Christianization of Goa

The indigenous population of the erstwhile Portuguese colony of Goa, Daman and Diu underwent Christianisation following the Portuguese conquest of Goa in 1510. The converts in the Velhas Conquistas (Old Conquests) to Roman Catholicism were then granted full Portuguese citizenship.^[1] Almost all present-day Goan Catholics are descendants of these native converts, they constitute the largest Indian Christian community of Goa state and account for 25 percent of the population.^[2]

Chapel of Santa Catarina, built in Old Goa during Portuguese rule. It should not be confused with the Cathedral of Santa Catarina, also in Old Goa.

Many Kudali, Mangalorean & Karwari Catholics in present-day Karnataka and Maharashtra are also of Goan descent due to migration in the 16th and 17th centuries.^[3] Korlai and Bombay East Indian Catholics of the Konkan division, and the Damanese of Damaon, Diu & Silvassa have had Goan admixture and interactions in the Portuguese Bombay territory, which was ruled from the capital in Old Goa. Bombay East Indians were formerly Portuguese citizens until the seven islands of Bombay were taken over by the British East India Company, via the dowry of Catherine Braganza in marriage to Charles II of England. Salsette islanders and Basseinites of the Bombay East Indian community were also Portuguese citizens, till the Mahratta Invasion of Bassein in 1739.^[4]

Pre-Portuguese Era

Main article: Pre-Portuguese Christianity in Goa

It has been said that prior to the en-masse Christianisation, there were a few communities of Eastern Christians (Nestorians) present in the age-old ports of Konkan that were caught up in the Spice trade and the Silk route. The conversion of the Indo-Parthian (Pahlavi) King Gondophares (abbreviated Gaspar) into the Thomasine Church, and the finding of a Persian Cross in Goa are subjects of ongoing debate and research.^[5]

Conversion to Christianity

Main article: Primate of the East Indies

The first converts to Christianity in Goa were native Goan women who married Portuguese men that arrived with Afonso de Albuquerque during the Portuguese conquest of Goa in 1510.^[6]

 

Christian maidens of Goa meeting a Portuguese nobleman seeking a wife, from the Códice Casanatense (c. 1540)

During the mid-16th century, the city of Goa, was the center of Christianization in the East.^[7] Christianization in Goa was largely limited to the four concelhos (districts) of Bardez, Mormugao, Salcette, and Tiswadi.^[8] Furthermore, evangelisation activities were divided in 1555 by the Portuguese viceroy of Goa, Pedro Mascarenhas.^[9] He allotted Bardez to the Franciscans, Tiswadi to the Dominicans, and Salcette, together with fifteen southeastern villages of Tiswadi, including Chorão and Divar, to the Jesuits.^[9] The city of Old Goa was shared among all, since all the religious orders had their headquarters there.^[9] Prior to that, the Franciscans alone christianized Goa till 1542.^[10] Other less active orders that maintained a presence in Goa were the Augustines, Carmelites, and Theatines.^[11]

 

Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier taking leave of John III of Portugal before his departure to Goa in 1541, by Avelar Rebelo (1635)

The first mass conversions took place among the Brahmins of Divar, and the Kshatriyas of Carambolim.^[12] In Bardez, Mangappa Shenoy of Pilerne was the first Hindu to convert to Christianity in 1555, adopting the name Pero Ribeiro and thus becoming the first Christian of Bardez.^[13] His conversion was followed by that of his brother Panduranga and his uncle Balkrishna Shenoy, who is the direct patrilineal ancestor of Goan historian José Gerson da Cunha.^[13] In Salcette, Raia was the first village to have been Christianised, when its populace was converted en masse to Christianity in 1560.^[14]

 

A view of the Se Cathedral

In 1534, Goa was made a diocese and in 1557 an archdiocese. The Archbishop of Goa was the most important ecclesiastic of the East, and was from 1572 called the "Primate of the East".^[15] The Portuguese rulers implemented state policies encouraging and even rewarding conversions among Hindu subjects, it would be false to ascribe the large number of conversions to force. The rapid rise of converts in Goa was mostly the result of Portuguese economic and political control over the Hindus, who were vassals of the Portuguese crown.^[16]

Name changes

The process of Christianization was simultaneously accompanied by Lusitanisation, as the Christian converts typically assumed a Portuguese veneer.^[17] The most visible aspect was the discarding of old Konkani Hindu names for new Portuguese Catholic names at the time of Baptism.^[17] The 1567 Provincial Council of Goa — under the presidency of the first Archbishop of Goa Gaspar Jorge de Leão Pereira, and then under the presidency of his successor Jorge Temudo — passed over 115 decrees.^[18] One of them declared that the Goan Catholics would henceforth not be permitted to use their former Hindu names.^[18]

