Eideard

Sith gun robh so…

$9 billion succession war clouds over funeral of Sai Baba

with one comment


Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Politicians, Bollywood figures and other mourners paid homage to Indian holy man Sathya Sai Baba Monday amid fears of a fight over his $9 billion trust legacy.

The spiritual leader’s body lay in an air-conditioned glass casket with gold plating in the main meditation hall of his Prasanthi Nilayam ashram to let the expected hundreds of thousands of followers pay their last respects, officials said.

Sai Baba, 84, died Sunday of multiple organ failure in a hospital near the south Indian ashram…

Giant screens placed near the ashram gates projected images of his body, evoking cheers and tears among the people waiting to get inside, The Indian Express reported.

Sai Baba was known for conjuring jewelry, food and vibhuti, or sacred ash, out of the air, which devotees saw as proof of his powers and skeptics called sleight of hand.

His gentle demeanor, Afro-style hair and embrace of many belief systems beyond his eclectic blend of Hindu and Muslim beliefs attracted an estimated 6 million active and 33 million passive followers, including former presidents, generals, film-industry luminaries and sports stars. His Sathya Sai Organization, which seeks to help people recognize the divinity within them, maintains more than 1,200 Sathya Sai Baba Centers in 130 countries worldwide…

Sai Baba left no trust heir, raising fears of a custodial “succession war” over who would now manage the $9 billion.

He left enough money behind to fund a small country. Who knows where it will go, now?

Advertisement

Written by eideard

April 25, 2011 at 6:00 pm

One Response

Subscribe to comments with RSS.

  1. ..it shuld go to India’s poor….


Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 311 other followers