Senaka Weeraratna

The Vatican has publicly apologized for helping European colonizers in the past. But does the apology mean anything? Palki Sharma tells you more

Don Juan Dharmapala and the Portuguese Inquisition in Ceylon

The Website ‘ Wings of Time – Footsteps through History of Sri Lanka’ provides a series of web links giving fascinating accounts and insights into the Portuguese Inquisition in Sri Lanka following the Portuguese Inquisition in Goa (1560-1812).

Repression of Buddhism in Sri Lanka by Portuguese by Senaka Weeraratna

It was Francis Xavier, the infamous catholic missionary who demanded the setting up of the Goa Inquisition, a religious tribunal for suppression of heresy and punishment of heretics. The Inquisition was set up in 1560. It committed crimes against humanity and was notorious for using brutal torture and lasted till 1812 and this was supposedly the golden age where the power of life and death of ordinary people was held by a Christian priest. If people were unable to pass the ‘act of faith’ (autos – da – Fe), they were stretched on the rack or burnt on the stake in a barbaric manner.
For centuries Goa was considered the Rome of the Orient. It was the headquarters of the Catholic Church in the Orient. The tomb of Francis Xavier, who died in 1552, lies in the Igreja do Bom Jesus in the old City of Goa ( Velha Goa).
The authenticity of the corpse of Francis Xavier has been challenged by the Buddhists of Sri Lanka who claim with substantial evidence that it is actually the corpse of the highly venerated Sinhala Buddhist monk Ven. Thotagamuwe Rahula.

http://www.sriexpress.com/articles/item/982-sri-lanka-must-demand-the-return-of-the-remains-of-ven-thotagamuwe-sri-rahula-from-goa-if-the-dna-tests-prove-positive.html

The Portuguese Inquisition in Goa became one of the most severe and cruel in the Portuguese conquered territories. Alfredo De Mello, who was born and educated in British India and Portugal, reveals many dramatic facts about the Portuguese Inquisition in Goa.

http://www.dightonrock.com/inquisition_goa.htm

Jerónimo de Azevedo (1540 – Lisbon, 1625) was a Portuguese fidalgo, Governor of Portuguese Ceylon and Viceroy ofPortuguese India.He was a key figure in the late 16th-century Portuguese takeover of Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka). According to author and historian A. R. Disney, the touchstone of Portuguese ambitions in Sri Lanka by the end of the 16th century was the bequest by King Don Juan Dharmapala of Kotte in 1580 of his entire realm to the king of Portugal.

Dharmapala was a Christian convert and his bequest was unacceptable to the Sinhala Buddhist inhabitants and to the rulers of the neighbouring Kingdoms of Sitavaka and Kandy. The takeover was therefore heavily resisted by the Sinhala Buddhists, and the Portuguese had to subjugate Kotte by force, using methods of the Portuguese Inquisition then being heavily implemented in Goa, formally completing the process during Dom Jerónimo de Azevedo’s captaincy of Colombo from 1594 to 1612. A Portuguese administrative superstructure headed by a captain-general was then imposed on the kingdom following the demise of Don Juan Dharmapala (1541 – 1597) who stands out in the history of Sri Lanka as the country’s greatest villain among a long list of 180 Kings that ruled what was then called ‘ Sinhale ‘ the original name of Sri Lanka.

Azevedo was nominated the 20th viceroy of Portuguese India in 1611 and left Colombo for Goa in 1612. In 1615 he backed an audacious expedition to Pegu in Burma to loot the Moon imperial treasures in Mrauk-U, an enterprise that ultimately did not succeed. However, the fact that it was supported at such a high official level showed how plundering and looting the treasures of other nations was considered a legitimate policy objective of the Portuguese in their colonies and the rest of Asia.

Don Juan Dharmapala was so despised by the Sinhala Buddhist people of Sri Lanka for his conversion to Christianity and Betrayal of Buddhism and the Sinhala nation that his grave which was located in Gordon Gardens adjoining the Queen’s House ( the seat of the British Governors ) in Colombo, was totally ransacked and the remnants of the dead corpse was thrown into the sea when Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike ( 1956 – 1959) allowed public entry to the Gordon Gardens.