A man who had quite a distinguished career in public life was the late Dr. B. Ramakrishna Rao, who died in September 1967. The obituary notices in the press at the time stated that he had held several important positions in public affairs and administration. He was, for instance, during the early 1950s Chief Minister of the old Hyderabad State, and as such helped create the Modern State of Andhra Pradesh in 1956. In later years he held office as Governor of two different Indian States, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh. The newspapers, however, did not mention what to Dr. Ramakrishna Rao himself was by far the most important factor in his life, his discipleship of Sai Baba.

The little doctor, as we often called him because of his diminutive stature, was a first-class linguist and often acted as interpreter for Sai Baba. It was in this capacity that I first met him in Mr. G. Venkataswara Rao's house in Madras. On that occasion he, Mr. Alf Tidemand-Johannessen, my wife and I were sitting on the carpet with Baba while the last was giving some advice to the Norwegian, who was shortly leaving India. The little doctor was acting as interpreter when necessary.

That was in my early acquaintance with Baba, who knew telepathically that I still half-doubted the genuineness of his miraculous productions. In his gracious understanding way he seemed to make use of this opportunity -as of many others - to help remove some of my doubts.

It was a hot night and he wore half-sleeves so that his forearm from the elbow was bare. My knee as we sat cross-legged on the floor was practically touching his, and for much of the time he let his right hand rest on my knee instead of his own. I could thus see beyond all question that his hand was empty as it lay loosely, palm exposed, below my eyes - and it was from this position that the hand went out to wave before our noses like a magic wand and produce from the air a number of things, including the usual vibhuti for all of us, and a large nine-stone ring for Alf Tidemand-Johannessen.

I developed an admiration and affection for the little Ghandi-capped doctor who, while distinguished and cultured, had true humility. Fortunately I was able to have a good talk with him about a month before he died when we were neighbours in the ashram guest house. That was in August 1967, and Dr. Ramakrishna Rao was present in Prasanti Nilayam at the time for its official inauguration as a township. I had heard a good many bits and scraps of stories concerning his miraculous experiences with Sai Baba, and I took this opportunity to get the facts from his own lips. He knew, of course, that I wanted the information for publication and he had no objections to that, or to the use of his name, so very well-known in India if not perhaps abroad.

Here is one remarkable story that he told me. In 1961, when he was Governor of Uttar Pradesh, he and his wife were travelling by fast train from Bareilly to Nainital in the Himalayas. They were the only occupants of their first-class carriage and the train had no corridor by which anyone could enter or leave their compartment.

At about 11 p.m. the Governor noticed some sparks coming from the electric fan. These rapidly increased in volume until he and his wife grew quite alarmed, thinking the compartment would catch fire any minute. He looked for a cord or bell by which he could sound the alarm and stop the train, but could find none. It began to look as if the Governor and his lady might be burned to death before anyone learned of their plight. There was nothing they could do but pray - which they did, whole-heartedly.

Then there was a knock on one of the outer doors. Very surprising this was, because the doors simply led to the open air through which the train was roaring at a good speed. The doctor walked over and opened the door. In from the dark night stepped a man dressed in the khaki uniform of an electric wireman. Without a word this man went to work on the faulty fan from which the sparks were now flying "like chaff from a threshing floor".

About a quarter of an hour later the electrician said to them: "There's no danger now. You can go to bed and sleep." With this he sat down on the floor near the door.

The Governor's wife lay down on her bed and closed her eyes. But she kept half opening them to watch the man by the door because, as she told her husband later, she thought that anyone who risked his life to walk along the running board of a fast-moving train was probably a burglar who, when they were both asleep, would rob them. The Governor himself, with no such suspicions, was deeply engrossed in a book.

Suddenly he was startled to feel the touch of the workman's hand and hear his voice asking quietly if the doctor would mind closing the carriage door after him, because he was now leaving. The little doctor was astonished that the electrician did not wait until the next station before leaving, but before he could say anything the khaki-clad figure had opened the door, and the night air was whistling into the carriage. Dr. Ramakrishna Rao jumped up, and stepped to the open doorway in time to see the man stand a moment on the running board, then vanish into the darkness.

