greatest need and therefore, presumably, the greatest interest in the gift. In this way, gifts of charity effect the accumulation of spiritual capital by the donor, asserting his dominance over rather than subordination to the recipient. The Sai Baba followers I observed in Kuala Lumpur spent considerable energy finding the most needy groups to whom they could offer charity; poverty-stricken, terminal, paediatric cancer patients, a desperately under-staffed home for severely handicapped children from poor, rural families, a leprosarium and so on. The passage of the truly divine gift tends then to travel not upwards towards the superior and disinterested Brahmin, but downwards towards the poor and needy. Although the poor cannot realise divinity by giving charity, they are not excluded from the possibility. According to their Sai benefactors, their redemption consists of accepting the definitions of spirituality and righteousness expounded by Sai Baba and his following and acceptance of Sai Baba as a living god. This takes the form of commitment both to Sai Baba himself and, by implication, to the Malaysian organisation. However, persistant sub-ethnic and intracommunal rifts within the Indian community (Rajoo 1982; Mearns 1995; Willford 1998) are reflected in the refusal of the more numerous South Indian Tamil/Hindu labouring class Indians to submit their religiosity to redefinition by middle-class exponents of a bourgeois, rational Hinduism and they remain largely absent from the ranks of the movement. Nevertheless, for the Sai Baba devotees, when the divine potential in a gift is realised, it offers not only emotional and spiritual elevation but also hope of status enhancement.

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Building a Divine Nation Sai Babas agenda is largely in harmony with the nation-building efforts of Malaysias political leadership. Neither prohibits striving for wealth, and both place responsibility for its equitable redistribution on the individual conscience rather than on the political leadership. Sai Baba proclaims, There are many rich people in this world ... They could grow rich because of the efforts and wealth of the poor. Having received from the poor, you spend for them ... on medicines and education ... That is true devotion (Rao, n.d., 1: 6), and,
Spend your money for service. Where there is water shortage, try to solve that problem. Where health care, education and medicines are required, participate in that activity. Do everything for society and not for the individual ... We should not depend upon the Government for everything. People should co-operate to the extent possible and provide all types of conveniences for themselves. Then only will there be a feeling of one family (Sai Baba in Rao, n.d., 8:8; 1:6).

This tallies well with Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamads insistence that material equality is impossible because it goes against nature ... All are different ... This truth cannot be denied (1993:67). Arguing against the material equality sought by socialists, which he claims depends upon greed, he proposes an alternative, Islamic model of equality,
All Muslims, poor or rich, king or commoner, are equal. In worship and in the eyes of God they are equal. It is this equality which makes Muslims brothers regardless of economic position, rank, status, race and colour. The basis of the brotherhood is not status of property-ownership but the spirituality that comes from faith in the teachings of Islam. It is a genuine brotherhood of pure hearts, free from jealousy and envy (ibid.: 65).

Furthermore, Sai Baba and Prime Minister Mahathir both marry material progress to spirituality in remarkably similar ways. The former claims,
Vairagyam or detachment does not imply renunciation of family ties and fleeing into the loneliness of the jungle. It means giving up the feeling that things are permanent and are capable of yielding supreme joy (Kasturi n.d. x:14).

And the latter,

In Islam helping people is a virtue and Muslims are exhorted to do so ... What should be judged is not ... [a persons] ... striving for wealth but his attitude and beliefs ... Worldly wealth is Gods gift, and not to Muslims alone. Spurning it is an ethnos, vol. 69:1, march 2004 (pp. 43 62)

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act of arrogance and ingratitude to God for His gift. What Muslims should do is to accept and value the gift without forgetting that they have certain duties in this world (op.cit.: 81).

Numerous other examples of this kind of compatibility between the two leaders views of the relationship between the material world and spirituality could be cited, but suffice it to say that both share sufficient presuppositions that Sai Babas teachings can enter the Malaysian context without challenging prevailing political philosophy (see Kent 1999). The recipe seems well suited to a plural society striving for national unity an ideology of material progress combined with containment of religious hierarchies and their isolation from control over public policy, all put together with an increasing emphasis on internalised religion and the individual conscience as the check on gravitation of resources. Sai Baba himself puts it succinctly,
Service to society is everyones primary duty. Businessmen should develop a moral approach, use right means for earning wealth and utilise it for the benefit of society (Sathya Sai Council of Malaysia Publications 1985:43).

