Children were flogged and slowly dismembered in front of their parents, whose eyelids had been sliced off to make sure they missed nothing. Extremiti… - Paul William Roberts

In the wake of the warriors came the priests. First the Franciscans, then the Jesuits, then the Dominicans, and lastly the Augustinians. All of these eager missionaries must have been disappointed to find that hardly anyone desired to be converted. But what really made their holy blood boil was finding their old foes, the Muslims and Jews, openly and brazenly practising their religions. A number of ex-Jews had come out to the colony, and although they had professed to be Christians back in Portugal, in Goa they showed a worrying tendency to revert to their old ways. The men of God set about clearing what one Dominican termed this ‘jungle of unbelief ’ with all the ardour of Amazon lumber barons.

The Vedas see the ultimate Truth behind all ephemeral truths. The Creation leads us to the Creator, to the highest knowledge, which is integrated into one. The Vedas still represent eternal truth in the purest form ever written. And they are what drew me to India in the first place, what kept me there, and what draws me back still. India is the only country that feels like home to me, the only country whose airport tarmac I have ever kissed upon landing.

Just like the mullahs who had marched into Goa two hundred years before with the Bahamani sultans, these Catholic clergy were prepared to go to any lengths to spread their faith. Initially they pestered the Portuguese king for special powers, and then they pestered the pope to pester the king on their behalf.