Rediscovering Sixteenth Century Local Language Literature in Goa: Texts, Traditions, and Historical Narratives.
On 22nd August 2026, Thomas Stephens Konknni Kendr (TSKK), Porvorim organised a ‘National Symposium,’ in collaboration with St. Aloysius (Deemed to be University), Mangalore on the topic “Rediscovering Sixteenth Century Local Language Literature in Goa: Texts, Traditions, and Historical Narratives.” The objective of this symposium was to reexamine the emergence of local language literary traditions in the 16th Century Goa in the light of recent linguistic and historical research.
The National Symposium was inaugurated at the hands of the Chief Guest, Dr. Anuradha Wagle, the Dean, Shenoi Goembab School of Language and literature, Goa University. Dr. Kiran Budkuley, the former Dean, Faculty of Language and Literature, Goa University did the honours of presenting the keynote address. Dr. Pandurang Phaldesai, the Director of TSKK welcomed the august gathering and Fr. Kelwin Monteiro, SJ, the Convenor of the National Symposium and the Administrator of TSKK gave the vote of thanks.
The symposium comprised of two sessions, each having 3 paper presenters from the field of research in language, history and linguistics. The sessions were chaired by Dr. Prakash Vazrikar and Dr. Bhushan Bhave. In the first session, Dr. Delio Mendonca, SJ (Goa), Dr. Milind Mhamal (Goa) and Jason Pinto, SDB (Karnataka) presented their papers. While in the second session, Dr. Annie Rachel Royson (Gujarat), Mr. Gokuldas Prabhu (Kerala) and Dr. Manoj Subhash Kamat (Goa) presented their papers. The first session dealt with the local language texts, traditions and narratives in general, while the second session specifically focussed on the genre of Epics in the local languages.
In the first paper, Dr. Mendonca spoke on the question of the suppression of Konkani Literature. Analysing in depth, the Viceroys Edict of 1684, he held a perspective that the suppression of the literature was more of a constructed narrative than a historical reality. He called upon the audience to revisit and reread the text of the Edict from the socio-religio conduct of that time. In the second paper, Dr. Mhamal presented to the audience varied 16th century literatures of Christian faith written in Marathi, the most notably among them being Fr. Thomas Stephens’ Krista Purana. In the third paper, Fr. Pinto, SDB, scanned through the varied local language literary traditions or genres that emerged in the 16th century, such as epic, devotional, catechetical, biblical, hagiographical, narrative, grammatical, lexicographical, liturgical and oral folk.
In the fourth paper, Dr. Rachel, speaking on “Krista Purana, between Biblical Narrative and Indian Poetic Traditions” discussed how Fr. Thomas Stephens, SJ observing the local population hold a certain genre (that of Purana) as sacred and in great reverence, decided to translate the Biblical Narratives in the same genre and language acceptable to the target audience/ culture. In the fifth paper, Mr. Prabhu, focusing on the Epic of Ramayana, (preserved in the codex 772 at the Archives of Braga, Portugal) highlighted on how the author/authors of this collection translated, adapted and re-told the stories from Ramayana. Illustrating a few stories, he showed how each of those stories were deeply integrated with the geography of Goa. The sixth and final paper, presented by Silvester Vaz, in absentia of Dr. Kamat, focusing on the Konkani Bharata (preserved in the codices 771 and 772 at the Archives of Braga, Portugal) presented a rigorous philological, codicological, and historiographical investigation. The last two papers on the Epics of Ramayana and Bharata stated a very significant fact, namely that although the epic narratives of that period, almost exclusively were written in metrical verse such as Ovi, these two are found to be written in a continuous narrative prose. The symposium was attended by the college students, lecturers and independent researchers from Goa. In addition, St. Aloysius, (Deemed to be University) was represented by Fr. Prashant Madtha, SJ, the Director of the Konkani Institution, St. Aloysius, Mangalore together with Dr. Flora Castellino, the HOD of the Konkani Dept., 7 lecturers and 5 students. There were in total 60 participants. The papers presented at the Symposium will be published on SOD, the TSKK’s Annual Research Journal.