It was all rather mystifying. How in the first place did he know that the fan was giving trouble? How did he get to the carriage, and why did he choose to leave and make his way along the running board of this swaying, fast-moving express when he could have easily waited until the next stop? He either liked living dangerously or he was simply crazy, but in either case he must also be clairvoyant to know about the fault in the electric fan. With a mental shrug the little doctor lay down to sleep.

About a month after this incident the Governor was again travelling, this time by the aeroplane that was kept for his official use. With him on this occasion, besides his wife and the pilot, were his A.D.C., his personal assistant, and the pilot's wife. They were flying from Kawnpur to Benares.

Above Benares the Governor noticed that they seemed to be circling a very long time over the airfield before landing. He asked if there was anything amiss and was informed that the under-carriage was stuck; the, wheels would not come down. Furthermore, they were now almost out of petrol. With Dr. Ramakrishna Rao's agreement, the pilot decided to attempt a crash-landing on the grass of the airfield. He signalled the ground to this effect. The fire-engines were brought out, and everything made ready for the attempt. All knew, of course, that it was a highly dangerous operation, and both the little doctor and his wife sent fervent prayers to their Gurudev, Sai Baba, for his much-needed protection.

Perhaps the A.D.C. was praying too, for he also was a devotee of Sai Baba. Like the doctor he wore on his hand a talisman, a ring that had been materialised by Baba. The pilot knew this and, as a last resort before trying a crash-landing, asked the A.D.C. to try his hand at working the lever for releasing the jammed undercarriage. The A.D.C. placed his hand on the lever and pressed as directed. The undercarriage came down without any difficulty. They were able to make a normal landing.

The next day Mrs. Ramakrishna Rao, knowing that Baba was at Bangalore-in the south, phoned him from Benares in order to thank him for his grace and protection which, she believed, had saved them from their perilous predicament in the plane. She found, not at all to her surprise, that he knew all about the event, and mentioned details.

Then he remarked: "But you have said nothing about the train incident."

"What train incident, Swami?" she asked, for it had slipped from her mind.

"Why, when the fan was almost on fire and you thought I was a thief," Baba laughed.

Dr. Ramakrishna Rao was sure the train story could not have reached Baba in the ordinary way because neither he nor his wife had talked to anyone about it. They had refrained from mentioning it on the following morning, not wanting to upset any of their staff; then the incident had faded into the background of their busy lives.

Nothing superhuman that Sai Baba did could ever surprise the little doctor; he had through the years seen and experienced so much. For example, when he was Governor of Kerala, and was entertaining Baba and some devotees at the Guest House in Trivandrum in 1962, his wife had arranged a dinner party one evening for sixty people. But when Baba is around, crowds have a habit of multiplying their size, and about a hundred and fifty people turned up. It was impossible to obtain extra food at the time; Mrs. Ramakrishna Rao became very worried, and asked Baba what she should do about it.

"Feed them all," Baba told her. "There will be enough - don't worry."

So the extra places were set and the whole crowd sat down. Baba moved among the guests and servers, blessing the food, seeing that all were happy and turning the meal, as always, into a banquet. No one went short because of the extra ninety mouths to be fed. Somehow Baba increased the food, and there was enough for all.

I knew that it was on this visit to the south that one of the dramatic miracles described in N. Kasturi's book took place. A number of Baba's disciples were walking with him on the sands of Kanyakumari where three seas meet and play around the southernmost tip of India. Suddenly a kingly wave swept high up the beach around Baba's feet, and on receding it left about his ankles a magnificent necklace, 108 fine pearls on a thread of gold.

