Goa Inquisition



The Goa Inquisition was a colonial era Portuguese institution established by the Christian Holy Office between the 16th and 19th century which continued till 1962 when Goa was liberated from the Portuguese colonialists, to forcibly convert Hindus in South Asia to Christianity - those who did not convert were tortured to death.

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 * The Inquisition was an infamous tribunal at all places. But the infamy never reached greater depths, nor was more vile, more black, and more completely determined by mundane interests than at the tribunal of Goa, by irony called the Holy Office. Here the Inquisitors went to the length of imprisoning in its jails women who resisted their advances, and after having satisfied their bestial instincts there, ordering that they be burnt as heretics.
 * Oration given by the Archbishop of Evora at the Cathedral Church of Lisbon in 1897, on the occasion of the tricentenary of the death of Padre Antonio Vieira, in: India Portuguesa, Vol. II, Nova Goa 1923, p. 263., Dr. Antonio Noronha,  a former Chief Justice of the High Court of Goa, in his monograph “‘The Hindus and the Portuguese Republic.”’  in :Priolkar Anant Kakba and Gabriel Dellon. 2008. The Goa Inquisition : Being a Quatercentenary Commemoration Study of the Inquisition in India.


 * The cruelties which in the name of the religion of peace and love this tribunal practiced in Europe, were carried to even greater excesses in India, where the Inquisitors, surrounded by luxuries which could stand comparison with the regal magnificence of the great potentates of Asia, saw with pride the Archbishop as well as the viceroy submitted to their power. Every word of theirs was a sentence of death and at their slightest nod were removed to terror the vast populations spread over the Asiatic regions, whose lives fluctuated in their hands, and who, on the most frivolous pretext could be clapped for all time in the deepest dungeon or strangled or offered as food for the flames of the pyre.
 * J C Barreto Miranda, a Goanese historian, in his book Quadros Historicas de Goa p.145 also quoted at

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 * Every word of theirs was a sentence of death and at their slightest nod were moved to terror the vast populations spread over the Asiatic regions, whose lives fluctuated in their hands, and who, on the most frivolous pretext could be clapped for all time in the deepest dungeon or strangled or offered as food for the flames of the pyre.
 * J.C. Barreto Miranda quoted in Goa and Portugal: Their Cultural Links, 1997, Charles J. Borges, Helmut Feldmann (editors), p 34


 * In the principal market was raised an engine of great height, at top like a Gibbet, with a pulley …which unhinges a man’s joints, a cruel torture... Portuguese also inaugurated slave trade by seizing able-bodied men and women in the neighbouring Indian territory and selling them. They opened a slave market in Goa.
 * Dr. Fryer (The Syrian Christians of Kerala, 1963, p.31). attributed in

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 * The Portuguese friars and priests had been destroying Hindu temples in Portugal's Indian possessions for quite some time past. Cartas de Affonso de Albuquerque, published from Lisbon in 1915 on the basis of old records, carries a report from Andre Corsali stationed at Cochin in 1515. He writes that an ancient and magnificent temple on the island of Divari had been demolished in 1515 and its sculptures defaced. In 1534 when Goa was made a bishopric many Hindu temples had been destroyed under the new policy described as Rigour of Mercy. A list of 156 temples which had been destroyed in Goa in 1541 is provided in Tomba da Ilha des Goa e das Terras de Salcete e Bardes by Francisco Pais published in 1952, again on the basis of old records. The Hindu leaders of Goa had passed a “voluntary resolution” that the income from lands assigned to these temples could be used for the maintenance of churches and missions. The arrival of a mighty missionary like Xavier gave an added impetus to the campaign. What followed in Goa and other Portuguese possessions in India has been very well documented by Christian historians in India. According to the History of Christianity in India, Vol. 1, 280 Hindu temples were destroyed in Salsette and another 300 in Bardez. The count for temples destroyed in Bassein (Vasai), Bandra, Thana and Bombay are not available. Missionary records, however, refer to many famous Hindu temples being converted into churches at these places. A beautiful Hindu temple in the Elephanta Caves was turned into a chapel. Many temples were pulled or burned down on the islands of Seveon (Butcher's Island) and Neven (Hog Island). Even private temples in Hindu homes were prohibited and “transgressors” were severely punished. The Hindus in these places tried to circumvent the “law” by taking away their images to places outside Portuguese territories or building temples of their Gods in neighbouring lands. The missionaries discovered this “Hindu trick” very soon. The Portuguese authorities promulgated a law that Hindus found financing temples outside or going on pilgrimages to these temples were to be punished with heavy fines including confiscation of property.
 * Quoted from Goel, S. R. (1985). St. Francis Xavier: The man and his mission.

