Abstract Mumbai’s diverse cultural heritage includes several Christian churches associated with the city’s East Indian community and with the legacy of Portuguese colonial rule between 1534 and 1739. This study addresses one such site in the village of Mandapeshwar, which developed from an eighth-century CE Hindu rock-cut cave temple and was transformed during the period of Portuguese rule into a center of Franciscan missionary activity, including through the creation of a Sacro Monte, or series of pilgrimage stations. By reconstructing the activities of the early Franciscan missionaries on Shashti Island north of Mumbai, this investigation reveals that the Sacro Monte functioned as a Marian devotional shrine, with a crowning chapel dedicated to the Holy Spirit. The Sacro Monte, with its grottoes, represents a unique synthesis of rock-cut Hindu cave temples and Christian hermitic traditions.

More from our Archive

• DOI: 10.1002/aesr.202300059 2023

  Insights into the High Activity of Ruthenium Phosphide for the Production of Hydrogen in Proton Exchange Membrane Water Electrolyzers

  Dmitry Galyamin, Jorge Torrero, Joshua David Elliott, Isabel Rodríguez-García, Daniel García Sánchez, Mohamed Abdel Salam, Aldo Saul Gago, Mohamed Mokhtar, José Luis Gómez de la Fuente, Samba Violeta Bueno, Diego Gianolio, Pilar Ferrer, David Charles Grinter, Georg Held, María Retuerto, Sergio Rojas

• DOI: 10.1177/03063127231185095 2023

  Close to the metal: Towards a material political economy of the epistemology of computation

  Ludovico Rella

• DOI: 10.1002/aesr.202300069 2023

  Sb Alloying for Engineering High‐Thermoelectric <i>zT</i> of CuGaTe₂

  Danwei Zhang, Mingkun Xie, Dorsasadat Safanama, Kivanc Saglik, Xian Yi Tan, Samantha Faye Duran Solco, Jing Cao, Chee Kiang Ivan Tan, Hongfei Liu, Suxi Wang, Qiang Zhu, Wen Hui Derrick Fam, Qingyu Yan, Jing Wu, Ady Suwardi

• DOI: 10.1075/jlp.23024.krz 2023

  Discourses and practices of the ‘New Normal’

  Michał Krzyżanowski, Ruth Wodak, Hannah Bradby, Mattias Gardell, Aristotle Kallis, Natalia Krzyżanowska, Cas Mudde, Jens Rydgren

• DOI: 10.1093/jhuman/huad024 2023

  Climate Change Litigation before the African Human Rights System: Prospects and Pitfalls

  Yusra Suedi, Marie Fall

• DOI: 10.1111/ehr.13273 2023

  Can colonial institutions explain differences in labour returns? Evidence from rural colonial India

  Jordi Caum‐Julio

• DOI: 10.1075/elt.00047.pla 2023

  Conversation and the evolution of metacognition

  Ronald J. Planer

• DOI: 10.5922/2079-8555-2023-2-4 2023

  The impact of the food embargo on con­sumer preferences and cross-border practices in the Kaliningrad region

  Kira A. Morachevskaya, Anna V. Lialina

• DOI: 10.5922/2079-8555-2023-2-2 2023

  Comparative analysis of the territorial support frame of settlement in coastal areas: the case of St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad regions

  Nikolay M. Mezhevich, Denis I. Olifir

• DOI: 10.1111/1468-0424.12716 2023

  Widows, Violence and Death: The Construction of Imperial Identity and Memory by Women in Mourning across British India, 1857–1926

  Ellen Smith