Hi Bosco, Thanks for bringing to our attention the need for all of us to know our history. In 2006, there is no excuse for Khoro Niz Goenkars in Goa and those recently immigrated, not to know Goan history (with its specific facts and dates). This is especially when we engage ourselves in a review of the subject. We expect / hope our next generation of Diaspora Goans to know our Goan history?
Yet we will not know our history and the facts, if when presented, we continue to treat it (knowledge) as a debating and popularity contest. And then pick and chose what we want to believe and accept. As you suggest in your post, often Goans can be our own worst enemies. I hope we can see a change in our Goan Forum web sites. So as you seem to want, here is a recap. My apologies for some repetitions. Hindu temples in Goa were destroyed by the Colonial Portuguese and prior to them by the Deccan Sultanates as part of a universally accepted fall-out of war. The natives were displaced, and their land taken as part of a land-grab to settle the waves of new soldiers, government officers, and their families. Velha Goa in Tiswadi (Ilhas) was the new capital for the colony. This was planned and built in the sixteenth century by the Portuguese. Their churches, basilicas and monasteries were built in this new city, some of which exists till today. Most of these churches have decayed and are destroyed by the natural elements - a common feature of Goa's climate. In the talukas of Bardez and Salcette, the Hindu temples were destroyed by the Colonial Government decree and military actions in the mid-sixteenth century as part of a land grab policy to settle new arrivals from Portugal and the mesticios. Catholic churches in the villages of these talukas were built as the Catholic population grew in these regions in the 17th and 18th century. So the two events in your single statement below are "sequential and concomitant events" but not a "cause and effect" as some have suggested (without any facts or evidence). That perhaps may be the cause for the confusion. And we Goans are good at confusaum. The "Stupa theory" which is a "church built on top of a stupa" had no foundation as the Stupa (Buddhist) period (Maurya Empire) was 321-184 BCE, while the Portuguese era started in 1510 AD. We see these concomitant events of churches and temples in reverse occurring now in Canada, USA and UK. Here Christian churches are structurally deterioration / decaying while temples are being built, contemporaneously, with no relation to each other. Kind Regards, GL PS: The land settlements for soldiers that fought in wars, even occurred in USA and Canada. In both countries it's called homesteading. In the USA, each Revolutionary War soldier received 100 acres. By the time of the Civil War, it became 160 acres (western semi-dry land). In both USA and Canada, the land-grab occurred from the natives (American-Indians). By "tying" the soldiers to the land, the government did not have to keep and pay for a standing army. Yet, the government could call on these men / reserves to fight. And they fought to protect their lives, their own home, family and land. ---------------- Bosco D'Mello wrote: For two very vocal Goanetters, your messages on this thread are muted. With Mario directing all traffic to Gilbert who has valiantly in vain tried to defend his point of view, Jose has tried to mislead us with a critique of all religions and about biased historians. The bottom line is were Hindu temples destroyed to build churches? A simple yes or no would have sufficed to take a stand. Instead what we see is a copout! The optics just don't look right when we are unable to accept our own history _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
