The seminar is the first chapter of a series of joint-events organised by the South Asia Study Circle (CEAS) and the Anthropology of Religion Network (NAR) at the Centre for Research in Anthropology (CRIA), Lisbon. Frictions, entanglements and reconfigurations of religion and heritage in South Asia will be explored in two interconnected presentations focused on the afterlives of the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Goa.

This cover image was built on "Through the Mollam", a picture by R. Benedito Ferrão depicting "This is Not the Basilica!", an artwork by Vishvesh Prabhakar Kandolkar.

The 1952 Exposition of St. Francis Xavier’s Relics: Intersection of Architecture, Religion, and Politics

Vishvesh Prabhakar Kandolkar

This presentation concerns the 1952 exposition of St. Francis Xavier’s Relics in Old Goa, which marked 400 years of Xavier’s death and was attended by a record number of pilgrims. Although the exposition was intended to celebrate a saint, the Estado-Novo used the occasion to portray Goa as culturally part of the Portuguese nation. The periodic exposition of the relics had been hosted in the Basilica from 1859 to 1942, but in 1952 the state changed the venue to Sé Cathedral, a grander monument. This shift was also aimed at adding a new ritual to the event: a grand procession of Xavier’s body from one church to another. Located 1000 feet apart from each other, the procession traversed a public open space between these early modern buildings, wherein a record number of devotees could witness/participate in this event simultaneously. While the body of Xavier and architecture of Old Goa were relics from the heyday of the empire, the state also wanted to use the faithful, who came in large numbers to celebrate this occasion, as visual evidence to showcase the longevity of Portuguese presence in Goa.

Saving Goa’s Bom Jesus in Vishvesh Prabhakar Kandolkar’s This is Not the Basilica!

R. Benedito Ferrão

In the case of Goa as a coastal tourism destination, it is the former Portuguese colony’s historical and architectural distinction from the rest of once-British India that is also incorporated into visual representations of the tropical destination to set it apart. To this end, the structure very often coopted is the iconic 16th-century Basilica of Bom Jesus, as Vishvesh Kandolkar demonstrates in This is Not the Basilica! (2021). This multi-media installation series evidences how the Portuguese-era church, famous for holding the relics of St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552), has come to stand in for Goa’s historical and regional difference in South Asia while becoming a victim of its own fame. As my presentation will contend, This is Not the Basilica! seeks to achieve an alternative form of seeing, one that challenges imposed mainstream perspectives. In so doing, the artist posits the need for conservation efforts that will save the deteriorating church while also revealing its unseen aesthetic past as a symbol of still-unfolding Goan heritage.

Bio Vishvesh Prabhakar Kandolkar

Vishvesh Prabhakar Kandolkar, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Architecture at Goa College of Architecture (Goa University) and the Programme Coordinator of the Master of Architecture in Urban Design programme at the college. His research on Goa’s architectural history focuses on early modern church design as well as the evolution of Indo-Portuguese aesthetics from the colonial to the postcolonial period. His PhD research was on the visual history of the Basilica of Bom Jesus, among the few monuments to have survived the steady decline of Old Goa, the erstwhile capital (1530 to 1843) of the Estado da Índia. Kandolkar’s art installation series, This is Not the Basilica!, drew from his research about the Basilica and was exhibited at the Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts from September 8 to November 20, 2021. His writing has appeared in peer-reviewed journals, including World History Bulletin, Verge: Studies in Global Asias, the Oxford Journal of Hindu Studies, eTropic, the Journal of Human Values, and Economic and Political Weekly.

Bio R. Benedito Ferrão

The author has lived and worked in Asia, Europe, N. America, and Oceania. He is an Assistant Professor of English and Asian & Pacific Islander American Studies at William & Mary. Additionally, he has been the recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright, Mellon, Endeavour, and Rotary programs, the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies, and the American Institute of Indian Studies. Curator of the 2017-18 exhibition Goa, Portugal, Mozambique: The Many Lives of Vamona Navelcar, he edited a book of the same title (Fundação Oriente 2017) to accompany this retrospective of the artist’s work.

The seminar will be held online, please register at: vera.lazzaretti@iscte-iul.pt