St. Teresa's Shrine, Mahé

St. Teresa's Shrine Basilica in Mahé, part of Puducherry, is a Catholic shrine to St Teresa of Ávila and one of the most visited in India. Records in the Carmelite archives in Rome say an Italian Carmelite, Dominic of St. John of the Cross, founded the Mahé mission in 1723 under the Raja of Kadathanad, and the shrine, which began as a thatched structure, was dedicated in 1736. War damaged it in the 18th century; Abbé Duchenin rebuilt it around 1788 in roughly its present form, and in 1855 the tower was renovated and given a clock presented by French marines. It was declared a Minor Basilica in 2023.

Two traditions explain the statue of the saint: that a ship carrying it stopped at Mahé and would not move on, or that fishermen found it in their net offshore. The feast runs from 5 to 22 October, with the 14th and 15th as the main days, and draws people of every religion from Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.