The converts typically adopted the surnames of the Portuguese priest, governor, soldier or layman who stood as godfather for their baptism ceremony.^[17] For instance, the Boletim do Instituto Vasco da Gama lists the new names of some of the prominent ganvkars (Konkani: Freeholders). Rama Prabhu, son of Dado Vithal Prabhu from Benaulim, Salcette, became Francisco Fernandes; Mahabal Pai, son of Nara Pai, became Manuel Fernandes in 1596. Mahabal Kamati of Curtorim became Aleisco Menezes in 1607, while Chandrappa Naik of Gandaulim became António Dias in 1632. In 1595 Vittu Prabhu became Irmão de Diogo Soares and the son of Raulu Kamat became Manuel Pinto in Aldona, Bardez. Ram Kamat of Punola became Duarte Lobo in 1601, while Tados Irmaose of Anjuna became João de Souza in 1658.^[19]

Since in many cases, family members were not necessarily baptised at the same time, this would lead to them having different surnames.^[20] For instance in 1594, the son of Pero Parras, a ganvkar from Raia acquired at baptism the new name of Sebastião Barbosa. Later in 1609, another of his sons converted and took the name of João Rangel.^[20] As a result, members of the same vangodd (clan) who initially all shared a common Hindu surname ended up adopting divergent Lusitanian ones.^[20]

Impact of Christianity on the caste system

However, the converted Hindus retained Konkani as their mother tongue and their caste status even after becoming Christian. Based on their previous caste affiliations, the new converts were usually lumped into new Catholic castes. All Brahmin subcastes (Goud Saraswat Brahmins, Padyes, Daivadnyas), goldsmiths and even some rich merchants, were lumped into the Christian caste of Bamonns (Konkani: Brahmins).^[21] The converts from the Kshatriya and Vaishya Vani castes became lumped together as Chardos (Kshatriyas)^[21] and those Vaishyas who didn't become Chardos formed a new caste Gauddos.^[22] The converts from all the lower castes were grouped together as Sudirs, equivalent to Shudras.^[23][24] The Bamonns, Chardos, and Gauddos have been traditionally seen as the high castes in the Goan Catholic caste hierarchy.^[25]

Persistence of the caste system

 

A typical white Sant Khuris (Holy Cross), of a Goan Catholic family, constructed in the style of Portuguese architecture

The Portuguese attempted to abolish caste discrimination among the local converts and homogenise them into a single entity.^[26] Caste consciousness among the native converts was so intense that they even maintained separate Church confraternities. In church circles, the Bamonn and Chardo converts were rivals and frequently discriminated against each other.^[27] Caste discrimination even extended to the clergy. However, some non-Bamonn priests did achieve distinction. The Portuguese church authorities decided to recruit Gauddo and Sudir converts into the priesthood, to offset the increasing hostilities of the Bamonn and Chardo clerics.^[28] The church authorities initially used these native priests as Konkani interpreters in their parishes and missions.^[28]

Discrimination against native Christians

Since the 1510 conquest, the Portuguese had been intermarrying with the natives and created a Mestiço class in Goa that followed Portuguese culture. The Portuguese also desired a similar complete integration of the native Christians into Portuguese culture.^[29] The retention of the caste system and Hindu customs by the converts was contemptuously looked down upon by the Portuguese, who desired complete assimilation of the native Christians into their own culture.^[29]

Some Portuguese clergy bore racial prejudices against their Goan counterparts.^[30] In their letters, they made frequent references to the fact that the native clergy were dark skinned, and that the parishioners had no respect for them as a result.^[30] The Franciscan parish priest of Colvale Church, Frei António de Encarnação, excommunicated for striking a Goan assistant, wrote a bitter and virulent essay against the native clergy wherein he called them ' negros chamados curas ' (Portuguese: blacks called curates) and termed them as 'perverse' and 'insolent'.^[30] The Franciscans further expanded on the viceregal decree of 1606 regarding making the natives literate in Portuguese to qualify for the priesthood.^[30] However, the Archbishop of Goa Ignacio de Santa Theresa is known to have respected the native Goan clerics more than the Portuguese ones, whom he considered to be insolent and overbearing.^[30]

