The Inquisition made its way to India under the Portuguese Jesuit, St. Francis Xavier in 1545. The first demand for the establishment of the Inquisition in Goa was made by St. Francis Xavier. In a letter addressed from Amboina (Moluccas) to D. Joao III, King of Portugal, on May 16, 1545, he wrote:

“The second necessity for the Christians is that your majesty establish the Holy Inquisition, because there are many who live according to the Jewish law, and according to the Mohammedan sect, without fear of God or shame of the world. And since there are many who are spread all over the fortresses, there is the need of the Holy Inquisition, and of many preachers. Your majesty should provide such necessary things for your loyal and faithful subjects in India.”

The eminent Jesuit historian, Fr. Francisco de Souza, describes in the following passage an incident which served as the immediate cause for the introduction of the Inquisition in Goa:

“Whilst in the island of Goa, heated efforts were made to destroy Hinduism, father Provincial Gonslavo da Silveira and bishop Belchior Carneiro were moving about in Cochin persecuting the insidious Judaism. These priests came to know how in that city were living some descendants of the Israelite people, rich and possessing much, but infected with Judaism…”

Francois Pyrad, a French traveler, was in Goa during the period of July 1608 to January 1610. In his account of his travels he gives the following information of the Inquisition in Goa:

“The Inquisition consists of two fathers, who are held in great dignity and respect; but the one is much greater man than the other and is called Inquisitor Major. Their procedure is much more severe than in Portugal; they often burn Jews, whom the Portuguese call Christianos noeuous, that is to say, ‘New Christians.’

It came into existence in 1560. The Jesuit historian Father Francisco de Souza tells us that the goal of the Inquisition in India was to destroy Hinduism and also persecute Indian Jews who had lived peacefully with the Hindus for centuries. Francois Pyrad, a Frenchman who lived in Goa from 1608-1610, tells us that the number of victims persecuted was very large. We have eyewitness accounts telling us that it was far worse than in Europe. J C Barreto Miranda, a Goanese historian, in his book Quadros Historicas de Goa p.145,  wrote of the Inquisitors sent by the Pope:

“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.”

Campo Sancto Lazaro in Goa, where condemned prisoners were burnt. 

For Cruelty inflicted by Christianity – Watch Constantine’s Sword movie – By Oren Jacoby. Refer to Documentaries – The Holy Inquisition – History Channeland Secret Files of the Inquisition – PBS.  Watch video – Church’s Inquisition -Torturing Those Who Disagreed (1 of 6). Refer to Index of Forbidden Booksand Mexican Inquisition

Refer to ‘Goa Inquisition was most merciless and cruel’ and An account of the Inquisition at Goa, in India –  By Gabriel Dellon, Archibald Bower

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A vivid idea of the feelings of deep-rooted terror with which the Holy Office in Goa was viewed by the common people is provided by the following story recounted by F Nery Xavier in Instruccas do Marquez du Alorna as seu successor p. 38:

“The terrible acts of the Inquisition during the early period of its existence had caused terror to be so deeply rooted in the memories of the people that none dared to name the place where it was housed as the house of the Inquisition, but gave it the mysterious appellation “Orlem gor” (The Big House).” 

Fr. James Brodrick, well known biographer of St. Xavier and himself a Jesuit wrote in his book, Saint Francis Xavier p. 201 footnote, about the limitations of the understanding and outlook of St. Xavier:

“St. Francis Xavier’s knowledge of Hinduism, was, if possible, even less adequate than his few notions of Mohammedanism. Though the Portuguese had been in India for over forty years, none of them appears to have made the slightest attempt to understand the venerable civilization, so much more ancient than their own, on which they had violently intruded.”

Francis Xavier hostility towards the heathen (Brahmin) priesthood:

“These are the most perverse people in the world….they never tell the truth, but think of nothing but how to tell subtle lies and to deceive the simple and ignorant people, telling them that the idols demand certain offerings, and these are simply the things that the Brahmans themselves invent, and of which they stand in need in order to maintain their wives and children and houses…They threaten the people that, if they do not bring the offerings, the gods will kill them, or cause them to fall sick, or send demons to their houses, and through the fear that the idols will do them harm, the poor simple people do exactly as the Brahmans tell them…If there were no Brahmans in the area, all the Hindus would accept conversion to our faith.”

(source: The Heathen in His Blindness – by S. N. Balagangadhara Brill Academic Publishers ISBN 9004099433 p.120-121).

