In a few days time thou­sands of Hin­du pil­grims will trav­el to Siparia to "see" Si­pa­ree Mai. This an­nu­al pil­grim­age has been tak­ing place for over 200 years. The beg­gars and pseu­do-beg­gars will be­gin traips­ing in from Tues­day, a few as ear­ly as Mon­day. Hin­dus will come on Good Fri­day in their thou­sands as usu­al from mid­night un­til about 3 pm. Many of them will be tired from the trav­el­ling and wait­ing in the long line for hours. Why do they make this de­mand­ing jour­ney an­nu­al­ly? Why do they wait so long?The Hin­du an­swer to this is they are com­ing for dar­shan. Dar­shan (or darsan) is bless­ing that comes with see­ing and be­ing seen by the Di­vine.\The term is ex­plained in de­tail in a won­der­ful lit­tle book called Darsan–See­ing the Di­vine Im­age in In­dia, by Di­ana Eck, pro­fes­sor of Hin­duism at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty.Dar­shan de­rives from the Hin­du un­der­stand­ing that the Di­vine dwells in a spe­cial way in the im­age (mur­ti) with­out ceas­ing to be om­nipresent.

Eck ex­plains this well: "Since, in the Hin­du un­der­stand­ing, the de­ity is present in the im­age, the vi­su­al ap­pre­hen­sion of the im­age is charged with re­li­gious mean­ing. Be­hold­ing the im­age is an act of wor­ship, and through the eyes one gains the bless­ings of the di­vine."Eck ex­pands the term be­yond the pri­ma­ry mean­ing to in­clude oth­er un­der­stand­ings present in Hin­du pil­grim­age. For in­stance, dar­shan al­so ap­plies to places: "Sim­i­lar­ly, when Hin­dus trav­el on pil­grim­age, as they do by the mil­lions each month of the year, it is for darsan of the place of pil­grim­age or for the darsan of its fa­mous deities." Hence places like Mt St Bene­dict and La Div­ina Pas­to­ra RC Church as well as not­ed Hin­du sites in Trinidad are places where Hin­dus go to re­ceive dar­shan or di­vine bless­ing.Eck al­so in­cludes an­oth­er im­por­tant point: "In ad­di­tion to darsan of tem­ple im­ages and sa­cred places, Hin­dus al­so val­ue the darsan of holy per­sons, such as sants (saints), sad­hus (holy men) and sannnyasins (re­nounc­ers).

When Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi trav­elled through In­dia, tens of thou­sands of peo­ple would gath­er wher­ev­er he stopped in or­der to 'take his darsan'."In this lat­ter sense, darsan is a term that can be ap­plied to La Div­ina Pas­to­ra (The Holy Shep­herdess), the pa­tron saint of the Catholic com­mu­ni­ty of Siparia and of the town as im­plied by the term Si­pa­ree Ke Mai or "Moth­er of Siparia."

We need to be mind­ful of a the­o­log­i­cal tech­ni­cal­i­ty. Al­though Hin­dus wor­ship God in fem­i­nine forms as Di­vine Moth­er (Mai/Ma­ta), Mary is a saint, the holi­est among them–O Sanc­tis­si­ma–but still a saint. She is not di­vine even though Hin­dus may re­gard her as such. As Queen of the Saints she is a pow­er­ful fig­ure in Catholic spir­i­tu­al­i­ty for con­vey­ing bless­ings from God.

This sen­si­bil­i­ty is be­hind the con­tro­ver­sial ti­tle "Mary, Me­di­a­trix of all graces." She is com­mon­ly re­gard­ed as a "dis­penser of grace" and we ask her to give us "graces and bless­ings" even while we hold God the Fa­ther alone as the source of all grace and who dis­pens­es that grace to us through his Son Je­sus Christ. This kind of "grace giv­ing" is as­so­ci­at­ed with all Catholic saints, al­beit with less in­ten­si­ty.

