Tourism
of Goa
Museums
of Goa
Pilar
Museum The
Portuguese built four seminaries in Goa, only two which survive today. Of
these two, on is the famous Rachol Seminary which once housed the Christian
Art Museum. The other surviving Seminary is at Pilar, which lies near the
village of Goa Velha, where the magnificent Procession of Saints takes place
on the Monday of Holy Week.
Set on a small hill just south of the
capital city of Panaji, along the National highway NH17 to Margao and Vasco,
the Pilar Seminary is worth visiting for its quiet ambience, the small but
interesting one-room museum and the spectacular views of the countryside
from its location.
The Capuchin monks founded the Seminary in 1613.
They established a centre of learning along with the Church, which was named
after Our Lady of Pilar, whose statue they had brought along with them from
Spain.
The Seminary flourished until the year 1835, when the
Portuguese decided to ban all religious orders in Goa except for the
Carmelite Nuns, who managed it from 1858. In 1890, the Missionary Society of
St Francis Xavier made the Seminary its headquarters. This order slowly
disbanded until in 1936, the Seminary was taken over by the Xavierian
League.
The beautiful old Church at the Seminary has an exquisite
baroque doorway made out of carved stone. A niche above the doorway holds a
statue of St Francis of Assissi and the door has on it a carving of two
crossed hands, symbolising Christ and St Francis. The tomb of Fr Agnelo d´Souza,
who was the spiritual director of the seminary (1918-27), lies inside.
Around
a small garden inside, there are cloisters decorated with seventeenth
century frescoes. There is an interesting pictorial depiction of the history
of the world, drawn by a missionary in the 1940s and a reredos with
Fransiscan saints in the niches.
The new seminary, which opened in
1942 for training of priests to be sent all over India, lies at the top of
the hill. There is a small museum, which houses fragments of pottery and
temple sculpture excavated from the site including a lion - the Kadamba
symbol, Portuguese coins and a beautiful carving of Mary Magdelene done in
1733 by a Goan sculptor. There are also some palm-leaf manuscripts and a
copy of the first Marathi translation of the Gospel.
The chapel on
the first floor of this building is surrounded by some magnificent
stained-glass windows, hardly seen anywhere in Goa. And if you can make it
up to the roof terrace which is two floors higher, you are rewarded with
some spectacular views of the Zuari river towards Vasco and also of the rice
fields and coconut plantations of the Tiswadi taluka.
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