In the Swargate area of Pune city, at a distance of about five minutes walk on the North side of the S.T. Depot, there is a spacious and stately Sai Temple. The story of the inspiration for erection of this temple is quite interesting, and it should be known by all Sai devotees as it throws light on the greatness of Shri Sai Baba.

Shri Narayan Dattatray alias Bhausaheb Lombar, who was the owner of the Sainath Math at Swargate, is known not only in Pune, but he was also known to Shri Sai devotees at other places outside Pune. Shri Bhausaheb was born at Kolhapur in 1907. In his family, the worship of Shri Dattatraya and the Bhawani Devi of Tuljapur, was being done for a long time. This practice is so old that it cannot be said when exactly it started. This devotion to God left a deep impression on the mind of Shri Bhausaheb and he became a devotee of the God in his early age. He visited Shirdi for the first time in 1920 at a very tender age of only thirteen years. He was a dealer in gold and silver; but because of the order of Shri Sai Baba, he left that prosperous business and entirely performed the worship of Shri Sai Baba. As days rolled on, the devotion of Shri Bhausaheb towards Shri Baba went on increasing and he started feeling the acute need of a Sai temple in the Pune city. Shri Bhausaheb then wanted to find out a suitable place for erection of the Mandir. In 1952, he therefore started an "Anushthan" in the Aranyeshwar temple in Pune. On the tenth day, he got a dream in which Shri Sai Baba told him, "Why are you sitting here? Now you may go home. On your way you will find that your steps are sinking in the earth. So you should think that it is the proper place for erection of my temple".

According to the above order of Shri Sai Baba, Shri Bhausaheb started for home. On his way, his steps got stuck up at the present site of the temple. In view of the dream, Shri Bhausaheb at once thought that this was the site hinted at by Shri Sai Baba in his dream.

Three or four days later, Shri Bhausaheb had a further dream in which he was directed to deposit the thing at the place where he would get it and it was really a wonder that when the foundation of the temple was being dug, the laborers came across a wooden box about seven feet in length. When the box was opened, another surprise awaited Shri Bhausaheb. It contained the bones of a human being and the skeleton had a saffron coloured loin cloth at the proper place. Seeing these strange contents of the box, Shri Bhausaheb did not know what to do. He thought of throwing the bones in a sacred river as per the usual custom, as the bones were of a human being. He therefore put them in a gunny bag and kept them in a corner; but this created another trouble. One cobra came and sat on the gunny bag and would not allow anybody to touch it. The existence of that cobra ultimately reminded Bhausaheb of the order of Shri Sai Baba and when he expressed his desire aloud to preserve the bones at the site as per Shri Baba's orders, the cobra silently disappeared and did not come back thereafter.

After surmounting all these difficulties, the construction work of the temple started in 1951 and immediately in the year 1955, the Padukas of Shri Baba were installed in the Mandir at the sacred hands of Saint Dasganu Maharaj. One Parsi devotee of Shri Sai Baba, Shri Sukhiya, who is the owner of the Apollo Theatre at Pune offered to donate the statue of Shri Sai Baba for the temple. An order to cast the statue was therefore placed immediately with S. K. Dongarsane and sons from Kolhapur. A statue of Shri Sai Baba, in a sitting posture and four and a half feet high cast out of an alloy of nine metals, was finally ready and it was installed in the temple in 1956.

The plan of this temple is almost similar to that of the Samadhi Mandir at Shirdi. There is a cellar measuring about 10' x 10' just below the statue of Shri Sai Baba. The bones referred to before, which were found while digging the foundation of the mandir, have been preserved carefully here. By its side is the bed of Shri Sai Baba. Shri Bhausaheb used to sit for "Anushthan" at this place and only he and his sons had got the access to that cellar. Outside the mandir in an enclosed place, the Dhuni is located and it is kept burning permanently since 1952.