Sannyas.wiki: Documenting Osho’s Work

Hello, my name is Sugit. Punya asked me to write an article about the website I’m involved in: www.sannyas.wiki.

To my great delight, I’m part of a group of bright, dedicated people who are “in it up to their ears,” as we say. Our shared intention is simple and ambitious at the same time: to document Osho’s work as accurately and completely as we possibly can.

For us, this feels both essential and urgent. Osho was not only the key to life, love, and laughter in our own journeys, but his work also has the potential to help humanity recover a sense of genuine religiousness – something sorely needed in these times of war, division, and environmental destruction.

If you read on, you’ll find a guided tour of what sannyas.wiki offers and where to find things. Linked terms appear throughout the text – you can click them, have a peek and come back here. And please look with a critical eye: if you notice omissions or inaccuracies, in content or in form, let us know.

Sannyas.wiki is an open, collaborative project. Anyone can contribute.

Around Osho > Music

My own involvement began for a very emotional reason: I absolutely love the music created around Osho. Just watch and listen to Music Group (1980). I wasn’t there – I took sannyas only in 1984 – but that video captures the essence of what many of us experienced: discovering meditation and freedom, singing and dancing together with wild joy. The energy was incredible. Truly mind-blowing.

Around 2005, here in Amsterdam, the Osho Radio website (oshoradio.net) was being built, and they needed music for their podcasts. So we began collecting and digitizing old cassette tapes. Not long after, we discovered that Tobias, a music teacher living in a small village in southern Germany, had already digitized many tapes. I drove there – and I still remember his partner, author Samvad, serving us delicious strawberries with cream… Suddenly, we had a huge collection of mp3 files, along with track lists, tape jackets, and historical notes.

Then in 2012, I stumbled upon a website documenting Osho’s books. Behind it was Rudra in Australia. I asked whether I could add the music material, and he immediately created templates for music pages. Off I went – and the archive grew rapidly. Explore the Osho Music Archive: scroll down to see the album list, and by clicking on “next page” you can browse through roughly 450 albums.

For albums no longer commercially available – for example 1980-03-21 Enlightenment Day Darshan – you can listen to the tracks in full, or right-click to download them. A track like Let the Sun Shine In has its own page, often with lyrics and chord notation. Today the archive contains about 546 tracks, each with its own entry. And for songs which are commercially available you get access to a sample, including lyrics and chords, if available.

A lot of the chord sheets and lyrics came from Sarlo’s former music website, now fully integrated into sannyas.wiki, and from the Songbook of Joyful Music by Shivananda.

Our music archive is quite complete, but please – check your attic for old tapes! You can find a list of missing audio on the site.

Sannyas.wiki’s beginnings

Sannyas.wiki began in 1989 as a directory of Friends of Osho, created by Rudra and originally hosted at sannyas.net – essentially an early social-networking hub.

That directory has since moved to sannyas.wiki, and anyone is welcome to have a personal page. Simply write to help@sannyas.wiki with your story – short or long – along with a portrait photo, your city, and your profession. One of our editors will create your page. For inspiration, look at the beautiful page that Nivedano, the drummer, created. Share your whole sannyas journey!

We also create pages for people of historical relevance. A good example: Krishna Prem (Canadian journalist), whose page contains fascinating stories involving Christopher Hitchens and Bernard Levin.

When searching sannyas.wiki, use the search box in the top right – and use lowercase letters for best results.

Osho > Bibliography

The first major documentation project on sannyas.wiki was Osho’s Bibliography. So far, we’ve recorded roughly 4,700 titles and translations. Each language includes many subcategories – for example, you can browse the First Edition Series, the earliest books of Osho’s complete discourses.

A typical book page, such as The Mystic Experience, shows:

• the source language
• predecessor books
• all editions, with bibliographical data
• book covers
• and, towards the end, a detailed table of contents

The table of contents shows the place and date of each talk; these dates link to corresponding event pages in Osho’s Timeline. Some books – for example Jin Khoja Tin Paiyan ~ 11 – even include a summary of the discourse.

Because of copyright, we cannot display Osho’s full text, but many book pages (for example The Dhammapada, Series 8) include links where you can read the text online or download it. And by clicking on an ISBN number, under editions, you may find available hard copies.

Also visit Search Osho’s words, which offers complete texts, audio, and even videos.

Currently we list books in 32 languages, though much remains undocumented. We know Osho books exist in 58 languages. If you or someone you know can help fill these gaps – please do get in touch.

The Hindi publications – especially the early ones – are notably complex, with many unknowns. Sarlo has done enormous work in clarifying the Hindi bibliography, with significant help from Shailendra. For example, the book Yog: Naye Aayam was published under different titles, with varying chapter structures – and the audio discourses follow yet another order.

We tried using “discussion pages” to track these puzzles, but they became unwieldy. So in 2020, Antar, our Russian colleague, created detailed tables summarizing our current understanding. There are now 108 such tables.

And then there are the 353 Hindi books not yet translated into English. At one translation per year, they’d be finished in the year 2375… Do you know anyone eager to translate Hindi beautifully?

Osho > Bibliography > Manuscripts

Many people assume Osho only spoke – but in his early years, he actually wrote extensively. Sannyas.wiki contains a summary and complete list of the 562 manuscript letters we know of, most in Hindi.