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 * The Portuguese in this matter as in others followed the custom of the country: Linschoten recorded that they (Portuguese in Goa) never worked, but employed slaves, who were sold daily in the market like beasts, and della Valle notes that the ‘greatest part’ of people in Goa were slaves.
 * Linschoten, Pietro della Valle, quoted in Moreland, India at the Death of Akbar. Quoted in Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 10

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 * In its two and a half centuries of existence at Goa, the Inquisition burned at the stake 57 alive and 64 in effigy. Others sentenced to various cruel punishments totaled 4,046. The people who were converted but still continued secretly to perform Hindu rituals were treated even more harshly… The manner in which the Church enriched itself was just scandalous. Half the property of a person found in possession of idols went to the Church…The Church acquired urban and rural properties on an impressive scale. The open performances of Hindu ceremonies were replaced by great public processions on Christian feast days. One of the worst criminals was Francis Xavier, later to be made into a saint.
 * Alan Machado-Prabhu attributed in


 * Uruguay-based Alfredo de Mello, a Goan born historian, in his Memoirs of Goa (2003) writes how in a span of 252 years, the inquisition held sway in Goa “with a power that Stalin and other tyrants would have liked to hold.” Referring to the dreaded Goan Inquisition de Mello calls it “the worst of the existing inquisitions in the Catholic orb of the five parts of the world”.
 * Alfredo de Mello attributed at

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 * The Portuguese power became ruthless the more it got itself established in India. Royal Charters were issued from time to time making invidious distinctions between Christians and non-Christians and subjecting the latter to untold disabilities.  In 1559 an enactment was passed debarring all Hindus from holding any public office.  In the same year another law was enacted confiscating the properties of non-Christian orphans if they refused to be converted to Christianity.  Yet another law ordered destruction of Hindu temples and images and prohibited all non-Christian religious festivals. In 1560 all the Brahmans and goldsmiths were ordered to accept Christianity otherwise they were to be turned out of Goa.  By a law passed in 1567 the Hindus were prohibited from performing their important religious ceremonies such as investiture of sacred thread, marriage ceremonies and even cremation rites.  Hindu religious books were proscribed.  All non-Christians above the age of 15 were forced to attend the preaching of Christian religion.  Hindu temples were destroyed and in their place churches were built.  In 1575 another law was passed by which the Hindu nationals were debarred from their civic right of renting state land.  People of Goa were prohibited to use their native language by an order of 1684 and were allowed three years to learn the Portuguese language under pain of being proceeded against under law of the land.
 * Quoted in Madhya Pradesh (India), Goel, S. R., Niyogi, M. B. (1998). Vindicated by time: The Niyogi Committee report on Christian missionary activities. ISBN 9789385485121 (citing Religious Liberty, pp. 267-268: Bates.) PART III CHAPTER I. – RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN OTHER COUNTRIES

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 * In 1534 Goa was made a bishopric with authority extending over the entire Far East. Special instructions were issued to the Portuguese Viceroy to root out the infidels. Hindu temples in Goa were destroyed and their property distributed to religious orders (like the Franciscans) in 1540 . The Inquisition was established in 1560.
 * Panikkar, K. M. (1953). Asia and Western dominance, a survey of the Vasco da Gama epoch of Asian history, 1498-1945, by K.M. Panikkar. London: G. Allen and Unwin.