I have spoken to a number of men, including Dr. Sittaramiah, who were present and witnessed the arrival of this treasure from the deep, and I asked Dr. Ramakrishna Rao if he had been there as well. He replied that, unfortunately, official duties had taken him elsewhere that day. In fact he was meeting Dr. S. Radhakrishnan who had just been appointed President of India. But, he said, a number of his friends and acquaintances including the Chief of Security Police were with Baba on the beach and saw it happen. They described the event to him on the following day and he was shown the pearl necklace. Baba later gave this to an old devotee whom the doctor knew.

It was while he was still Governor of Uttar Pradesh that Dr. B. Ramakrishna Rao saw the miraculous events that moved him most deeply.

In the summer of 1961 Sai Baba with a party of devotees was touring in the north, and decided to visit the famous temple at Badrinath high in the Himalayas. Dr. Ramakrishna joined the party at Hardwar on the Ganges for the 182-mile mountain trek to Badrinath. The devotees say that the object of Sai Baba's journey was not only to take them to this holy place, but also to reinfuse it with spiritual efficacy. Adi Sankara, one of the foremost spiritual leaders of all time, established it some twelve hundred years ago. He it was who brought the Upanishads into the light of day from where they had been collecting dust for centuries in caves and monasteries. At Joshimath he wrote his celebrated commentaries on the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and the Brahmasutras, thus making these spiritual classics accessible and intelligible to a wider and ever-widening audience.

Adi Sankara not only travelled all over India and taught the people but organised and established centres in the north, south, east and west which he hoped would remain as beacons of light to carry on his work after he had gone. Badrinath was one of those spiritual power-points.

But in the course of twelve centuries - albeit millions of devout pilgrims had brought their adoration and veneration there - the power was certain to run down, the life was bound to ebb from the ancient form. Even though a particular priestly caste may not be corrupt it has most of the human weaknesses, and cannot maintain the high level set by a God-man such as Adi Sankara. The only thing that can recharge the spiritual battery of such a place is the presence and power of another God-man.

However, there appeared to be an obstacle in the way. By tradition, the doctor told me, the only persons ever permitted inside the temple sanctum sanctorum to perform puja were the members of a special sect of Kerala Brahmins. This caste of priests had held the position and exclusive rights since the days of Adi Sankara. The request of Doctor B. Ramakrishna Rao, the Governor of their State, counted for nought; they had heard of Sai Baba, the miracle-worker who some said was an avatar, a God-man, but they could not make an exception even for him. God himself in human form would not be allowed to enter here, for what human eyes can read the credentials of divinity?

However, before some two hundred people outside the temple he materialised a statue of Vishnu. This was about ten inches high and was, it is said, a replica of the big idol within the temple. With another wave of his hand he produced a silver tray on which he placed the little Vishnu idol. Then in the same way he created a thousand-petalled lotus of gold. Everyone gasped at its beauty; and while they were wondering what it was for, Baba waved his hand again to produce a Siva lingam. This, some three or four inches in height and made of a beautiful crystal material, he placed in the centre of the golden lotus.

With the idol, lotus and lingam on the silver tray, Baba and his followers came away from the temple to the guest-house where they were staying. There, while they all sang bhajan songs, Baba carried the lingam around and showed it to everyone, pointing out the beauty of the material, and the form of an eye which was mysteriously incorporated inside it.

Then Baba materialised a silver vessel full of holy water, 108 bilva leaves of gold, which fell in a shower from his hand onto the tray, and a heap of thumme flowers with the dew still fresh upon them. These are described as "tiny bits of fragrant fluff, plucked from a hundred little tropical plants".

All of these were materials for ritualistic worship. Baba performed Abhisheka (sacred ceremonial bath) and then, in his presence, N. Kasturi writes, "the Puja was performed, on behalf of all present, by Dr. B. Ramakrishna Rao, appropriate mantrams being recited by the devotees"

Afterwards Baba handed all the materialised items to the Governor's lady, Mrs. Ramakrishna Rao, instructing her to take good care of them, because she would be held responsible if anything were lost. The poor woman felt very apprehensive about such a responsibility - as well she might. She locked the precious articles in a cupboard in her bedroom and kept the key on her person.

