Is the March over?

[Guest guest]

>

>Is the March over?

>A Hindu renaissance has slowly swept the former Portuguese colony of Goa

>since its 1961 liberation by India from 400 years of foreign rule.

>By Mario Cabral e Sa, Goa

>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." The

>astonishing but true fact is that every temple was soon relocated and

>rebuilt by my countrymen; the murtis, and in some cases the sacred fire,

>were heroically rescued and reinstalled. Chandrakant Keni, a leading Goan

>poet, says that although Goa's Hindus were put to severe tests as

>conquerors marched over their lands, they had the resilience to convert

>"temporary setbacks into permanent victories."

>

>Goa is located on the southwest coast of India between Karnataka and

>Maharashtra states. It remained a Portuguese colony until forcibly taken by

>India in 1961. The "Christian presence in Goa"--an expression very much in

>vogue during the evangelistic fury of the Portuguese rulers and padres

>(priests), particularly in the 16th and 17th centuries--is more visible

>than vital today, 35 years after liberation. For example, Rodale's Guide to

>Places of the World describes Goa as "predominantly Catholic," when in

>reality Hindus, 66% of the 1.2 million populace, far outnumber Christians

>of all denominations.

>

>The first missionaries realized early on that despite backing of the state

>("conversions were made," wrote contemporary Portuguese chroniclers, with

>"the cross in one hand, the sword in the other"), it was difficult to wean

>Goans from their primal Hindu beliefs and traditions. I will share a

>traumatic and rancorous twist of this Hindu stalwartness that involved the

>splitting up of my ancestral family. They took a calculated risk: half the

>family would convert, and the other would escape to Karnataka where other

>Goan Hindus had settled and been welcomed by the Ikkeri king. The half that

>remained would safeguard the estate and assets of the migrating half. The

>calculation was that the Portuguese wouldn't stay in Goa for long--just

>trade, make money and go. That didn't happen. By the 1800s it was clear the

>Portuguese would remain. By then, too, the converted half of my family was

>forced to eat beef and pork and felt they could not return to their primal

>Hindu faith. They had by then appropriated the estate and assets of the

>migrated half, rather than lose it to the Inquisition, as the law then

>stipulated properties belonging to the "heathen" be confiscated.

>

>Noted India cartoonist/illustrator Mario De Miranda confirms his family's

>fidelity, "I am a Saraswati Brahmin, originally named Sardessai. My

>ancestors were forcibly converted to Christianity around 1600 and renamed

>Miranda. We still belong to the Shanta Durga temple and yearly present

>prasad--oil and a bag of rice--a tradition in my family all these years."

>

>Early European travellers, like Venetian epicure Pietro Della Valle who

>visited Goa in the 1700s, denounced in their travelogues "unChristian"

>practices in Catholic churches and shrines in Goa. Rather than create for

>themselves insurmountable trouble, the padres, particularly the Jesuits,

>reluctantly rewrote Christian liturgy. For instance, they enthusiastically

>adopted the Hindu tradition of yatra--in the Goan sense of "procession."

>Neophytes, according to chroniclers, paraded to their new Catholic shrines,

>singing as they moved and showering their paths with leaves and flowers,

>just as they had done only a while earlier as Hindus. To this day kumbhas

>are used for Catholic processions. At one stage, even the Vatican tersely

>censured those "gentilic practices" and proliferation of icons in churches.

>No where, lamented Della Valle, had he seen as much idolatry as in Goan

>churches. But evangelists, many of them foreigners--the most successful was

>Saint Francis Xavier--convincingly argued that without ethnic

>accommodations they were doomed to failure.

>

>Other concessions included retainment of social structures. In 1623 Pope

>Gregory gave sanction for converted Brahmins to continue wearing their

>sacred thread and caste marks, and Catholics to this day maintain the Hindu

>caste system. Till recently, inter-caste marriages among Catholics were

>frowned upon both by families and the religious establishment, and though

>love marriages are increasing, arranged marriage is still preferred. Only

>Catholics descending from brahmin families were admitted to seminaries

>until the 17th century.

>

>Hindu influence is also evident in Goa's Christian art. Icons of Christ

>have the angular and emaciated features of a Himalayan sadhu, and statues

>of Mary contain the features of Parvati, Lakshmi or other Hindu deities.