 * “Religious bigotry and proselytism, fostered by the Inquisition, sapped the vitals of the empire while mere cruel terrorism took the place of the strength—albeit cruel strength—on which the early giants had relied. In so faras any one date can be taken as of prime importance in the ruin of the Portuguese empire, it is 6 May 1542, when Francis Xavier sct foot.ashore at Goa. From then on the Jesuits did their worst, using every form of bribery, threat, and torture to effect a conversion. Burton, writing 80 years ago, refers to “ fire and steel, the dungeon and the rack, the rice pot and the rupee, ” which played ‘“ the persuasive part in the good work...assigned to them.” Facetious as_ this quotation may seem it sums up in nutshell the methods used, and the satisfaction at the result, for the Jesuits were fanatics, and like all fanatics they did irreparable harm.”
 * Boies Penrose, Sea Fights in the East Indies in the years 1602-1639, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1931, p. 14. in :Priolkar Anant Kakba and Gabriel Dellon. 2008. The Goa Inquisition : Being a Quatercentenary Commemoration Study of the Inquisition in India.


 * Apparently this market not only served the export trade but was in much demand by the local Portuguese whose lifestyle was extravagant and profligate. But we are also told that there was a lively trade in Kaffirs, a derogatory term for the natives of the Portuguese colony of Mozambique. The girls, who, we are told, were very much in demand, were paraded for sale in the nude.
 * (B. Penrose, Goa, Queen of the East, p.67). attributed at

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 * In 1560, the year the Inquisition was set up, 13,092 Hindus were forcibly converted. In 1578, the… missionaries pulled down 350 temples and converted 100,000 people.
 * Rao, R.P., Portuguese Rule in Goa, Asia Pub. House (Bombay, 1963).  quoted from Lal, K. S. (2012). Indian muslims: Who are they. Chapter 6

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 * The papers which comprised the archive of that tribunal were found to be a vast mass, and there was no room in the office of the Secretary of State to permit of their being received, as I had decided. I, therefore ordered, that they be kept in the building of the Royal arsenal, being deposited in large sacks which would be sealed with the royal arms by the Inquisitor, and that the building be closed with three keys, one of which would remain with me, another at the secretariat, and the third in the hands of the intendant of the navy. I considered it was proper to take all these precautionary measures in respect of these records as I am informed that in them exist papers relating to al) the suits tried by the Holy Office since its inception, and if they are not guarded with all care, therein would be found motives to defame, even falsely, all the families in the state and these would provide occasions to feed the enmities and intrigues which so much abound in this country. It is meet that your Royal Highness should determine what should be done with this massof papers and processes. As I am persuaded that it is not expedient that they should be seen by any person, it appears to me that it would be appropriate to burn them.” ... [In reply to this communication dated September 27, 1818, contained the following directions on this point : ] As regards the huge mass of papers existing in the archive of the Inquisition, as-it does not appear wise to burn them without some kind of review, nor to commit them to the care of a person who is not in the secret of the said papers, His Royal Highness decided for this purpose'to order that the Promoter, in whom are found the talent and probity necessary for this task, should be placed in charge of such examination and as soon as he has finished and has made the necessary separation. of those papers which are worthy of being preserved, you will arrange to burn the rest, and remit those which are retained under proper security to this office of the Secretary of the State.
 * The viceroy, Conde de Sarzedas in a letter dated December 20, 1812, addressed to the King. in :Priolkar Anant Kakba and Gabriel Dellon. 2008. The Goa Inquisition : Being a Quatercentenary Commemoration Study of the Inquisition in India.


 * And, above all, don't let us forget India, the cradle of the human race, or at least of that part of it to which we belong, where first Mohammedans, and then Christians, were most cruelly infuriated against the adherents of the original faith of mankind. The destruction or disfigurement of the ancient temples and idols, a lamentable, mischievous and barbarous act, still bears witness to the monotheistic fury of the Mohammedans, carried on from Mahmud the Ghaznevid of cursed memory down to Aureng Zeb, the fratricide, whom the Portuguese Christians have zealously imitated by destruction of temples and the auto da fe of the inquisition at Goa.
 * Arthur Schopenhauer The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer - Translated By T. Bailey Saunders