Some time later Baba asked her to bring the lingam. Unlocking the cupboard, she found that it was missing; everything else was there, but the lingam had vanished. In great consternation she hurried to Baba and reported the loss.

At first he scolded her for not taking proper care, but then he laughed and said he was only teasing her. He explained to all present that he had sent the lingam back to the place from where it had been apported by his power, to the base of the idol in the temple. This "Nethralingam from Kailasa", as he called it, had been placed in a secret niche in the holy of holies long ago by Adi Sankara himself. There it had rested through the long centuries until that day, June 17th 1961, when he had brought it out to consecrate it anew and recharge it with spiritual potency. So the work he came for was done in spite of the hampering traditions of the place.

Baba later asked for the other articles in the cupboard. He distributed the 108 gold leaves among the two hundred or more people around him, and as usual there were enough for all. Mrs. Ramakrishna Rao was then greatly rewarded for those few moments of anguish she had suffered at the disappearance of the lingam. She was presented with the materialised idol of Vishnu, the golden lotus, and the silver tray on which they both stood.

The doctor told me that these sacred objects were still in his puja room at Hyderabad where the regular family worship was held.

It may be surprising to many people - though in fact it should not be - to find that a scientist of the calibre of Dr. S. Bhagavantam, M.Sc., Ph.D., D.Sc., is a devoted follower of an Adept in that field of high transcendental magic which science tends to scorn. Dr. Bhagavantam, formerly Director of the All India Institute of Science, holds the prominent position of Scientific Advisor to the Ministry of Defence in Delhi, and is well-known in scientific circles outside India.

When I met him at Prasanti Nilayam he was occupying a room furnished only with two bed-rolls and a few cushions on the floor. Like all good Indians he was quite happy to use the tiled floor as bedstead, chair and table. With him in the same room was one of his sons, Dr. S. Balakrishna, Assistant Director of the National Geophysical Research Institute of India. Both were visiting the ashram for a few days.

I sat on the floor with these two cultured scientists and charming gentlemen, anxious to hear of their experiences with Sai Baba. Outside the open door and windows the July sun gleamed on the sandy soil, white buildings and rocky hills. Inside Dr. Bhagavantam, spoke in his quiet, friendly, concise way, while his son confirmed many of the strange events which he too had witnessed. Dr. Balakrishna has had some wonderful experiences of his own with Baba, but here we are concerned with the remarkable reports from his eminent father.

At Dr. Bhagavantam's first meeting with Sai Baba, which was in the year 1959, they went for a walk on the sands of the Chitravati River. Others were present, but Bhagavantam was walking by the side of Baba. After a while Swami asked him to select a place on the sands for sitting down. When the doctor hesitated, Baba insisted, explaining that only in this way could Bhagavantam's scientific mind be quite sure that Baba had not led him to a spot where an object had been "planted" in the sands.

After the scientist had chosen an area and the party was seated on the sands, Baba began to tease the doctor a little; he made fun of the complacent "all-knowing" attitude of many men of science, and deplored their ignorance of or indifference to the ancient wisdom to be found in the great Hindu scriptures.

The doctor's pride was stung. He retorted that not all scientists were of this materialistic outlook. He himself, as an example, had a family tradition of Sanskrit learning and a deep interest in the spiritual classics of India.

Then in an endeavour to establish the bona fides of his scientific colleagues he told Baba that when Oppenheimer, after exploding the first atom bomb, was asked by the press representatives what his reactions were, he replied by quoting a verse from the Bhagavad Gita, thus showing that he was a student of that great work. "Would you like a copy of the Bhagavad Gita?" Baba asked him suddenly, scooping up a handful of sand as he spoke. "Here it is," he continued, "hold out your hands."

