The Portuguese rulers apparently hoped that the Hindu temples which would thus be left unrepaired would in the course of time fall into ruins and be … - Anant Priolkar

In a report submitted by Irmao Gomes Vaz to the king on December 12, 1567, he gives extracts from some letters sent by the Captain of Rachol in which the latter gives particulars of his campaign of destruction of temples. In this we find a reference to ‘‘Malsa devi.’”’ In one of the extracts it is stated that on the preceding day the captain of Rachol broke the principal image of the temple of “‘ Alardol ’’ (Mardol ?) into pieces.*4 It is also stated that on March 15, 1567 the temples of Doro, Mando, Narana, Baguaonte and Hesporo (Ishwar) of Sancuale were burnt down and the images found therein destroyed. There is also a reference to the destruction of the temples of Cuncolim, Chinchinim and Ambelim. It is also stated that the images found in the destroyed temples were thrown into the rivers in the vicinity or melted to make candlesticks and other objects for use in the local churches.

One can visualise two main difficulties in the way of a historian of the Holy Office in Goa. First, the Inquisition continued to inspire terror in the hearts of contemporaries for a long time even after its power was on the wane and they would naturally prefer not to speak of it or to disclose what they knew of its dark deeds to the curious historian. Second, records of the Inquisition and other authentic documentary material were not available. It may be expected also that the authorities of the Church and the State in Portugal would prefer to hush up the excesses com- mitted by this tribunal and they would frown at any attempt to bring to the light of the day this dark chapter in the history of that country. I hence believe that in the present conditions few Goan savants would dare to undertake the task and it would be only a historian of Portuguese birth, like A. Herculano, Oliveira Martins or Cunha Rivara, who may some day do full justice to it.

Scholars are generally agreed that the Inquisition of Goa had earned ‘‘a sinister renown as the most pitiless in Christendom.” From the foregoing account of the use of torture by its counterparts in Europe it should be possible to imagine the cruel excesses which the Inquisition of Goa must have practised to have merited such notoriety.