Importance of Shirdi Sai Temple

The Shirdi Sai temple complex houses many temples such as the Lord Ganesh temple Shirdi, Shani temple Shirdi and Shiva temple Shirdi along with the Samadhi temple of Sai Baba. The importance of Shirdi Sai Temple is that it is the Samadhi temple of this great saint Sai Baba.

Importance of Shirdi Sai temple is that it houses the Samadhi temple of this great saint, where the sacred body of Sai baba is preserved along with the articles handled by Sai baba are displayed in the special showroom. All the rituals comprising the worship of this great saint, such as for Abhishek and the dals four aratis are performed here.

The Samadhi of Sai Baba is built with white marble stones and the railings around the Samadhi are adorned with ornamental decorations. There is an idol of Sai Baba in this temple, which is carved out of Italian marble and was built by late Balaji Vasant in the year 1954. The temple had an assembly hall, which can accommodate 600 devotees.

The first floor of the temple exhibits pictures that depict the life of this great saint. The temple opens in the morning at around 5 am for the morning prayers and closes at 10 pm for the night prayers.The daily routine of the temple starts at 5 am in the morning for Bhoopali, which is a morning song and closes at 10p.m. at night for Shejarati, which is a night song.

Some major festivals are celebrated in the Shirdi Sai temple. The three main festivals celebrated here are Ramanavami (March/April), Guru Purnima(july) and Vijayadashami(September). These festivals are celebrated with great devotion and ferver for two to four days each.

The importance of this festival lies in the fact that it promotes communal harmonybetween the Muslims and Hindus. An important ritual of this festival is that a sack of wheat is kept in Dwarkamai, which is an old mosque. Every year that old wheat sack is replaced with a new sack an the old sak of wheat is take to the praasadalaya for using it for making Prasad. Another ritual observed in this festival is that the Dwarkamaiflags are replaced. These are done to promote communal harmony.

This also a major festival celebrated in this temple and Vyasa puja is also done during this festival to honour the writer of the epic Mahabharata.

This festival is celebrated with a lot of pomp here as itand this day is considered auspicious as the great saint left his mortal body for heavenly abode.

Palakhi festival is celebrated every Thursday in which Sai Baba’s photo is taken out from the temple in a palakhi.

Thus, the importance of Shirdi Sai temple is undeniableand it is worth visiting it.