Osho's fake adoption

      this page is                 under construction

This story is a big story, with many threads and involving the apparent connivance of many people. It happened at the Ranch, and in fact could only have happened there, and so of course at the center of it all is Sheela ...

The basic circumstances are:

1. In 1984, Osho's legal status in the States is in jeopardy, his legal options circumscribed at every turn by the state and federal governments, acting in an atmosphere of general public hostility, which arose both from prejudice and, it must be said, from the bristling, abrasive negative PR work of Sheela and her deputies. (See Veena's article about her time as a Ranch tour guide for a good account of that.)
2. Quasi-miraculously, the (Sleight-of-)Hand of Existence produces a document and accompanying testimony which will be a bullet-proof way for Osho to get permanent resident status.
3. This document purports to be a legal record of Osho's adoption, at age four, by an acquaintance of Osho's father, an unmarried Gujarati man. The reason for the adoption is said to be predictions by Varanasi astrologers that Osho might not live beyond age seven unless he were to be adopted.
4. And who does this adoptive father turn out to be but someone who soon marries, eventually gets permanent residence in the States (and can thus gain such status for his family) AND is the father of Ma Anand Sheela?

How convenient is that? How believable is that? This page and its discussion page will explore these questions. First, our sources. How reliable might they be?

The wiki has acquired decent-quality images of the purported adoption document from 1936, below. Images of the doc were also reproduced in the Ranch's newspaper, along with the story, but of lesser quality. These images languished in boxes of photographs from the ranch, only re-appearing in Jun 2021 (story of that to come). We hope to be able to transcribe and translate the handwritten Gujarati, stay tuned!

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  1936 adoption doc front

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  1936 adoption doc back

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  Ambalal / Swarupananda / "Bapuji", 1936

The central item of intrigue in this story is that the supposed adoption was kept a secret, revealed only in 1984. We'll leave for now the question of how many people were in on the secret, and follow first the public story as it unfolded.

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  Rajneesh Times Feb 3 1984 front page

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  Swarupa / "Ba", late 30s

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  Ranch lawyer explains to Mataji as Swarupananda, Swarupa and Sheela look on, 1984

The first the public knew any of this was Feb 3 1984, on publication of Vol 2, Issue #23 of The Rajneesh Times (USA). The paper explained that Sheela's father, Sw Swarupananda was revealing for the first time in 48 years the secret of this adoption, which --whaddya know!?! -- would help Osho in his fight to stay in the States.

(The image of the front page can be enlarged to readable quality. There is also a text version here, which has, additionally, the continuation of the story in an inner page. Missing from the wiki's coverage is other stories on that inner page and follow-up stories from the next issue (#24, Feb 10), coming soon!)

see also

Osho's fake will, another mysterioso document surfacing many years after its purported creation to serve a current perceived need