Chavadi

A meeting place for villagers is known as chavadi. It was also the place for offices or court and was the place where taxes were collected, village records kept, disputes settled by the village heads, and visiting officials put up. After baba's mahasamadhi the sansthan acquired the chavadi and until the late 1930 has, used it for storing books and accommodating pilgrims. The village officers have long been relocated and the chavadi is kept as a shrine to baba and is open to all.

Sai baba is intimately connected with the place, as he used to sleep here on alternate nights during the last decade of his life. The routine was started one wild and stormy night around 1909. it was raining heavily and water was coming thought the leaky walls of the mosque. The devotees tried their best to persuade baba to move out, if only until the water had subsided, but baba did not want to go. Eventually, they virtually forced him to leave, by picking him up and half carrying him to chavadi. From that day on, baba would spend alternate nights here.

The chavadi is very significant to sai devotees not only because baba stayed here but also because it played a major role in the inception of formal worship of baba. Once baba started sleeping at the chavadi, the custom arose of offering regular arati to him on his arrival from the mosque. This was sej arati. Later kakad arati was offered when he woke up there. The performance of midday and evening aratis at the mosque probably developed after this.

Around the time that dwarakamai was renovated the chavadi was also upgraded. The mud walls were neatly plastered, huge mirrors were hung, glazed tiles replaced the mud floor and glass chandeliers were suspended from ceiling. Inside the chavadi is a large portrait of baba, which was painted by Ambaram from Nausari in Gujarat, after baba had given him darshan in a dream in 1953. at the time, ambaram was only eighteen years old. Touched by baba and ambaram's painting of him, the villagers of Nausari collected donations in order to buy the painting and bring it to shirdi

On the left of the painting is a plain, wooden bed on which baba was given his last bath after he passed away in dwarakamai. These days, the bed is taken out each Thursday and the palanquin is placed on it. In the same corner next to the bed is a wheeler which was presented to baba when he was suffering from asthma, but which he never used. The right portion of the building contains the framed photo of the cross legged baba kept in grand attire. This is the picture that is taken out on procession each Thursday and on festivals. It is now kept on a sliver throne which stands in the place where baba used to sleep. Women are not allowed to enter the room in which Baba's bed was kept(untouched by women).
The chavadi is open 5 a.m. to 9 p.m.