Refer to QuickTime trailer and Part One of the film The God Awful Truth. Refer to World Conquering Creeds – By Dr. Koenraad Elst – chapter on Glimpses XVI

Alan Machado-Prabhu records how the Portuguese conquered Goa and ruled by terror:

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.”

The Anglican historian Dr. Fryer wrote:

“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.”

(source: The Ethics of Proselytizing – By Rajiv Malhotra). Refer to Jesus Christ: Artifice for Aggression – By Sita Ram Goel

Goa gained a reputation as an important distribution point for Arab horses. Fine Arab steeds were very much in demand in India, and the Portuguese importers found this trade very lucrative. But another profitable trade had developed in another form of livestock – human beings! S.C. Pothan tells us that:

“The 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.” (“The Syrian Christians of Kerala”, 1963, p.31).

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).

In 1592 the viceroy of Goa “proclaimed that slaves of infidels who converted themselves to Christianity would be freed.” (Cunha Rivara – cited by Priolkar, “The Goa Inquisition” p.141).

“Those who have escaped death by their extorted confessions, are strictly enjoined, when they leave the prisons of the Holy Office, to declare that they have been treated with great tenderness and clemency, in as much as their lives, which they justly merited to lose, should be spared. Should anyone, who has acknowledged that he is guilty, attempt to vindicate himself on his release, he would be immediately denounced and arrested, and burnt at the next Act of Faith, without hope of pardon.” (Dellon, quoted by Priolkar “The Goa Inquisition”, Sec.2, p.34).

Dr Dellon described the Archbishop’s prison as:

“The most filthy, dismal, and hideous of all I ever witnessed, and I doubt if there can be any other in the world more repulsive.”

 Arthur Schopenhauer(1788-1860), German philosopher and writer. He was one of the greatest philosophers of the 19th century. He was the first Western philosopher to have access to translations of philosophical material from India, both Vedic and Buddhist, by which he was profoundly affected. Counted among his disciples are such thinkers as Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, as well as Sigmund Freud, who takes a large part of his psychological theory from the writings of Schopenhauer.

He comments on the atrocities inflicted on the Hindus:

“…on the fanaticism and endless persecutions, the religious wars, that sanguinary frenzy of which the ancient had no conception! Think of the crusades, a butchery lasting two hundred years and inexcusable, its war cry ‘It is lasting two hundred years and inexcusable, its war cry  ‘It is the will of God,’  Think of the orgies of blood, the inquisitions, the heretical tribunals, the bloody and terrible conquests…in three continents, or….in America, whose inhabitants were for the most part, not looked upon as human!  And above all, don’t lets forget India, the cradle of the human race, or at least of that part of it to which we belong, where first.. 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 bear witness to the monotheistic fury…carried on from Mahmud, the Gahaznevid of cursed memory, down to Aurengzeb, the fratricide, whom the Portuguese…have zealously imitated by destruction of temples and the auto defe of the Inquisition of Goa…”For the sake of truth, I must add that the fanatical enormities perpertrated in the name of religion are only to be put down to the adherents of monotheistic creeds…We hear nothing of the kind in the case of the Hindoos and Buddhists.” 

(source: The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer – By T. Bailey Saunders  p. 1 – 42). Refer to World Conquering Creeds – By Dr. Koenraad Elst – chapter on Glimpses XVI

Missionary Oath:

Missionaries had to take an oath which enjoined them, “to be loyal to Portugal in all the countries discovered or to be discovered, conquered or to be conquered, by Portugal. And to warn Portugal of any activity which may be contemplated against her”.

The British prescribed a similar oath: “I include in this promise exact obedience to any rules laid down by His Majesty’s representatives, and also an undertaking to refrain from doing, saying or writing anything either publicly or privately, to the prejudice of the British Government in India.”        

K. M. Pannikar author of Asia and Western Dominance published in 1953. Panikkar’s study was primarily aimed at providing a survey of Western imperialism in Asia from CE 1498 to 1945.  Christian missions came into the picture simply because he found them arrayed always and everywhere alongside Western gunboats, diplomatic pressures, extraterritorial rights and plain gangsterism.  Contemporary records consulted by him could not but cut to size the inflated images of Christian heroes such as Francis Xavier and Matteo Ricci.  They were found to be not much more than minions employed by European kings and princes scheming to carve out empires in the East.  Their methods of trying to convert kings and commoners in Asia, said Panikkar, were force or fraud or conspiracy and morally questionable in every instance.  Finding that “missionary activities… which became so prominent a feature of European relations with Asia were connected with Western political supremacy in Asia and synchronised with it” He concluded: “It may indeed be said that the most serious, persistent and planned effort of European nations in the nineteenth century was their missionary activities in India and China, where a large-scale attempt was made to effect a mental and spiritual conquest at supplementing the political authority already enjoyed by Europe.  Though the results were disappointing in the extreme from the missionary point of new, this assault on the spiritual foundations of Asian countries has had far-reaching consequences in the religious and social reorganization of the people…”

