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At Rachol, 7 K.M northeast
of Margao, rises proudly from the crest of laterite hillock,
surrounded by the dried-up moat of an old Muslim fort and
rice fields that extend east to the banks of the nearby Zuari
River. During the early days of the Portuguese conquests,
this was a border bastion of the Christian faith, perennially
under threat from Muslim, and Hindu marauders. Today, its
painstakingly restored sixteenth-century church and cloistered
theological collage, one wing of which has recently been converted
into a museum, lie in the midst of the Catholic heartland.
The seminary itself harbours in Old Goa, main road en route
to Lutolim, 4K.M further north.
During the sixteenth century
before the evangelisation of Goa, Rachol hill was encircled
by an imposing fort, built by the Muslim Bahmani Dynasty that
founded the city of Ela (Old Goa) The Hindu Vijayanagars took
it from the Sulatan of Bijapur in the fifteenth century and
was ceded to the Portuguese in 1520 in exchange for military
help against the Muslims. Today the stone archways spans the
road to the seminary is the only fragments left standing.
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