While Prime Minister Mahathir confines himself to Islam when speaking of spirituality, the Sai Baba philosophy is explicitly inclusive, universalistic and ecumenical. The Malaysian Sai Baba organisation is thereby able to assure the government of its heartfelt involvement in a programme formulated by the Malay/Muslim leadership, while at the same time expanding the definition of those included from Muslim, to all. Thus they facilitate their own philosophical acceptance by the Malay leadership, but simultaneously philosophically encompass (subordinate) Islam within their own cosmology. The Malaysian Sai Baba organisation claims spiritual brotherhood with all compatriots, the Muslim Malays, the Indians and the Chinese. Their exclusion from Muslim dominated political power, and from Chinese-dominated economic power as well as from the working-class Indian solidarity of the mic means that spirituality may be one of the few forms of cultural capital left available to this small, culturally besieged group of formerly privileged, middle-class Indians. Conclusions Starting with Mauss and Parry and taking several ethnographic detours en route, I have considered the spirit of the gift as articulated in Sai Babas teachings and philosophy and by his Malaysian followers. I suggest that this
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rendition of the gift squares well with the Malaysian national ideology of material development with limited state interference in the gravitation of capital. The cultivation of an internalised altruistic spirit is favoured over the renunciation of worldly progress in both instances. Thus interest in returns la Mauss is reconciled with the expiatory nature of selfless sacrifice described by Parry through an attitude of detachment rather than physical detachment. In the passage of gifts from godman to man and vice versa, the gift is transformed from profane to divine by the attitude of detachment with which it given or received. In all cases, interestedness is integral to and a precursor of spiritual transformation rather than anathema to it, a conclusion which differs from that arrived at by Parry for danadharma. Sai Babas double identity as not just man but also God gives his teachings the status of supreme Truth which absorbs, contains and finally subordinates all religious thought and practice. Thus Sai re-animation of the cosmos is not only philosophically satisfying but also has implications for cultural ennoblement of those who uphold it. The parallels between Sai Babas and Prime Minister Mahathirs wedding of materialism and spirituality ease the delivery of Sai philosophy in Malaysia. This enables the Sai Baba organisation leadership to officially present its religion as, at the very most, reformist and certainly not as subversive of the political leadership. The official profile of the movement in Malaysia today exhibits no resistance, in spite of an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the political situation amongst the membership. It could be argued that the Sai Baba organisation in fact contains these rumblings, directing them towards noncontroversial ends and in this manner serving government interests well. Sai Babas internalisation of religion, something shared both by Western religion and bhakti devotionalist traditions of Hinduism, makes his reassertion of fundamental Hindu tenets liveable for his followers, most of whom have been acculturated to the Western ideals of progress, secularisation and rationalism. This qualifies devotees to manage prosperity without forfeiting their spirituality. Such a philosophy is reminiscent of protestant ideals, a point which Sai Babas followers would likely see as supporting the universality of his teachings. The onward march of modernity closes a classic Hindu door to salvation renunciation for most middle-class Hindus. However, as the material presented here shows, new religious movements may offer creative alternatives even as they further the advance of modernisation. The repackaging of ancient spiritual formulae in a format appropriate to todays world may not only resolve
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general issues of disenchantment, spiritual vacuity or cultural deracination among modern, cosmopolitan classes, but it may also provide an avenue for particular groups to bid for a position of influence for themselves, as guardians of morality, in the formation of modern society. The case under discussion here shows also that in Malaysias ethnic plurality Indian identity, which implies considerable structural marginalisation, can be reinterpreted through Sai as a positive attribute implying rightful custodianship of a tradition from which springs the universal salvation of the modern world. Sai Baba provides Malaysian middle-class Indians with a means of not only acquiring personal redemption but also of seeking social validation.
Acknowledgments This study was generously supported by grants from Humanistiska och Samhllsvetenskapliga Forskningsrdet, Svenska Sllskapet fr Antropologi och Geografi and Gteborg University. I would like to acknowledge the help and kindness I received from all the Sai Baba devotees who participated in this study and from my colleagues in Gteborg. I also would like to thank the editors of Ethnos and the anonymous reviewers of this article for their constructive comments. Note 1. The reports may not be accurate, but nevertheless it is probably correct to assume that the festival celebrations in Penang and Kuala Lumpur attract well over half of the entire Indian population of Malaysia. References Babb, Lawrence A. 1983. Sathya Sai Babas Magic. Anthropological Quarterly, 56(3): 116124. Balasubramaniam, R. 1985. Hindu Tradition, Social Change and Modernisation. Faculty Lecture 7. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore. Bharati, Agehananda. 1970. The Hindu Renaissance and its Apologetic Patterns. Journal of Asian Studies, 29(2):26787. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bowen, David. 1988. The Sathya Sai Baba Community in Bradford: Its Origin and Development, Religious Beliefs and Practices. Monograph Series. Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Leeds. Gombrich, Richard F. & Gananath Obeyesekere. 1988. Buddhism Transformed: Religious Change in Sri Lanka. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Guerra, Franois-Xavier. 1994. The Paradoxes of Modernity. In Modernity and Religion, edited by R. McInerny, pp. 1929. Chicago: University of Notre-Dame Press. James, Wendy & N.J. Allen (eds). 1998. Marcel Mauss: A Centenary Tribute. Oxford. Berghahn Books. Jegadesan, J. n.d. i. Journey to God part I: The Malaysian Experience with Sai Baba. Kuala Lumpur: The Sathya Sai Baba Centre of Bangsar.