Re-conversion of Gaudas

Further information: Ghar Wapsi

In the late 1920s in what was Portuguese Goa and Damaon, some prominent Hindu Goan Brahmins requested the Vinayak Maharaj Masurkar, a guru of an ashram in Masur, Satara district of British Bombay (present-day Maharashtra); to actively campaign for the 're-conversion' of Catholic Gauda and Kunbis to Vaishnavite Hinduism.^[31] Masurkar accepted, and together with his disciples, subsequently toured Gauda villages singing devotional bhakti songs and performing pujas.^[31] These means led a considerable number of Catholic Gaudas to declare willingness to come into the Hindu fold, and a Shuddhi ceremony was carefully prepared.^[31] Their efforts was met with success when on 23 February 1928, many Catholic Gaudas were converted en masse to Hinduism in a Shuddhi ceremony, notwithstanding the vehement opposition of the Roman Catholic Church and the Portuguese authorities.^[32] As part of their new religious identity, the converts were given Hindu names. However, the Portuguese government refused to grant them legal permission to change their names.^[33] Around 4,851 Catholic Gaudas from Tiswadi, 2,174 from Ponda, 250 from Bicholim and 329 from Sattari became Hindus in this ceremony. The total number of Gauda converts was 7,815.^[34] The existing Hindu Gauda community refused to accept these neo-Hindus back into their fold because their Catholic ancestors had not maintained caste purity, and the neo-Hindus were now alienated by their former Catholic coreligionists.^[35] These neo-Hindus developed into a separate endogamous community, and are now referred to as Nav-Hindu Gaudas (New Hindu Gaudas).^[36]

Current status of Christianity

According to the 1909 statistics in the Catholic Encyclopedia, the total Catholic population in Portuguese controlled Goa was 293,628 out of a total population of 365,291 (80.33%).^[37] Since the 20th century, the percentage of the Christian population of Goa has been facing continual decline although the number of Christians has increased. This is caused by a combination of permanent emigration of Christian Goans from Goa to cosmopolitan Indian cities (e.g. Mumbai, Bangalore) and foreign countries (e.g. Portugal, United Kingdom)^[38] with the mass immigration of non-Christians from the rest of India since the 20th century.^[39] (Ethnic Goans represent less than 50% of the state's residents.^[40]) Currently, Christians constitute 366,130 of the total population of 1,458,545 in Goa (25.10%) according to the 2011 census.^[41]

Further reading

• Roger Crowley (2015). Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire. London: Faber and Faber.
• Anthony D’Costa (1965). The Christianisation of the Goa Islands 1510-1567. Bombay: Heras Institute.

See also

• Christianity in Goa
• Christianity in India
• Conspiracy of the Pintos
• Cuncolim Massacre
• Goa Inquisition
• Sackings of Goa and Bombay-Bassein
• Violence against Christians in India

