AT KURNOOL (A. P.)
Shri Veeraswamy, a resident of Madras before Independence, came to Kurnool as a Jeep Driver. One day while he was sleeping on the banks of River TUNGABADRA, Shri Sai Baba appeared in his dream and directed him to construct a temple for Baba. When he awoke, thinking of Shri Sai Baba, he saw immediately one Cobra (small) spreading its hood in the vicinity underneath the shade, where an ASWATHA TREE intertwined by a Neem tree (the symbol of Lakshmi Narayan) was situated. Afterwards that cobra glided into the ant-hill situated nearby.
Since then, Shrj Veeraswamy became a Sai devotee and from that day onwards he spared no pains to secure funds and firmly resolved to construct the temple at the above site. He managed, by the grace of Shri Sai Baba, to purchase a bus and by the windfall of fortune, he became the owner of 16 buses. He started a bus service and named it as 'Shri Sai Baba Bus Service'. Still these bus services are running and are managed by his children.
In between the years 1949-51, Sai Baba temple in Star shape was constructed on the banks of the Tungabadra river, with an expenditure of 4 lacs of Rupees. A pure handsome Marble Stone Statue of Shri Sai Baba was installed in the temple. There are in all sixteen spacious rooms in the temple. Shri Veeraswamy left his body in 1953 and his body is interred, with a fitting tomb, in the premises of the temple itself.
As in other South Indian temples, regular puja, Archana and bhajana are conducted here and grand functions are celebrated on all important festive days, with huge mass poor feeding, This temple is thronged with surging crowds of Sai devotees on all Thursdays.
(Translated from the TELUGU article 'Shri Sai Baba' of Shri A. V. V. Narasimha Rao, published in Andhra Prabha Illustrated weekly dt. 14/10/70)