These manuscripts were located and documented by Indian friends – especially Anuragi, who tirelessly tracks Osho material – and by Neeten, a Danish library science professor, who travelled through India meeting old sannyasins. Neeten is also the author of the online Osho Source Book, thousands of meticulously researched pages documenting Osho as a “bookman.” We see our projects as sister sites.

Osho > Timeline (Events)

I especially love the Timeline: Osho Events. It shows, in a way words alone cannot, how extraordinary Osho was – a man who could speak for two hours without an “ahem,” barely blinking, effortlessly relaxed.

And he did this day after day – often twice a day.

The Osho Events Timeline gives an overview of:

• written texts
• letters
• meditation camps
• discourses
• interviews
• private interviews
• darshans
• silent meetings (satsang)
• travels

Click on a year – for example 1970 – and you’ll see all known events. Entries shaded in darker grey come from Osho’s correspondence, giving clues to his location and activity.

The last column, Event, links to individual event pages. For example, in The Dhammapada Vol 8 ~ 12, you’ll find all we know about this discourse, availability of audio and video, and sometimes a synopsis of the questions or sutras.

There is also a separate timeline dedicated to Meditation Camps.

So far we’ve documented about 9,000 events, and more surface regularly.

There is also extensive material on Rajneeshpuram, including:

• Roshani’s 573-page Chronology of Events Relating to Rajneeshpuram
• Max Brecher’s Rajneeshpuram News Summary 1981–1986 (focusing on reports by the media) (Max Brecher is the author of A Passage to America)
• Many additional pages in Category: Rajneeshpuram

And on the same timeline page you’ll also find:

• A chronology of major events in Osho’s life
• A summary of the event series – the books derived from discourses

Writing Policy

Sannyas.wiki documents anything that helps shed light on Osho’s work – including difficult or unsavoury aspects – and we do so as authentically and even-handedly as possible.

We follow many Wikipedia principles, but with important differences:

• We sometimes conduct our own research
• At times, the only truthful way to report something is to offer an explicitly stated opinion

A good example is our extensive research into the conflicting stories around Osho’s many names. If you’re curious (and have some time!), read From Bhagwan to Osho: What’s in a Name?

Another fascinating – and painful – topic: Osho’s fake adoption.

We also maintain detailed coverage of Osho’s fake will, still under litigation in India.

Recently we came to know about sexual abuse cases in our communes, first reported in a private Facebook group. Initially we chose not to publish about this, out of respect for the victims who had not spoken publicly. In recent years, however, several of them have come forward openly. This led us to create a comprehensive editorial page: Sexual abuse in the sannyas world, with sub-pages and commentary.

Around Osho > Books

Few people in the world have inspired more writing during and after their lifetimes than Osho.

In Books around Osho, you’ll find links to every publication by sannyasins and every book about Osho, in any language we can locate.

The main category, Books on Osho, currently lists 532 titles. Much of the foundational compilation was done by Bhagawati over a decade, and we continue to collaborate with Osho News for new titles, reviews, and excerpts.

Anyone can submit a new book – for example, a recent Memoir by Sambhavya in Hebrew.

The site also includes:

• photo books
• Tarot cards
• songbooks
• books by sannyasins not about Osho – both fiction and non-fiction
• press articles, sorted by language

Around Osho > Periodicals

Sannyas.wiki also documents magazines and newspapers related to Osho. We’ve tried placing them on a timeline, but it has grown somewhat unwieldy – we’re working on improving its readability.

Below that is an alphabetical list of 94 periodical titles we know of. For example, The Rajneesh Times (USA) shows all issues from the Ranch period.

Even though our issue list is complete, we would love higher-quality scans of some editions.

If you have periodicals or books, please check Missing English Publications and Missing Hindi Publications. If we could borrow or scan them (with full respect for library-level standards), we’d be very grateful.

Around Osho > Video and Podcasts

So far we’ve documented 314 videos – films, documentaries, TV programmes – and 20 podcasts about Osho. More are being added, and many are still missing. Examples include Ashram in Poona (1979) and Osho – The Movie (2022).

If you feel inspired to help, you are warmly welcome. Perhaps you’d like to document:

• Italian TV programs?
• British documentaries?
• Material from South America or Japan?

We would love to work with you.

Around Osho > Press Articles

Under Press Articles you’ll find newspapers and media pieces about Osho. This category is still far from complete – and we very much welcome contributions.

Do you know of influential articles in your country? Please consider adding them.

Final Thoughts

There are many other valuable sources about Osho’s work. Some of our favourites are listed under Websites.

As with many sannyasin-run projects, those working on sannyas.wiki are growing older. Thankfully the technical side is safely in Sarjo’s hands.

But what more can we do? So much. For instance, we would love to create clearer overviews of important concepts in Osho’s talks. One example we explored is the pair Philousia – Philosia. Many more topics could benefit from this kind of attention.

Let me finish with a question for you, dear reader:

• What would you document?
• What moments on your path feel essential?
• This extraordinary blessing that befell us through meeting Osho – in the body or in spirit – how can we pass it on to future generations?

Contact: help@sannyas.wiki

Related articles

• Sannyas Wiki – An open project – A letter of invitation from the team behind this vital source of information on ‘everything Osho’ (September 2022)
• Sannyas Wiki – Kaiyum presents one of the most successful platforms for information relevant to the World of Osho (March 2018)
• Osho Source Book: A bio-bibliography – Neeten introduces his updates on this momentous body of work (July 2022)