The Goa Inquisition was the office of the Inquisition acting in the Indian city of Goa and the rest of the Portuguese empire in Asia. Established in 1560, it was aimed primarily at Hindus, and by the time it was suppressed in 1774, the inquisition had had thousands of people executed and tortured.

St. Francis Xavier, in a 1545 letter to John III, requested for an Inquisition to be installed in Goa. However, was not installed until after eight years of Francis Xavier's death in 1552.

The first inquisitors, Aleixo Dias Falcão and Francisco Marques , established themselves in what was formerly the sultan of Goa's palace, forcing the Portuguese viceroy to relocate to a smaller residence. The inquisitor's first act was the forbid Hindus from practising their faith, on pain of death. Sephardic Jews, many of whom had fled the Iberian Peninsula to escape the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition to begin with, living in Goa were also persecuted.

A large number of restrictive religious laws were enacted, including the banning of Hindu musical instruments, dhoti, betel leaves and cholis . Many Hindu temples were destroyed, and Christian churches built in their place, often from the materials of the temples they replaced.

The condemned were publically burnt at the stake in the square outside the Se Cathedral in batches during ceremonies known as auto da fé (Portuguese: act of faith). Those who confessed to their accused heresy would be strangled prior to the burning.

Though officially reppressed in 1774, the last vestiges of the Goa Inquisition were not finally swept away until the British occupied the city in 1812.

Reference

• Streatfeidl-James, Douglas and Thomas, Bryn. Lonely Planet - Goa. Lonely Planet Publications, 1998.

External Links

• Inquisition of Goa
• Recall the Goa Inquisition to stop the Church from crying foul
• Details of the Goa Inquisition by Christian historian, Dr. T. R. de Souza
• Inquisition Goa
• St. Francis Xavier