Prutha Goa

After the first official Goan newspaper Gazeta de Goa (1822) was stopped in 1826, Bernardo Francisco da Costa, impressed by the power of the press in Europe, launched the first private newspaper in 1859 called O Ultramar . He achieved much good through the newspaper by reducing taxes and doing away with the health tax. Since the paper was the voice of Partido Ultramarino,the party da Costa belonged to, O Partido Indiano, the opposing party, began A India Portuguesa . The mid nineteenth and early twentieth century was the era of migrations to British India. Bombay became home to many Goans at this time and consequently there rose the strong presence of the Goan press in the city. From 1831 to 1861 there appeared newspapers such as O Investigador Portuguez em Bombaim , O Indio Impartial , O Observador , A Abelha de Bombaim and others to keep the Goan immigrants abreast of political happenings, fire up nationalistic zeal and feed the need for constitutionalism. One of the longest runnin

Professor Lucio Rodrigues is another one in a long line of literary geniuses that Goa has produced. He may have long departed this world but nevertheless his legacy of literature lives on through his writing and his students. An authority on Goan folklore, Prof Lucio Rodrigues was not only a visiting professor of folklore at the Indiana University, USA in 1969; his essays in English, as well as those translated from Konkani, were published as Of Soil and Soul and Konkani Folktales after his death in 1973. It was the revised edition of this compilation, renamed Abolim , which was released at the commemoration of this exceptional son of Goa’s birth centenary (15th April, 2015) at the Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Porvorim. Professor Lucio Rodrigues was exactly the type of teacher students would recall with awe and affection for the profound impact he had on their lives. He had a an expansive career as a professor of English literature at Ramnarain Ruia College, Siddharth College

Amita Kanekar, an architectural historian who teaches at the Goa College of Architecture, is also known for her historical novel Spoke in the Wheel . The novel deals with the Buddha and early Buddhism. Raised as an atheist, her interest in Buddhism is far from a spiritual search but an exercise in unveiling revolutionary movements and their implications. Amita Kanekar elucidated her topic "Buddhism: The Beginning" at Xavier Centre for Historical Research. Citing her sources as Romila Thappar, Nalin Swaris, BR Ambedkar, Debiprasad Chathopadhya, Uma Chavravati and others, Kanekar admitted to relying on secondary sources as she is not a scholar of Pali, which would enable her to translate primary sources. The birth of Buddhism was the outcome of the second urbanisation that took place in 6th century BCE in South Asia. South Nepal, Bihar Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand were the areas that rapidly underwent a transformation during the time of the Buddha. This was a time when the conce

Rajgor’s Coin Festival from 7th to 10th December (2014), had numismatists, students and history buffs coming in droves to see the history of this tiny state Goa revealed through its coinage. Among the coins on display was a copper coin dating back to 1 AD from the Satavahana Empire, which shows the name of Queen Naganika as Nagamnikaya in a Brahmi legend in the centre. It is the earliest evidence of special coins being issued in the name of a queen and certainly denotes the political power she may have wielded in an era that promulgated the dominance of men. The Kadambas were a powerful dynasty in Goa, beginning their long rule in 10th century with Shashtadeva I. Their gold coins bear the Sinha Lanchana or ‘lion crest’ and in some instances have the name of their family god Saptakotishwar (Shiva) inscribed on them. These coins were made of pure gold and were called Bhairava- gadyanakas or Saptakotisha-gadyanakas (76-86 grains). The smallest gold coins were called panas (6 grains). Duri

He talks of a ‘madness’ that has driven him for years to salvage the cultural history of this verdant land called Goa. Its versatile heritage has been curated by Victor Hugo Gomes with painstaking perseverance and attention to detail. With his degrees in art and conservation, Victor has moved from village to village documenting trades that have disappeared or are slowly vanishing and has been curating a vast storehouse of Goa’s past in various symbols of her culture. It all began with excursions into forbidden areas. Always a curious child with a questioning mind, Victor would explore attics, storerooms and even the dark rooms used to punish him for misbehaviour, to find strange and intriguing items of interest like different types of clay pots, baskets, tools, old altars and wooden chests filled with clothes belonging to a bygone era. This childhood fascination for gleaning commonplace items, which have shaped Goa’s cultural history, and a questioning mind, nurtured by his grandmother

The names ascribed to Goa of the ancient times are myriad, and suitably signify the lush greenery one naturally identifies with the tiny state. Gomanta, Gomanchala, Goparashtra, Govapuri and Gomantak are a few which occur in the Mahabharata, Skanda and other Puranas. The syllable ‘Go’ that occurs consistently in all the names is Sanskrit for cow. The Mahabharata also refers to Goa as Govarashtra and Goparashtra. Both mean ‘the district of cowherds or nomadic tribes’ and indicate the pastoral life led by the Aryans who first settled here. Gopakapattana and Gopakapuri can be found in Harivansa and the Skanda Purana, ancient Hindu texts. Ptolemy mentions that in the third century B.C. Goa was known as Aparanta. Epigraphical evidence points to Goa’s trade relations with the ancient Egyptians, Phoenicians and Greeks. Goa may be the Gubi mentioned in the records of Gudea (2143-2124 B.C.), the ruler of the Sumerian city-state of Lagesh. In the Middle Ages, Goa was called Kuve or Kuwa by Arab

Shirley Louise Gonsalves’ book The Luso-Indian Stethoscope delves into the history of having Luso-Indians, mainly Christians, play a prominent role as medical professionals in the 19th century in India. The non-fiction book is an academic read, and rightly enough, since the research undertaken for the tome was part of the author’s study as a postgraduate student at the School of Oriental and African Studies, Dept of History, University of London. Shirley Gonsalves provides an understanding of how terms such as race, caste, religion, etc may have held different meanings at various points of time and the effect these differences had on the willingness of people to identify themselves or not with a particular identity group. Broadly categorised, Luso-Indians were indigenous people from the Konkan region whose ancestors had been ruled by the Portuguese and converted to Catholicism. The book talks about clearer definitions for terms such as caste, race, religion, and so on being introduced