Darshanam – Seeing the Sacred

Darshanam – Seeing the Sacred

Darshanam means “seeing”. It refers especially to ‘religious seeing.’ When we Hindus go to the Temple, we do so more for darshana. We go to “see” the Image of God present in the sanctum of the Temple – be it Krishna, Rama, Durga or Vishnu. The central act of Hindu worship is to stand in the presence of God and to behold the Image with one’s own eyes – to see and be seen by the Deity-God. Beholding the Image is an act of worship, and through the eyes, one gains the blessings of the Divine.

In addition to the darshana of Temple Images and sacred places, Hindus also value the darshana of holy persons, such as saints, sadhus and sannyasins. The sadhu and sannyasin are held in esteem in Hindu culture as living symbols of the value placed upon renunciation. Hindus are eager for the darshana of such persons, approaching them with reverence.

In popular terminology, we say that God or the holy person gives darshana. What does this mean? What is given and what is taken? God presents Himself to be seen in His Image, or the sadhu gives himself to be seen by the people. And the people receive their darshana. One might say that this “sacred perception,” which is truly the ability to see the Divine Image, is given to the devotee, just as Arjuna was given the Divine Eyes (divya chakshu) to see Sri Krishna.

THE EYES OF GOD

The prominence of the eyes on Hindu Divine Images also reminds us that it is not only the worshipper who sees the Deity, but the Deity sees the worshipper as well. The contact between the worshipper and the God is exchanged through the eyes. It is said that one of the ways in which the devatas can be recognized when they move among people upon earth is by their unblinking eyes. Their gaze and their watchfulness are un-interrupted. The Vedas have enumerated the many ways in which the powerful gaze of the devas was imagined and expressed even before actual images of gods were crafted. The eyes of Soorya, for example, or Agni or Varuna are powerful and all-seeing, and the gods were entreated to look upon men with a kindly eye. In later Hindu tradition, when divine Images began to be made, the eyes were the final part of the image to be carved or set in place. Even after the breath of life (praana) was established in the Image, came the ceremony in which the eyes were ritually opened with a golden needle or with the final stroke of a paintbrush. This is still common practice in the consecration of Murtis, (Praana Pratishtha), and today shiny oversized enamel eyes may be set in the eye-sockets of the image during this rite. The gaze which falls from the newly opened eyes of the Murti is said to be so powerful that it must first fall upon some pleasing offering, such as sweets, or upon a mirror where it may see its own reflection.

Hinduism is an imaginative, an “image-making,” religious tradition in which the sacred is seen as present in the visible world. The notion of darshana calls our attention to the fact that Hinduism is a visual and visionary culture, one in which the eyes have a prominent role in the apprehension of the sacred. For most ordinary Hindus, the idea of the divine as “invisible” would be foreign indeed. God is eminently visible, although human beings have not always had the refinement of sight to see. Furthermore, the divine is visible, not only in Temple and shrine, but also in the whole continuum of life – in nature, in people, in birth and growth and death. Although some persons have always used the terms nirguna (without quality) and nirakara (formless) to speak of the One Supreme Absolute Brahman, this can most accurately be understood only from the perspective of a tradition that has simultaneously affirmed that Brahman is also saguna (with qualities and attributes), and that the multitudes of “names and forms” of this world are the exuberant transformations of the One Brahman.

IMAGE

What do we mean by Image? For our purposes, there are the artistic images, the “icons” of the Hindu religious system. The creation of such images is perhaps the earliest form of human symbolization. People lifted out of the ordinary visible data of the world a shape, a form, which crystallized experience and, with its meanings and connotations, told a story. Long before people wrote textual treatises, they “wrote” in images. The term ‘iconography’ means, literally, “writing in images.” These visual texts, as in modern Hindu Temples, constitute a considerable heritage of the human imagination for the scholar of religion.

The day to day life and rituals of Hindus is based not upon abstract interior truths, but upon the charged, concrete, and particular appearances of the divine in the substance of the material world. Many non-Hindus, upon seeing Hindu ritual observances are impressed with how sensuous Hindu worship is. It is sensuous in the sense that it makes full use of the senses – seeing, touching, smelling, tasting, and hearing. One “sees” the Image of the Deity (darshana); one “touches” it with one’s hands (sparsha), and one also “touches” the limbs of one’s own body to establish the presence of various deities (nyaasa). One “hears” the sacred sound of the mantras (sravanam). The ringing of bells, the offering of oil lamps, the presentation of flowers, the pouring of water and milk, the sipping of sanctified liquid offerings, the eating of consecrated food – these are the basic constituents of Hindu worship, Poojaa. For all of its famous other-worldliness, Hinduism is a culture that has celebrated the life of this world and the realms of the senses.

When Hindus go to see the Image of Lord Krishna or a holy person, they wish not only to “see,” but ‘to be seen.’ The gaze of the huge eyes of the Murti meets that of the worshipper-devotee, and that exchange of vision lies at the heart of Hindu worship. In the Hindu context, seeing is a kind of touching. Seeing, according to Hindus, is a going forth of the sight towards the object. According to Vedic literature, a “look” was consciously regarded as a form of contact. Casting one’s eyes upon a person and touching him were related activities. Not only is ‘seeing’ a form of “touching,” it is a form of knowing.

(Pandit Ramdial Balbadar is a prominent Aachaarya (Teacher) of Hinduism in Guyana. He is the compiler and author of many titles and has over 30 years experience in Pandits’ Training across Guyana. He is currently the President of the Sanatan Vaidic Dharma Pandits’ Sabha, Region 3).