(source: Vindicated by Time: The Niyogi Committee Report On Christian Missionary Activities – By Sita Ram Goel). Refer to The Myth of Saint Thomas and the Mylapore Shiva Temple

For interesting information about Democracy in Ancient Indian please refer to chapter on Hindu Culture II 

The British rule often claim to have given India – Democracy. If so, Why did it take 200 years to give India Democracy?

For more read: Democracy in Ancient India – By Steve Muhlberger

St. Francis Xavier wrote from Cochin on 20 Jan. 1548 to King John III of Portugal, ” You must declare as plainly as possible ……that the only way of escaping your wrath and obtaining your favor is to make as many Christians as possible in the countries over which they rule.’ (source” Macnicol, The Living Religions of India 1934 p. 268. )Vasco da Gama told the first Indians he met on the Malabar coast that he came to seek “Christians and spices.”

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Eminent Indian Historians? (excerpts)
http://www.indiastar.com/wallia19.html 

Included as principals in this group of Marxist historians are Romila Thapar, Satish Chandra, K.M. Shrimali, K. M. Pannikar, R. S. Sharma, D. N. Jha, Gyanendra Pandey, and Irfan Habib. This group has, Shourie charges, “worked a diabolic inversion: the inclusive religion [Hinduism], the pluralist spiritual search of our people and land, they have projected as intolerant, narrow-minded, obscurantist; and the exclusivist, totalitarian, revelatory religions and ideologies — Islam, Christianity, Marxism-Leninism– they have made out to be the epitome of tolerance, open-mindedness, democracy, secularism!” By promoting each other’s publications and puffing up their reputations, this group has long been “determining what is politically correct.”  (note: Romila Thapar is totally ignorant of Sanskrit, though it has not stopped her from posing as an authority on Vedic India! In fact, a recent newspaper column by a retired bureaucrat — which reads like a paid advertisement — goes on to call her ‘India’s most eminent historian’!)

For several decades, these “eminent historians” have striven hard to continually denigrate Hindu cultural history, the oldest surviving civilization in the world, by “blackening the Hindu period and whitewashing the Islamic period.” Indeed, Arun Shourie should have challenged them to refute American historian Will Durant’s assertion in his The Story of Civilization: “The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex and freedom can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without and multiplying from within.” Or that of French historian Alain Danielou’s statement, in his Histoire de l’ Inde : “From the time Muslims started arriving, around 632 AD, the history of India becomes a long, monotonous series of murders, massacres, spoilations, destructions. It is, as usual, in the name of ‘a holy war’ of their faith, of their sole God, that the barbarians have destroyed civilizations, wiped out entire races.”

The largely Marxist membership of the Indian Council of Historical Researchappointed by the socialistic Congress party, which was in power for nearly all of the fifty years since independence, was reconstituted in July 1998 by the Bharatiya Janata Party, currently ruling at the center. Unfortunately, it will take a long time for undoing the harm done by the Marxist historians to the Indian psyche: “they have used these institutions to sow in the minds of our people [the Hindus] the seeds of self-hatred.”

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According to columnist, Meenakshi Jain: “Leftist historians in India have deliberately omitted in the entire discussion on the Delhi Sultanate, the words dhimmi and (hated) jaziya tax are deliberately omitted, though they are crucial to understanding the dynamics of that epoch. Overlooking all forms of Hindu persecution, the book states that Brahmins and ulema were equally permitted to propagate their respective faiths. References to the infamous ‘pilgrimage tax’ are conveniently dropped. The Mughal period, too, is selectively purged of its unpleasant facets. Akbar’s early measures like the re-naming of Hindu holy cities, the imposition of the jaziya and forced conversions are ignored, as also the fact that as much as seventy percent of his nobility consisted of foreign Muslims. The limited Hindu participation in the upper echelons of the nobility (besides the Rajputs, just four other Hindus) is not alluded to.”

(source: Selective Memory – By Meenakshi Jain – Hindustan Times, May 8, 2001).  

Refer to QuickTime trailer and Part One of the film The God Awful Truth.