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The Sathya Sai global civil religious movement incorporates Hindu and Muslim practices, Buddhist, Christian, and Zoroastrian influences, and "New Age"-style rituals and beliefs. Shri Sathya Sai Baba, its charismatic and controversial leader, attracts several million adherents from various national, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. In a dynamic account of the Sathya Sai movement's explosive growth, Winged Faith argues for a rethinking of globalization and the politics of identity in a religiously plural world.
This study considers a new kind of cosmopolitanism located in an alternate understanding of difference and contestation. It considers how acts of "sacred spectating" and illusion, "moral stakeholding" and the problems of community are debated and experienced. A thrilling study of a transcultural and transurban phenomenon that questions narratives of self and being, circuits of sacred mobility, and the politics of affect, Winged Faith suggests new methods for discussing religion in a globalizing world and introduces readers to an easily critiqued yet not fully understood community.
Acknowledgments
Note on Translation
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Toward Cultural Understanding
1. Becoming God: The Story of Sathya Sai Baba
2. Deus Loci: Economies of Faith, Sacred Travel, and the Building of a Moral Architecture
3. Illusion, Play, and Work in a Moral Community: Divine Darshan and the Practices of Transnational Devotion
4. Renegotiating the Body: Muscular Morality, Truancy, and the Satisfaction of Desire
5. Secrecy, Ambiguity, Truth, and Power: The Global Sai Organization and the Anti-Sai Network
6. Out of God's Hands: Reframing Material Worlds
In Lieu of a Conclusion: Some Thoughts on Cultural Translation and Engaged Cosmopolitanism
Appendix
Notes
References
Index