Gandaulim is a village located on the western bank of the

Cumbarjua Canal The Cumbarjua Canal is a distributary channel formed by the merger of the Mandovi and Zuari rivers in Goa, India. Its flow has led to the formation of river deltas; the most prominent of them are Ilhas de Goa, Cumbarjua and St Estevam. The shallo ...

, within

Ilhas Tiswadi, formerly known as Ilhas, is a ''taluka'' in the district of North Goa, situated in the Indian coastal state of Goa. It is an estuarine island situated on the confluence of the Mandovi and Zuari rivers. It was one of the first terr ...

in the state of

Goa Goa (; ; ) is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is bound by the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north, and Karnataka to the ...

, India. Some

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

n writers have claimed that it was a colonial outpost of the

Republic of Ragusa The Republic of Ragusa, or the Republic of Dubrovnik, was an maritime republics, aristocratic maritime republic centered on the city of Dubrovnik (''Ragusa'' in Italian and Latin; ''Raguxa'' in Venetian) in South Dalmatia (today in southernmost ...

History

Gandaulim might have been a spice trading post of the

in the

early modern period The early modern period is a Periodization, historical period that is defined either as part of or as immediately preceding the modern period, with divisions based primarily on the history of Europe and the broader concept of modernity. There i ...

. In the annals of 1605, Jakov Lukarević noted that Ragusan merchants invested in decorating a local church. Goese historian Gomes Catão documented the town to have a population of 12,000, where wealthy ladies were carried to the churches by slaves in canopies. Catão also remarked the church to be modeled on an eponymous church in Dubrovnik. These claims have since been adopted into the popular memory of the inhabitants of Gandaulim, and Ragusans are now credited for the very construction of the church; however, the factual accuracy of this remains disputed. Some historians have used these arguments to make assumptions about the existence of a Ragusan colony. Serbian economic historian Nicholas Mirkovich had lamented in 1943 about the lack of contemporary Ragusan sources to draft a history of their exploits in India. Interest in the connection was revived in 1999, when Croatian

Indologist Indology, also known as South Asian studies, is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent, and as such is a subset of Asian studies. The term ''Indology'' (in German, ''Indologie'') is ...

Zdravka Matišić __NOTOC__ Zdravka Matišić (b. 16 June 1944, Travnik) is a Croatian Indologist and Professor at the Department of Oriental Studies and Hungarian Studies at the Faculty of Philosophy at Zagreb University. She is known for her work in both Sanskr ...

discovered a reference to ties between Ragusa and Goa by chance while studying Sanskrit texts in India. That same year, Croatian author Karmen Bašić noted that while nothing definitive could be said about Ragusan arrival and departure from Goa, there was a "substantial body of evidence and sources vouching for Ragusa’s presence" and its role in the global spice trade, though the notion of a colony linked to the Saint Blaise (São Brás) church at Gandaulim remained "somewhat of a mystery".

Infrastructure

In 2016, a bridge was constructed on the outskirts of the village, over the canal. This bridge now links the islands of

Ilhas de Goa Tiswadi, formerly known as Ilhas, is a ''taluka'' in the district of North Goa, situated in the Indian coastal state of Goa. It is an estuarine island situated on the confluence of the Mandovi and Zuari rivers. It was one of the first terr ...

Cumbarjua Cumbarjua, is an island and town within the Mandovi River in Goa. It is situated to the east of Goa's capital Panjim at a distance of 20 kilometres. It is one of 6 major islands between the Mandovi and Zuari, the others being: * Ilhas de Goa, * ...

Gallery

Gandaulim was a site of a historical

fortress A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from L ...

, which was demolished in early 21st century for a road expansion project. File:Gandaulim Fort Entrance Gate.jpg, Gandaulim Fort Entrance Gate File:Gandaulim Fort Entrance Gate after Demolition.jpg, Gandaulim Fort Entrance Gate after Demolition File:Gandaulim Fort Entrance Gate post Demolition.jpg, Gandaulim Fort Entrance Gate post Demolition

Notes

References

{{reflist Villages in North Goa district Portuguese India