Bhagavantam cupped his hands to catch the sand as Baba dropped it into them. But when it reached the scientist's waiting palms, it was no longer the golden sand of the Chitravati. It was a red-covered book. Opening it in stunned silence, the doctor found that it was a copy of the Bhagavad Gita printed in Telegu script. Baba remarked that he could have presented the doctor with one printed in Sanskrit, but as the latter read Sanskrit script with some difficulty, Baba had given him one in Telegu, Bhagavantam's native tongue. Bhagavantam had not mentioned his limited proficiency in Sanskrit; this was something that Baba just knew.

As soon as he could, Bhagavantam examined this miraculously produced volume closely. It appeared to be quite new and was well-printed, but where? The names of printer and publisher, always given in the normal way, were nowhere to be found.

One day in 1960 Sai Baba was visiting the great scientist's home in Bangalore. At this time Dr. Bhagavantam was Director of the All India Institute of Science in that city. He had known Sai Baba for about a year and was struggling to make the incredible phenomena he had witnessed fit in with his- scientific training.

He said on one occasion at a public meeting: "I was a fairly lost person at that time for all this was in utter contradiction to the laws of physics for which I stood and still stand . . . Having learned the laws of physics in my youth, and having taught others for many, many years thereafter, about the inviolability of such laws - at least so far as any known human situation is concerned - and having put them into practice with such a belief in them, I naturally found myself in a dilemma . . ."

One of Dr. Bhagavantam's sons, at this time a boy of about eleven years, seemed to be mentally retarded. Some medical men had recommended as treatment the piercing of the lumbar region of the spine to remove cerebro-spinal fluid, and so relieve pressure on the brain. Others had been against such treatment, saying that it would only make the boy worse. Dr. Bhagavantam had decided not to have it done.

Baba, who loves and understands children, saw the boy and asked a sympathetic question about him. The scientist began to talk about his son's case, and then Baba took over the narration and himself related all that had happened, including the medical debate about the advisability of a lumbar puncture. He went on to say that this would in fact do no harm, but on the contrary would help the boy, making him appreciably better as time went on. Then casually, as if it were nothing at all, he said that he would himself do the puncture, then and there.

The scientist was startled. Doubt and fear agitated his mind. He began to wonder about things like professional qualifications for such an operation. But before he could utter a word, Baba had waved his hand and materialised some vibhuti. Uncovering the boy's back, he rubbed this sacred ash on the lumbar region. Next, with another handwave, he took from the air a hollow surgical needle, about four inches long.

The father felt himself in the presence of a power so far beyond his understanding that he could say nothing; he just waited, watched and hoped for the best. The boy seemed to be semi-conscious, apparenty anaesthetized by Baba's vibhuti. Without hesitation Baba inserted the needle, showing that he knew the precise spot at which such insertions must be made. To the watching father the needle seemed to go right in out of sight, and he began to worry about how it would be recovered.

Meantime Baba was massaging the back and removing the fluid that came out through the needle; he seemed to take away about one cubic centimetre of this fluid, the scientist said. Then massaging more strongly, or in a different way, Baba brought the needle out of the boy's back. He held it in the air as if handing it to some invisible nurse. Immediately it vanished.

"Have you a surgical dressing?" Baba then asked the watching, spellbound people in the room: Bhagavantam, another of his sons called Ramakrishna, and a friend named Sastri who was a Sanskrit pundit.

Young Ramakrishna replied, saying that by phoning the Institute he could get a dressing within ten minutes.

"Too long!" Baba laughed, waving his hand again, and taking a dressing of the right type, as if from a trained assistant in another dimension. Carefully he arranged it on the boy's back, and then brought him around to full consciousness. The patient seemed to suffer no pain or discomfort, either during or after the operation.

"Yes, his condition has improved, though not remarkably," he replied cautiously, but who knows what he would have been like without the operation. Swami says that he will go on improving as he grows older."

