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Bharadwaja decided to perform the ritual; Indra taught him how to do it; all preparations were completed. The sage wanted Shakthi to preside over and bless the ritual. So he went to Kailasa, but the time was not opportune for presenting his petition. Shiva and Shakthi were engaged in a competitive dance, trying to find out who could dance longer. Eight days passed thus, before Shakthi noticed Bharadwaja standing in the cold. She just cast a smile at him and danced along as before! The sage mistook the smile as a cynical refusal to notice him, so he turned his back on Kailasa and started to descend. To his dismay, he found his left leg, hand, and eye put out of action by a stroke. Shiva saw him fall, came up to him, and consoled him. Bharadwaja was told that Shakthi had indeed blessed him and his ritual. Then, Shiva revived him and cured him, sprinkling water from the Kamandalu. Both Shiva and Shakthi granted him the boons of a sage (rishi); they would both attend the ritual, they said. After the ritual was over, they were so pleased that they conferred even more boons on the sage. Shiva said that they would take human form and be born in the Bharadwaja lineage, thrice: Shiva alone as Shirdi Sai Baba, Shiva and Shakthi together at Puttaparthy as Sathya Sai Baba, and Shakthi alone as Prema Sai, later. Then, Shiva remembered the illness that had suddenly come upon Bharadwaja at Kailasa on the eighth day of waiting in the cold on the ice. He gave another assurance. "As expiation for the neglect that Shakthi showed you at Kailasa for 8 days, this Shakthi will suffer the stroke for 8 days when we both take birth as Sathya Sai and, on the eighth day, I shall relieve her from all signs of the disease by sprinkling water, just as I did at Kailasa to cure your illness." |