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. n.d. iii. Journey to God part III: The Journey Within. Kuala Lumpur: The Sathya Sai Baba Centre of Bangsar. Kasturi, N. n.d. Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. X. Anantapur: Sri Sathya Sai Books and Publications Trust. Kent, Alexandra. 1999. Unity in Diversity: Portraying the Visions of the Sathya Sai Baba Movement of Malaysia. Crossroads Journal, 13(2):2951. . 2000. Creating Divine Unity: Chinese Recruitment in the Sathya Sai Baba Movement of Malaysia. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 15(1):527. Klass, Morton. 1996 [1991]. Singing with Sai Baba: The Politics of Revitalisation in Trinidad. Conflict and Social Change Series. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Lee, R.L.M. 1989. Thaipusam in Malaysia: Ecstasy and Identity in a Tamil Hindu Festival. Contributions to Indian Sociology (NS), 23(2):317337. . 1997. The Structuration of Disenchantment: Secular Agency and the Reproduction of Religion. In Anthony Giddens: Critical Assessments, vol. iv, edited by Christopher G.A. Bryant & David Jary, pp. 321341. London: Routledge. Mahathir bin Mohamad. 1993 [1986]. The Challenge. Petaling Jaya: Pelanduk Publications. Mauss, Marcel. 1990 [1950]. The Gift. London: Routledge. Mearns, D. J. 1995. Sivas Other Children: Religion and Social Identity amongst Overseas Indians. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Murphet, Howard. 1975. Sai Baba: Man of Miracles. Madras: Macmillan. Parry, Jonathan. 1985. The Gift, the Indian Gift and the Indian Gift. Man (NS), 21:45373. Rajoo, R. 1982. Indians in Peninsular Malaysia: Communalism and Factionalism. In Indians in Southeast Asia, edited by I.J. Bahadur Singh, pp. 5278. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Private Ltd. Rao, M. n.d. Directives and Commands of Sri Sathya Sai Avatar for Spiritual Transformation vols. 18. Prashanti Nilayam: Sri Sathya Sai Seva Organisations (Overseas). Sandweiss, Samuel H. 1975. The Holy Man and the Psychiatrist. New Delhi: M. Gulab Singh and Sons. Shaw, Andrew. 1996. Words of Truth: 108 Sayings of Sai Baba. New Delhi: Sterling Paperbacks. Sri Sathya Sai Central Council of Malaysia Publications. 1984. Spiritual Directives/ Advice on Operation of Sai Centres Questions and Answers. . 1985. Report from Symposium on Science and Spirituality, Commerce and Morality. Swallow, Deborah A. 1976. Living Saints and their Devotees. PhD thesis, University of Cambridge. . 1982. Ashes and Powers: Myth, Rite and Miracle in an Indian God-Mans Cult. Modern Asian Studies, 16:123158. Willford, Andrew. 1998. Cage of Freedom: the Politics of Tamil and Hindu Identity in Malaysia and Bangalore, South India. PhD Dissertation, University of California, San Diego.

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