Citations

1. Holm 1989, p. 286
2. de Mendonça 2002, p. 55
3. Prabhu 1999, p. 154
4. Machado, Dolcy M (29 April 2011). History and military importance of medieval Bassein and its surroundings. University of Pune.
5. J. Cosme Costa (2009). Apostolic Christianity in Goa and in the West Coast. Goa: Xavierian Publication Society.
6. Crowley, Roger (2015). Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire. London: Faber & Faber.
7. de Mendonça 2002, p. 67
8. Borges & Stubbe 2000, p. 304
9. Meersman 1971, p. 107
10. de Mendonça 2002, p. 80
11. Prabhu 1999, p. 111
12. Gomes 1987, p. 64
13. Mascarenhas 2008
14. Prabhu 1999, p. 101
15. Padinjarekutt 2005, p. 99
16. de Mendonça 2002, p. 397
17. Prabhu 1999, p. 133
18. de Sousa 2011, p. 69
19. Kudva 1972, p. 359
20. do Carmo Costa 2003, p. 12 "Um fenómeno curioso aconteceu neste processo de conversão: por vezes, irmãos e pais convertidos, ou em momentos diferentes, ou por terem padrinhos diferentes, acabaram por adoptar apelidos diferentes. A título de exemplo, encontra-se numa escritura de 1594, como gancar da aldeia da Raia, Sebastião Barbosa, filho de Pero Parras; e num outro documento, de 1609, João Rangel, também gancar, filho do mesmo Pero Parras. Dois irmãos, um Rangel e um Barbosa, ambos filhos de um Parras." ("A curious thing happened in this process of conversion: sometimes siblings and parents converted, or at different times, or having different sponsors, and ended up adopting different last names. For example, there is a deed of 1594, when a ganvkar (villager) of Raia, Sebastião Barbosa, shows up as the son of Pero Parras. In another document, in 1609, João Rangel, also a ganvkar (villager), turns out to be the son of the same Pero Parras. Two brothers, one a Rangel and one a Barbosa, both sons of a Parras!")
21. Gune & Goa, Daman and Diu (India). Gazetteer Dept 1979, p. 238
22. Gomes 1987, p. 78
23. e Sá 1997, p. 255
24. Muthukumaraswamy, University of Madras. Dept. of Anthropology & National Folklore Support Centre (India) 2006, p. 63
25. Gomes 1987, p. 79
26. Boxer 1963, p. 75
27. de Souza 1994, p. 144
28. de Souza 1989, p. 71
29. Pinto 1999, pp. 141–144
30. de Souza 1989, p. 77
31. Kreinath, Hartung & Deschner 2004, p. 163
32. Ghai 1990, p. 103
33. Ralhan 1998, pp. 304–305
34. Godbole 2010, pp. 61–66
35. Shirodkar & Mandal 1993, p. 23
36. Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France) & Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses 2001, p. 458
37. Ernest Hull (1909). "Archdiocese of Goa". Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
38. Saldhana, Arun (2007). Psychedelic White: Goa Trance and the Viscosity of Race. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0-8166-4994-5.
39. Rajesh Ghadge (2015). The story of Goan Migration.
40. Menezes, Vivek (15 May 2021). "Who belongs to Goa? This question resurfaces as the State battles the raging pandemic". The Hindu.
41. "India's religions by numbers". The Hindu (published 26 August 2015). 29 March 2016. from the original on 10 January 2016. Retrieved 6 September 2017.

References

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• Boxer, Charles Ralph (1963). Race Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire, 1415-1825. Clarendon Press.
• Bragança Pereira, A.B. (1920). O Sistema das Castas. Goa: Oriente Portuguese..
• Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France); Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses (2001). Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France); Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses (eds.). Lusophonies asiatiques, Asiatiques en lusophonies. KARTHALA Editions. ISBN 978-2-84586-146-6. Retrieved 3 November 2011.
• da Cunha, José Gerson (1881). The Konkani language and literature. Asian Educational Services..
• de Sousa, Bernardo Elvino (2011). The Last Prabhu: A Hunt for Roots, DNA, Ancient Documents and Migration in Goa. Goa, 1556. ISBN 978-93-8073-915-1..
• de Souza, Teotonio R. (1994). Discoveries, missionary expansion, and Asian cultures. Concept Publishing Company. ISBN 978-81-7022-497-6. Retrieved 3 April 2011.
• de Souza, Teotonio R. (1989). Essays in Goan history. Concept Publishing Company. ISBN 978-81-7022-263-7. Retrieved 5 November 2011.
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• de Souza, Teotonio R. (1979). Medieval Goa: a socio-economic history. Concept Publishing Company..
• de Souza, Teotonio R. (1985). "Spiritual Conquests of the East: A Critique of the Church History of Portuguese Asia (16th and 17th centuries)". Indian Church History Review. 1. 19..
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• do Carmo Costa, Pedro (2003). "Famílias Católicas Goesas: Entre Dois Mundos e Dois Referenciais de Nobreza". Genealogia e Heráldica, n.o 9/10. Porto: Universidade Moderna do Porto.
• e Sá, Mario Cabral (1997). Wind of Fire: The Music and Musicians of Goa. Promilla & Company. ISBN 978-81-85002-19-4.
• Ghai, R.K. (1990). Shuddhi movement in India: a study of its socio-political dimensions. Commonwealth Publishers. ISBN 81-7169-042-4..
• Godbole, Shriranga (2010). Govyatil margadarshak shuddhikarya. Pune: Sanskrutik Vartapatra. p. 112.. (in Marathi)
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• Gune, Vithal Trimbak; Goa, Daman and Diu (India). Gazetteer Dept (1979). Gazetteer of the Union Territory Goa, Daman and Diu: district gazetteer, Volume 1. Gazetteer Dept., Govt. of the Union Territory of Goa, Daman and Diu..
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• Kreinath, Jens; Hartung, Constance; Deschner, Annette (2004). Kreinath, Jens; Hartung, Constance; Deschner, Annette (eds.). The dynamics of changing rituals: the transformation of religious rituals within their social and cultural context. Peter Lang. ISBN 978-0-8204-6826-6..
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