Nearly half a million people gathered in the southern Indian town of Puttaparthi for the funeral of the revered¹ Indian spiritual leader Sri Sathya Sai Baba.

将近50万印度民众聚集到南部城市Puttaparthi参加精神领袖斯里·赛巴巴的葬礼。

Sai Baba has been buried, unlike most Hindus, who are cremated²（火葬） .

However, burial is the custom for people Hindus esteem³ as holy men.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress leader Sonia Gandhi were among thousands of mourners paying their respects to the guru.

Sathya Sai Baba was buried with full state honours inside the public hall in the ashram（修行的处所） - or spiritual centre - in Puttaparthi, the southern town where he was born and from where he blessed the millions of devotees who visited him from around the world.

'Living god'

TV pictures showed priests chanting and carrying out the last rites⁴ next to the guru's corpse⁵, which has been on display in a transparent⁶ casket. Many devotees saw Sai Baba as a living god.

Sai Baba was given a gun salute⁷ and state honours before his body was prepared for burial by priests chanting verses from sacred texts and anointing（涂，擦） the guru's body with oil, herbs and flowers.

The body was then covered with an orange cloth. Orange is the colour of holiness in Hinduism.

The actual funeral was closed to the public with only family and members of his charitable trust attending, says the BBC's Sanjoy Majumder in Puttaparthi.

Hundreds of thousands of devotees（信徒） will be watching the proceedings⁸ on a giant screen that has been set up outside.

Huge numbers of Indians and foreigners, among them cricket star Sachin Tendulkar, have bade a final farewell to the guru since he died of multiple organ failure on Sunday aged⁹ 85.

Sai Baba's followers¹⁰ believe he had magical abilities to produce objects out of thin air, visit people in their dreams, perform miracles and cure terminal illnesses.

But his critics say that many of these activities were publicity¹¹ stunts¹². They say that he was a persuasive¹³ fraudster who used his huge popularity to avoid being investigated over allegations of murky¹⁴（黑暗的，朦胧的） financial practices and sexual abuse.

These charges were always strenuously¹⁵（勤奋地） denied by the guru and his followers, and were never proved.

His popularity remained undimmed（清楚的，明亮的） throughout his life - Sai Baba had ashrams in 126 countries and also ran a network of hospitals, clinics and schools that were often free.