I think in Siparia Mary con­fers dar­shan on pil­grims un­der both ti­tles–the Catholic ti­tle "La Div­ina Pas­to­ra" but more in­clu­sive­ly un­der the ti­tle "Si­pa­ree Mai" which has a more uni­ver­sal, cul­tur­al and na­tion­al­ist ap­peal. In fact for well over 100 years the week be­fore the feast day is called Siparia Fete Week or even ear­li­er, The Coolie Fete, high­light­ing the im­pact of the Hin­dus on the Catholic feast.La Div­ina Pas­to­ra is tru­ly Moth­er of Siparia–Si­pa­ree Ke Mai and Moth­er of all peo­ples of T&T since she is vis­it­ed by all re­li­gious groups and races. There are many peo­ple, in­clud­ing Catholics, who do not know who La Div­ina Pas­to­ra is but the term Si­pa­ree Mai al­ways rings a bell.There is an in­ti­ma­cy and spe­cial af­fec­tion con­veyed by the word "Mai." In re­la­tion to "Mai" we are all chil­dren. Peo­ple at least know this ti­tle has some­thing to do with Siparia.The name elic­its fi­nan­cial gen­eros­i­ty and pleas­ant com­ments from them for she is their Moth­er too.

I can­not leave this top­ic of dar­shan with­out men­tion­ing the eyes. It is hard­er I think for Catholics to un­der­stand this since it does not ap­pear to be as en­trenched in Catholic spir­i­tu­al­i­ty.

Eck quotes a for­mer pro­fes­sor of San­skrit at Har­vard, Daniel H H In­galls who says: "One must sup­pose that the lan­guage of the eyes was more ad­vanced in an­cient In­dia than it is with us." Eyes play a big part in Hin­du wor­ship and the eyes of a mur­ti are among its most promi­nent fea­tures. Great care is placed in shap­ing and colour­ing the eyes in mur­tis. Some­times the eyes are un­du­ly large. Eck notes: "Even af­ter the breath of life (prana) was es­tab­lished in the im­age there was the cer­e­mo­ny in which the eyes were rit­u­al­ly opened with a gold­en nee­dle or with the fi­nal stroke of a paint­brush."

For any­one who has seen In­di­an movies, the eyes play a piv­otal role in dance gen­er­al­ly and par­tic­u­lar­ly In­di­an clas­si­cal dance and re­li­gious dra­ma.Eck quotes art his­to­ri­an Stel­la Kram­risch: "See­ing, ac­cord­ing to In­di­an no­tions, is a go­ing forth of the sight to­wards the ob­ject. Sight touch­es it and ac­quires its form. Touch is the ul­ti­mate con­nec­tion by which the vis­i­ble yields to be­ing grasped. While the eye touch­es the ob­ject, the vi­tal­i­ty that pul­sates in it is com­mu­ni­cat­ed..."Some­thing sim­i­lar takes place in Siparia. Be­cause of the dan­ger posed by drug ad­dicts and over­ly ad­ven­tur­ous pil­grims we had to erect a wrought iron gate in front of La Div­ina Pas­to­ra's shrine. Many peo­ple gath­er in front the gate to look at her. Many pil­grims, in­clud­ing those of the Siparia church com­mu­ni­ty, of­ten make com­ments about the La Div­ina Pas­to­ra's eyes. They want to see her and they be­have as if she sees them. There is vi­su­al touch­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tak­ing place and an ap­peal for bless­ing. This is dar­shan. And it is more ex­press­ly so for Hin­dus who be­lieve that the de­ity in­heres in the im­age and is ac­tu­al­ly in vi­su­al con­tact with them.

Dar­shan must not end in dar­shan. Then it be­comes dead de­vo­tion­al ro­man­ti­cism. Af­ter Hin­du pu­jas ie rit­u­als where­by they re­ceive dar­shan, food and drink are al­ways giv­en and prasad (sweet, floury raisined del­i­ca­cy) shared. Dar­shan there­fore ends in nour­ish­ment and sus­te­nance ie in the ful­fill­ment of Hin­du so­cial and re­li­gious oblig­a­tions (dhar­ma). There is a con­nec­tion here with the Catholic Eu­charist (Mass) which I can­not ex­plore now.In a few weeks' time thou­sands of Catholics will be com­ing to Siparia to do their own form of dar­shan. It should be an op­por­tu­ni­ty to see how both fes­ti­vals–Good Fri­day for Hin­dus and La Div­ina Pas­to­ra Feast­day (or Si­pa­ree Mai Ke Mela�Fes­ti­val of the Moth­er of Siparia)–con­tain shared re­li­gious mean­ing in the ser­vice of hos­pi­tal­i­ty, re­spect, the­o­log­i­cal ex­change and peace­mak­ing.This too is evan­ge­li­sa­tion–the procla­ma­tion of the Good News of Je­sus Christ.

Fr Mar­tin Sir­ju

Parish Priest, Siparia