>Many angels and cherubs sculpted on altars and pulpits of Christian shrines

>resemble apsaras and gopikas.

>

>At times, the zeal lead to humorous situations. At village Moira, in north

>Goa, a Siva temple was destroyed and replaced by a church dedicated to the

>Immaculate Conception of Mary. Apparently, the builder had found the

>tripartite Sivalinga of the original temple and not knowing its symbolism

>but realizing its artistic value, used it as a pedestal for the holy water

>basin. And there it was, from 1636 to 1946, when German indologist Gritle

>V. Mitterwallner noticed it during a monument survey. He decided to move

>the Sivalinga to the Museum of the Archaelogical Survey of India in Old

>Goa, and paid for a masonry pedestal for the basin.

>

>Obsessed with quick results, Portuguese evangelists brainwashed with a

>singular lack of concern for substance and almost psychotic emphasis on

>form. Numbers mattered, not quality. They force-fed Goan converts beef and

>pork declaring--incorrectly--that the neophytes could never return to

>Hinduism. They also forced converts to change their lifestyles, but never

>really thought of teaching the natives basic Christianity. So much so, in

>the early 1990s Goa Catholic leaders admitted that fundamentalist Christian

>sects like the "Believers" (akin to Liberation theologians), then on the

>upswing, were infiltrating the mainstream Catholic community precisely

>because the community lacked adequate religious foundation. It was realized

>that only a few had actually ever read or studied the Bible. In fact, the

>Old Testament had never been translated into Konkani, the mother tongue of

>Goans and spoken by over 90% of them.

>

>Perhaps this accounts for a current trend, since Goa's liberation, of

>Catholics' reverting to Hindu practices, seen in several arenas. Many offer

>prasad at Hindu temples like Fatarpa. Fisherfolk celebrate Nariel Purnima

>to begin the fishing season and propitiate Samudra Gods with coconut

>offerings. New babies are given Hindu names, and some adults are now

>shedding their Catholic names to adopt Hindus ones. Some Catholics observe

>the 12th day samskara after birth and death. Many women now wear the

>mangalsutra and forehead bindis, and use mehndi to embellish palms and

>soles. Indian dress is more fashionable (kurtas, saris, etc.) and rotis

>(flatbread) are a Catholic staple.

>

>Hindus are culturally strong, but understandably influenced by

>Christianity. Goans of both communities celebrate together socially at

>festivals like Divali and Christmas, though essential religious rituals are

>attended separately. Hindus do not attend Christian churches, though quite

>a few, particularly of lower castes, in a crisis or in gratitude for favors

>perceived as granted, propitiate Catholic "miraculous saints." Influence

>also occurs educationally. The majority of colleges are Catholic and in

>them Hindu students outnumber Catholic students. Unfortunately, Hindus

>attending these schools are often subtly weakened in their beliefs.

>

>Having failed to change the Goan psyche, the Portuguese developed a

>paranoia for appearance. In the 1700s Captain Alexander Hamilton counted

>eighty churches in the capital alone, and 30,000 priests. "Each church's

>bells," he wrote, "continually rang with a peculiar power to drive away all

>evil spirits except poverty in the laity and pride in the clergy." Today,

>there are 6-700 priests, many churches are closed except for festivals, and

>old chapels are in disuse.

>

>In contrast, Hindu temples are flourishing. The Bhahujan Samaj,

>disadvantaged until 1962, is socially and politically powerful. They have

>established a non-brahmin prelate at the Haturli Mutt (monastery), and the

>temple under construction there may be worth Rs. ten million (US$290,000)

>by completion. Other thriving mutts are Partagal and Kavalem. Modern Hindus

>feel duty-bound to restore their heritage, exemplified by Damodar Narcinva

>Naik who owns Goa's largest car dealership. Besides starting a movement to

>popularize Sanskrit, he had the Veling temple and Partagal Mutt rebuilt

>according to old Hindu architectural norms. And Dattaraj Salgaonkar, a

>young entrepreneur who recently helped restore the Margao Mutt in South Goa

>says, "This mutt was demolished by invaders in order to exterminate the

>Saraswat community and eliminate its influence over many followers."

>

>Curiously, when Goans part company with friends or relatives we say

>"Yetam," which means "I'll come back," not as elsewhere, "Vetam,I'm

>going." It's our way of expressing hope and optimism.

>

 

 

_______________

Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*

http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail