经济学人29:印度最具争议的上师之一赛巴巴

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　　讣告;赛巴巴;

　　Sathya Sai Baba (Satyanarayana Raju), one of India's most controversial gurus, died on April 24th, aged¹ 85;

　　萨提亚·赛巴巴（赛提亚纳拉亚纳·喇举），印度最具争议的上师之一，死于4月24日，享年85岁;

　　With a mere² circling wave of His Hand, Sai Baba could make objects materialise out of the air. Gold rings, amulets³ and necklaces; blocks of sugar candy; images of Shiva made of topaz and sapphire⁴; bottles of tonic⁵ and packets of blue pills; rosaries, silver vessels⁶ and even medallions inscribed⁷ with the name of the recipient⁸, 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 followers⁹ 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. Smeared¹⁰ on the body, it forgave sins; taken in water, it helped digestive complaints.

　　赛巴巴仅仅挥手划一个圈，就能够使空中突然出现很多东西：金戒指、护身符、项链、冰糖块、黄水晶与蓝宝石制成的湿婆神像、药瓶、汞丸袋、念珠、银器、甚至是刻有接受者名字和年月日的纪念章。他还能够变出圣灰，它们从他的指甲下流出。赛巴巴身材较小，穿着赭黄色长袍，一头巨大的圆蓬式黑发象光晕一般。当他赐福时，通常一天变出一磅的圣灰。他在信徒中走动，使他们能够瞥见一眼神性。圣灰的味道或咸或甜，颜色略黑或白。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 handkerchief. The BBC made a documentary, and slow-motion videos were all over YouTube. Sai Baba laughed at their efforts. 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 defended 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 before his state funeral.

　　怀疑者们总是企图揭露这一过程，他们说，圣灰是在赛巴巴的手指间碾碎的小球，在某些节日上赛巴巴咳出的金质和银质的椭圆体形男根雕像（无形湿婆神的象征物）实际上藏在他的手帕里。BBC拍摄过一部纪录片，慢镜头视频在油条吧上随处可见。赛巴巴对他们的企图不屑一顾。因为与实相相比，他的神通是微不足道的，就如同蚊虫比之于大象。但是在世界上的126个国家里，至少有六百万，或许接近于一亿人，相信它们是赛巴巴所代表的神的象征物。拥护他的人数不亚于曼莫汉·辛格和索尼亚·甘地，前者是印度首相，后者是国大党领袖。信徒们在赛巴巴被国葬之前远程而来表达敬意。

　　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 slump¹¹ stiff and lifeless in His chair for five minutes while He travelled to the Kashmir Front or the seashore at Mumbai. Sufferers from duodenal ulcers¹² would find Him operating on them, materialising the instruments from thin air. He could change water into petrol or diesel¹³ on which cars ran for many miles.

　　此外，他曾说，这个世界上的所有探索和科学都绝不可能解释作为神之化身的他所做的其他一些事情。他可以使死人复活，即使蚂蚁已经爬满他们的身体。他可以使下雨停止。他可以离开自己的身体，让它在椅子里陷入僵直和毫无生气的状态达五分钟，此时他飞往克什米尔前线或者孟买的海滨。十二指肠溃疡患者找他做手术，他可以使手术器械从虚空中突然出现。他可以将水变成汽油或柴油，很多汽车加上这些油可以跑好几英里。

　　A number of more straightforward¹⁴ 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 Assessment¹⁵ and Accreditation¹⁶ 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 benefited. This helped to muffle¹⁷, though never to quiet entirely¹⁸, controversies¹⁹ about His $5 billion trust fund and claims of sexual abuse of His boy disciples²⁰.

　　他也直接做了很多善行。遥远的安德拉邦的普塔帕蒂是他的出生地和1948年后他的静修地，他在这里修建了一座飞机场、两个运动场、一所免费的综合专业医院，和一所被全国评估与鉴定委员会评为A++级的高等教育机构。他在全印度建立了很多免费的小学和中学，在班加罗尔建了另一所免费医院，为从奎师那河输送到金奈市、从戈达瓦里河输送到安德拉邦高地的饮用水付费。大约有二百万人受益。这些有助于抑制关于他的五十亿美元的信托基金的争论，和关于他的一些男孩门徒被性虐待而要求索赔的争论，尽管争论从没有完全平息下来。

　　But then there had always been people who had refused 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 forth²¹ peppermints²² out of an empty bag. He mostly hid His Godhead in those years, but found it frustrating²³, and was glad at 14 to be able to reveal (after a scorpion²⁴ 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.

　　然而总是有一些人，从他的父亲到唯理论者，拒绝相信他的神性。为了治好他的疯病，起初他的父亲用棍子打他，让一个乡村医生割破他的头皮并用蒜汁和石灰水摩擦。1986年唯理论者根据《黄金管理法》控告他从空中搞出来如此多的黄金制品。这一诉讼被驳回了。这些人忽视了明显显露他的神性的迹象，例如，在他出生时有一条眼镜蛇将他放进摇篮，在他是个学童时就能从一个空瓶子里弄出薄荷糖来。那些年他通常都在隐藏他的神性，但是他发现隐藏不了。在14岁时，他曾被一只蝎子蛰了，使他陷入神志恍惚，之后他很高兴他能够发现他前世曾是一位十九世纪的圣人，叫做舍帝·赛巴巴。在他的寺庙中，他将舍帝的大理石雕像置于他自己的雕像旁；他根据舍帝的一些摹本，经常用齐彻瓦底河的沙子制作舍帝的新图像。

　　As a boy He demanded to be worshipped on Thursdays; as a man He enforced no particular rites²⁵ 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 endorsed²⁶ no particular religion, though He used the terms of Hinduism, embracing all faiths as valid²⁷ ways to truth, love and peace. He ignored distinctions of race or caste, and was happy to eat rice from an aluminium²⁸ 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 before the monsoon²⁹; they had to be ploughed by the mind, watered by prayer, sown with seeds of Love.

　　年少时，他要求每周四被礼拜；成人时，除了念诵咒语“唵”和神的名字外，他没有举行特殊的仪式。他自己有108个名字，这是他踩在海滩上形成的水晶体的数量和有一次大海送给他的花环上的珍珠的数量。尽管他使用印度教的术语，但他不认可任何特定的宗教，他利用所有的信仰作为通向真理、爱与和平的有效途径。他不理睬种族与种姓的差异，他曾经在一个贱民的家里很高兴地从铝盘子里取米饭来吃。如果说他的教导有什么特色，那么这些特色是来自穷苦农民这一背景。他曾说，他的信徒们的心田是干涸的，就像雨季到来前的乡间池塘，它们必需要用理智耕耘，用祈祷浇灌，用爱的种子播种。

　　The devotees who crowded the Puttaparthi ashram, hoping for Blessing³⁰ 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 dent³¹ the belief 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.

　　挤满普塔帕蒂静修处的信徒们，从未怀疑过他是谁。他们期待着赐福，或将他们的祈祷文塞入赛巴巴的手里。他是化身为人的所有的神。虽然他预言自己将死于2020年有点不大准确，但这并不妨碍他将以一个新的身体回来继续他的工作这一信念。赛巴巴总是轻轻拍着信徒们的后背，说他们也有神性。他们所需做的一切，就是像他一样，去了知神性。

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