Dr. Bhagavantam has seen Baba produce many things by his magical hand-wave. These include medicines in bottles and other packs, properly sealed, but without any name of the maker marked on them. He has seen Baba change one stone or decorative figure, set in jewellery, to another of an entirely different character, simply by stroking his finger across the face of it. The relevant item of jewellery did not for a moment disappear from view during such operations.

On another occasion the doctor was sitting with a group of devotees around Baba on a beach in southern India. The talk turned to the various names by which the ocean had been known in Indian mythology. Someone mentioned the name "Ratnakara", which means, he said, "Lord of Diamonds or Precious Stones". "In that case," Baba remarked playfully, "the ocean should produce some diamonds for us." Putting his hand in the water, he took out a sparkling diamond necklace.

Everybody was enthralled at the sight of this circlet of large stones, and someone asked Baba to wear it. Bhagavantam could see plainly that it would not go over Baba's head, being too small and apparently without a clasp for opening the necklace. But such problems did not bother the miracle-man; he simply pulled it outward with both hands as one would stretch a rubber ring. It increased to the right size, yet there were no gaps between the stones. Then, to please his devotees Baba put this diamond garland from "Ratnakara" over his head and wore it on his neck for a short time.

Dr. Bhagavantam has also had his own personal experience of Sai Baba's faculty of knowing what is taking place thousands of miles away, without benefit of telegraph or radio.

When Dr. S. Balakrishna, Bhagavantam's son, moved into a new house in Hyderabad, Baba agreed to go there and perform a house-blessing ceremony. The auspicious day for the ritual was named by Baba, and he promised to come on that day. Dr. Bhagavantam was himself away on a government mission to Moscow, but he was scheduled to be back in Hyderabad on the morning of the day of the ceremony, which was to take place in the afternoon.

However, engine trouble in the aeroplane by which he was returning developed somewhere near Tashkent, and he was forced to spend the night in that city. This was the night before the ceremony and Baba, who was at Balakrishna's house in Hyderabad, informed the family that there was engine trouble and that Dr. Bhagavantam was spending the night at Tashkent, but would be flying on to Delhi the following day. No one else in the area knew that there had been any trouble with the plane or that Bhagavantam was at Tashkent. No word of this had come through ordinary channels. But Baba had his own way of knowing, and also of foreseeing that the fault would be righted by the following day.

In the afternoon of the auspicious day, as pre-arranged, Sai Baba carried out the house-blessing ceremony. During this he produced in his usual miraculous manner a beautiful statuette of Shirdi Baba which the two scientists informed me is about three inches in height and seems to be of solid gold. Baba said it was to be kept in the shrine-room of the Hyderabad house where it was materialised. And there it is still.

Then Baba booked a telephone call to the Minister's office, making it a personal call to the Scientific Adviser, Dr. Bhagavantam. At that period, I am told, there was always a considerable delay for a trunk call over such a long distance. But Baba's call came through in a few minutes.

When I asked Dr. S. Bhagavantam if I could use his name in support of the incredible things he had told me, he promptly answered: "Yes, I'll stand behind every word of it." The earlier dilemma, the conflict between his scientific training and the evidence of his senses, has been resolved. He says, "In our laboratories we scientists may swear by reason, but we. know that every time we have added a little to what we know, we have known of the existence of many other things, the true nature of which we do not know. In this process we become aware of further large areas, to understand which we have to struggle more. Thus while adding to knowledge we add more to our ignorance too. What we know is becoming a smaller and smaller fraction of what we do not know."

He goes on to say: "Sai Baba transcends the laws of physics and chemistry, and when he transcends a law, that fact becomes a new law. He is a law unto himself."

Once in Madras, addressing an audience of some 20,000 people who had come to hear Sai Baba's message, the worthy doctor said, inter alia, "Scientists are aware that knowledge is not the same as wisdom. Wisdom has to be got from Bhagavan (Sai Baba), and the like of him, who come among us from time to time for this express purpose . . .

"He is a phenomenon. He is transcendental. He is divine. He is an incarnation. He is our nearest kith and kin; turn to him for the eternal message. That alone can save us."