Darshan (Indian religions)

In Indian religions, a darshan (Sanskrit: दर्शन, IAST: darśana; lit. 'showing, appearance, view, sight') or darshanam is the auspicious sight of a deity or a holy person.

The term also refers to any one of the six traditional schools of Hindu philosophy and their literature on spirituality and soteriology.

Etymology

The word darshana, also in the forms of darśana or darshanam, comes from the Sanskrit root of दर्शन dṛś 'to look at', 'to view', vision, apparition or glimpse.

Definition

Darshana is described as an "auspicious sight" of a holy person, which bestows merit on the viewer.

It is most commonly used for theophany, meaning a manifestation or vision of the divine.

In Hinduism

In Hindu worship, it refers to seeing a deity (especially in image form), or a very holy person or artifact. One can receive darshana or a glimpse of the deity in the temple, or from a great saintly person, such as a great guru. One can also take darshana of a sacred places like Kashi, Yamuna or Mount Kailash.

In Hindu practice, adherents often refer to their temple visits as going for darshana rather than simply worship. Darshana, often translated as the "auspicious sight" of the divine, involves seeing the deity's image (murti). This visual experience is charged with religious significance, as the deity is believed to be present in the image, allowing worshippers to receive divine blessings through their gaze.

The term darshana also refers to the six systems of thought, called darshanam, that comprise classical Hindu philosophy. The term therein implies how each of these six systems distinctively look at things and the scriptures in Indian philosophies. The six Hindu darshana are Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā, and Vedanta. Buddhism and Jainism are examples of non-Hindu darshans.

Mahayana Buddhism

On the significance of darshana in Mahayana thought, Paul Harrison writes: "By the second century CE... the vision of the Buddha (buddha-darśana) and the accompanying hearing of the Dharma (dharma-śravaṇa) are represented as a transformation experience of decisive importance for practitioners, be they who have renounced (mundane life) 'ascetics' or householders."

The Abhidharma, collections of systematic summaries of the sutras, mention Darshana-citta, i.e. visions.

Indian Mahayana philosophers Vasubandhu and Asanga acknowledged five paths to liberation, of which the third is darshana-marga, the "path of seeing".

Nagarjuna, a prominent philosopher of the Madhyamaka school of Mahayana Buddhism, wrote that the wise person perceives tattva-darshana, true reality.

Other meanings

Darshana also sometimes has a more mundane meaning. For example, Sivananda Saraswati wrote in his book The Practice of Brahmacharya that one of the eight aspects of brahmacharya (celibacy) is not to look lustfully at women: "You should carefully avoid ... Darshana or looking at women with passionate resolve".

Scholar of religion Richard H. Davis has said that darshana (viewpoint, philosophical school) is one of three terms in classical Indian discourse that could be considered roughly analogous to what today's English-speakers understand as "religion." The other two terms are dharma (duty, morality, a code of proper conduct) and marga (route, spiritual path). According to Davis, "most Hindu texts accepted that religious paths (marga) are relative to the points of view (darśana) and moral responsibilities (dharma) of practitioners, whose individual circumstances may make one or another course of action more appropriate in their particular situations."

Poet Gary Snyder has given a naturalistic meaning to darshana:

It's a gift; it's like there's a moment in which the thing is ready to let you see it. In India, this is called darshan. Darshan means getting a view, and if the clouds blow away, as they did once for me, and you get a view of the Himalayas from the foothills, an Indian person would say, "Ah, the Himalayas are giving you their darshana"; they're letting you have their view. This comfortable, really deep way of getting a sense of something takes time. It doesn't show itself to you right away. It isn't even necessary to know the names of things the way a botanist would. It's more important to be aware of the "suchness" of the thing; it's a reality. It's also a source of a certain kind of inspiration for creativity. I see it in the work of Georgia O'Keeffe..."

Darshan is also a part of the name of India's public broadcaster Doordarshan combining the word दूर dūra 'far' altogether making दूरदर्शन dūrdarśan 'television'.

See also

• Blessing
• Dharma transmission
• Guru–shishya tradition
• Jharokha Darshan
• Pranāma

References

Citations

Works cited

Further reading

• Coorlawala, Uttara Asha (Spring 1996). "Darshan and abhinaya: an alternative to the male gaze" (PDF). Dance Research Journal. 28 (1): 19–27. doi:10.2307/1478103. JSTOR 1478103. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 April 2015.
• Dass, Ram (2010). "Darshan". Be love now: the path of the heart. New York: HarperOne. pp. 62–84. ISBN 978-0061961373. OCLC 526084249.
• DuPertuis, Lucy (1986). "How people recognize charisma: the case of darshan in Radhasoami and Divine Light Mission". Sociology of Religion. 47 (2): 111–124. doi:10.2307/3711456. JSTOR 3711456.
• Eck, Diana L. (1998) [1981]. Darśan: seeing the divine image in India (3rd ed.). New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0231112653. OCLC 40295673.
• Grimes, John A. (2004). "Darśana". In Mittal, Sushil; Thursby, Gene R. (eds.). The Hindu world. The Routledge worlds. New York: Routledge. pp. 531–552. ISBN 0415215277. OCLC 54103829.
• Purdom, C.B., ed. (1955). God to Man and Man to God: the Discourses of Meher Baba. London: Victor Gollancz.
• Sanzaro, Francis (Fall 2007). "Darshan as mode and critique of perception: Hinduism's liberatory model of visuality" (PDF). Axis Mundi: 1–24.