 * At least from 1540 onwards, and in the island of Goa before that year, all the Hindu idols had been annihilated or had disappeared, all the temples had been destroyed and their sites and building materials were in most cases utilised to erect new Christian churches and chapels. Various vice regal and Church council decrees banished the Hindu priests from the Portuguese territories; the public practice of Hindu rites including marriage rites, was banned; the state took upon itself the task of bringing up the Hindu orphan children; the Hindus were denied certain employments, while the Christians were preferred; it was ensured that the Hindus would not harass those who became Christians, and on the contrary, the Hindus were obliged to assemble periodically in churches to listen to preaching or to the refutation of their religion.
 * Dr. T. R. de Souza in M. D. David (ed.), Western Colonialism in Asia and Christianity, Bombay, 1988, p. 17. Quoted in S.R. Goel: History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1996)


 * In 1567 the Captain of Rachol Fort in South Goa bragged to his Portuguese king back home, “For nights and nights went on the demolishing, demolishing, demolishing of 280 Hindu temples. Not one remained in the happy lands of our division.” Jesuit historian Francisco de Souza jubilantly praised the feat, “It is incredible–the sentiment that the gentile were seized of when they saw their respective temple burning.”
 * attributed in Is the March over? By Mario Cabral E Sa, Goa Hindustan Today October, 1997 republished at

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 * Goa is sadly famous for its inquisition, equally contrary to humanity and commerce. The Portuguese monks made us believe that the people worshiped the devil, and it is they who have served him.
 * Voltaire : Oeuvres completes de Voltaire – Volume 4, Page 786 Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, Volume 5, Part 2, Page 1066 Also quoted in Goel, S. R. (1985). St. Francis Xavier: The man and his mission.


 * The papers which comprised the archive of that tribunal were found to be a vast mass. I am informed that in them exist papers relating to all the suits tried by the Holy Office since its inception, and if they are not guarded with all care, therein would be found motives to defame, even falsely, all the families in the state and these would provide occasions to feed the enmities and intrigues which so abound in this country. ... As I am persuade that it is not expedient that they should be seen by any person it appears meet to me that it would be appropriate to burn them.
 * Viceroy of Goa to the King of Portugal. Letter dated December 20, 1812. Antonio Baiao, A Inquisicao de Goa, Lisbon, 1945, Vol. 1. quoted from Goel, S. R. (1985). St. Francis Xavier: The man and his mission.

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 * As to the torture itself, it combined all that the ferocity of savages and the ingenuity of civilized man had till then invented. Besides the ordinary rack, thumb-screws, and leg crushers or Spanish boots, there were spiked wheels over which the victims were drawn with weights on their feet; boiling oil was poured over their legs, burning sulphur dropped on their bodies, and lighted candles held beneath their armpits.
 * E T Whittington, attributed at


 * The Goa Inquisition, Being a Quatercentenary Commemoration Study of the Inquisition in India (1961), Bombay University Press,.


 * Around the territories of the neighbours of Goa, there exist in that island temples in which status of the enemy of the Cross are worshipped and every year their festivals are celebrated. These are attended by many Christians, both Europeans and natives, which is very wrong in that it promotes idolatry. It will be service to God if these temples in the island of Goa are destroyed and in their stead churches with saints are erected, and it is ordered that whosoever desires to live in this island and have house and lands there should become a Christian, and if he does not wish to be one should go out of the island. I assure Your Majesty that there would be no individual who did not turn to the faith of Our Lord Christ, because if exiled from this island he will have no means of livelihood.
 * Quoting Bispo de Dumense, 1522: p. 73.


 * Since idolatry is so great an offence against God, as is manifest to all, it is just that Your Majesty should not permit it within your territories, and an order should be promulgated in Goa to the effect that in the whole island there should not be any temple public or secret, contravention whereof should entail grave penalties; that no official should make idols in any form, neither of stone, nor of wood, nor of copper nor of any other metal; that no Hindu festival should be publicly celebrated in the whole island,; that Brahmin preachers from the mainland should not gather in the houses of the Hindus; and that persons who are in charge of St. Paul’s should have the power to search the houses of the Brahmins and other Hindus, in case there exist a presumption or suspicion of the existence of idols there.
 * Quoting Vicar General Fr. Minguel Vaz in 1545: p. 73-4.


