Hindu-Catholic Encounters in Goa Religion, Colonialism, and Modernity [Paperback]

The state of Goa on India's southwest coast was once the capital of the Portuguese-Catholic empire in Asia. When Vasco Da Gama arrived in India in 1498, he mistook Hindus for Christians, but Jesuit missionaries soon declared war on the alleged idolatry of the Hindus. Today, Hindus and Catholics assert their own religious identities, but Hindu village gods and Catholic patron saints attract worship from members of both religious communities. Through fresh readings of early Portuguese sources and long-term ethnographic fieldwork, this study traces the history of Hindu-Catholic syncretism in Goa and reveals the complex role of religion at the intersection of colonialism and modernity.

[T]his is a refreshing and inspiring book, necessary to this ongoing debate on the Goan religious experience, and it should be read as a challenge and a complement to other recent literature that has the religious history of Goa as an object of analysis.

Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration
Introduction
1. Vasco Da Gama's Error: Conquest and Plurality
2. Image Wars: Iconoclasm, Idolatry, and Survival
3. Christian Puranas: Hermeneutic, Similarity, and Violence
4. Ganv: Place, Genealogy, and Bodies
5. Demotic Ritual: Religion and Memory
6. Crossroads of Religions: Shrines and Urban Mobility
Conclusion. Religion and religions: Syncretism Reconsidered
Notes
References
Index

Hindu-Catholic Encounters in Goa is a tour de force, full of detailed, careful scholarship, and cogent, conceptually nuanced, and innovative arguments. It is clearly the work of a seasoned scholar adept in both the archive and the field.An original, groundbreaking book that shows impeccable scholarship, conceptual innovation, and a deep knowledge of the context. . . . It will bring fresh ways of engaging questions not only about Goa and India but also about religious pluralism, the variations in the colonial experience, and the textures of memory. . . . A splendid achievemel3&