The Portuguese in India

                                     PORTUGUESE IN INDIA    

By Judith Cooper

 MAP OF INDIA    The Portuguese landed in India in 1498 in an area south of the Indus Valley This was six years after Christopher Columbus landed in the New World (He thought he had landed in India)  

Calcutta in the South, Bombay (now called Mumbia) in the North and the province of Goa (called Vehla Goa) and later Nova Goa, in the Southern province, known in Europe’s the Rome of the East.  Kerela was also on this Southern Provence.     We visited Goa in the 1990 and was interested to find many Portuguese names on the Cemetery  graves ( Simoa,  Fernandes, Pinto, Reis, )

The Caste System in Brief

The Caste System in Brief:

By Tricia Virgo

The origins of the caste system in India and Nepal are shrouded, but it seems to have originated more than two thousand years ago. Early written evidence about the caste system appears in the Vedas, Sanskrit-language texts from as early as 1500 BC, which form the basis of Hindu scripture. The Rigveda, from c.1700-1100 BC, rarely mentions caste distinctions, and indicates that social mobility was common.
The Bhagavad Gita, however, from c. 200 BC-200 AD emphasizes the importance of caste. In addition, the "Laws of Manu" or Manusmriti from the same era defines the rights and duties of the four different castes or varnas. Thus, it seems that the Hindu caste system began to solidify sometime between 1000 and 200 BC
 Under this system, which is associated with Hinduism, people were categorized by their occupations.
Although originally caste depended upon a person's work, it soon became hereditary. Each person was born into an unalterable social status.