 * There also took place in this year the destruction of the Hindu temples which existed in the territories of Your Majesty, of which none remains, for the priests of St. Francis also razed out f memory all those which existed in Bardez.
 * Quoting Gomes de Vaz, in 1567: p. 82.


 * In the present chapter it is proposed to review in brief various measures taken by the Portuguese rulers in India with the object of converting the natives to Christianity. The measures fall into two broad categories. Firstly, there were those the object of which was to make it difficult for the natives to continue to retain their old religion. The temples and shrines of the Hindus were destroyed and they were forbidden to erect or maintain new ones even outside the Portuguese territories ; practice of Hindu rites and ceremonies such as the marriage ceremony, the ceremony of wearing the sacred thread, ceremony performed at the birth of a child, was banned ; priests and teachers of the Hindus were banished ; Hindus whose presence was considered as undersirable from the point of view of propagation of Christianity were sent into exile; those who remained were deprived of their means of subsistence and ancestral rights in village communities; they were also subjected to various humiliations, indignities and disabilities; “ orphan ” children of the Hindus were snatched away from their families for being baptised ; and men and women were compelled to listen to the preaching of Christian doctrine...
 * p. 115


 * Goa was divested of its hallowed sites during the period of Portuguese political ascendancy. A letter by Andre Corsali, dated 6th January 1515, mentioned an early instance of violation, In this island of Goa and of the whole of India there are innumerable ancient edifices of the gentiles and in a little neighbouring island that is called Divari, the Portuguese in order to build the land (town) of Goa, have destroyed an ancient temple called a pagoda which was built with wonderful skill, with ancient figures of a certain black stone worked with very great perfection...
 * Jain, M. (2019). Flight of deities and rebirth of temples: Episodes from Indian history. 216 ff, quoting (Priolkar 1961: 65).


 * In 1545, the Vicar General, Fr. Minguel Vaz with Diogo Borba prepared a 41-point plan to effect the conversion ofnatives. Point No. 3 stated, Since idolatry is so great an offence against God, as is manifest to all, it is just that Your Majesty (king of Portugal) should not permit it within your territories, and an order should be promulgated in Goa to the effect that in the whole island there should not be any temple public or secret, contravention whereof should entail grave penalties; that no official should make idols in any form, neither of stone, nor of wood, nor of copper, nor of any other metal; and that no Hindu festival should be publicly celebrated in the whole island...
 * Jain, M. (2019). Flight of deities and rebirth of temples: Episodes from Indian history. 216 ff, quoting (Priolkar 1961: 73-73).


 * [The Father of Christians (Pae dos Christos),] he should obtain knowledge of the times and days when the festivals of the infidels, such as that of areca-tree, Setim and others, came, in order that persons may be prevented from participating therein and those guilty of participating may be punished. The same would apply to the times of the pilgrimages to the temples ; they should ascertain whether any of our infidel subjects go on such pilgrimages and whether, others who are not our subjects pass through our lands for that purpose, in order to prevent their doing so and punish those who do so, as His Majesty has ordered. The same would apply to the times when the Hindus customarily celebrate their marriages with Hindu. ceremonies. and festivities, in order to prevent them and punish those who perform them, although Hindu marriages performed without ceremonies and festivities cannot be prevented. He should ascertain whether in the parts where the infidels live there are any orphans who are without father, mother and grandparents and are aged under 14 years, so that they may, be sent to the College, as the king has ordered, educated and baptised ; they should also ascertain whether any infidels have removed the said orphans to the mainland for being kept until they cross the said age, so that they may not be baptised, and in the mean- while enjoy the income of their estates, in order that such persons might be punished as the king has ordered ; and the said estates sequestrated in the hands of Christians of sound credit, as the viceroy has ordered. And through his own efforts and those of the secular Pae dos Christaos, the solicitor and the procurator, he should see that this is put fully into execution and that Christian tutors are given to as many orphans of the infidels as may be possible, in conformity with the relevant provision as the king has ordered.’’