Mangalore: 383-year-old Stone Discovered in 2009 still Lies in Dust!

Mangalore, Mar 6: Ivan Saldanha-Shet, a senior citizen and a resident of Bolar, Mangalore, an admirer of the ancient and frequent writer on city history in the local media, was exploring local spots as part of regular routine.

He accidentally stumbled on a granite tomb stone with a coat of arms and inscription in Roman like script; not far from the river edge behind 'Hale Kote Mukhyaprana Temple' and Joyland School at Bolar.

The stone now explained turns out to be a 383 year old tomb stone first seen on a fine day in March 2009. On April 25, 2009, local media also published Shet's ‘discovery’ and appealed the authorities concerned to take steps to preserve it. Initially the local museum showed some interest and took pictures of it and so on. Now it is three years and the stone continues where it has been as a sad witness to Mangalore’s neglected glorious past. The finder says that the stretch along the rivers from Nethravathi Bridges to Old Port at Bundar, a stretch of a 4 or 5 kms is saturated with ancient historical spots..

A few weeks ago this gentleman brought this to the notice of his friend, writer and historian Alan Machado Prabhu, who arranged to get the inscription deciphered with the help of experts. As suspected the stone turned out to be the tombstone of Domingos de Mourao Coutinho, the captain of the fortress of Mangalore, who died on April 30, 1629. “It would have been installed over his grave which in all probability was located within the first church in Mangalore, the Nossa Senora de Rosario, known as the ‘poyeda igerji’ or 'church on the sand', which could have ceased to exist some time in 1784 during the rule of Tipu Sultan.” Shet also states that Tipu did not only place the Konkani Christians in captivity, he also took other Christians and later Kodavas (coorgis) as he suspected them to practise customs he did not favour; and for the same reason he captured the 'Nairs' boardering Malabar as well.

It is probably the only existing monument of the church and fort which since 1568 formed a part of Mangalore’s history. It must be considered for public display at Rosario Cathedral where another 'stone' already exists and where a museum by the church is fore seen. Will the authorities concerned take steps to preserve the same and ensure it does not disappear into the dust, like much of local our history.

A Tale of Two Stones

By Alan Machado-Prabhu, Bangalore

Visitors to Rosario Cathedral in Mangalore will not fail to notice the large granite slab inscribed with faded letters and a Portuguese court of arms mounted at its entrance.

Most will recognise it as belonging to the Portuguese era in Mangalore and some would certainly be curious to know more about how it got there. Most have never seen another stone, larger and with finer details, for it lies discarded and neglected under a layer of sand and fallen leaves and wild brush in a place which once proudly proclaimed the Portuguese presence, however minuscule, in Mangalore, pointed out to me by my friend I J Saldanha-Shet of Bolar. This is the story of those two stones.

The familiar stone at the entrance of Rosario Cathedral bears the court of arms of Dom Joao V, the king of Portugal from 1706 to 1750. Unfortunately, the letters are all defaced and cannot be deciphered. The court of arms, however, dates the stone and the construction of the Portuguese factory or trading warehouse at the site of the present Cathedral. Between 1652-54, the Ikeri king Shivappa Nayaka wiped out the Portuguese presence throughout his kingdom, capturing their forts at Mangalore (1653), Kundapur, Gangolly and Honavar. This clearly placing the construction of the first Rosario church at the present site of the Cathedral to after this date.

This is where the Rosario stone helps us. It probably stood at the entrance of the factory when it was built and confirms it came up only during the reign of Joao V, not before. Two numerals are decipherable, 7 and 2, which dates the stone to 1712, for the factory and church existed by 1718 as confirmed by Alexander Hamilton who visited Mangalore that year. This site was not a strong defensible fort, but a warehouse defended by a small garrison and four canons.

In 1768, the factory was taken over by an English force commanded by Gouin. Hyder retook the factory within weeks, and in return for military supplies and expertise from Goa, allowed the Portuguese to resume operations at the factory. Portuguese aid did not come up to Hyder’s expectations and he took over the site in 1771 for the construction of his own fort under the direction of a Frenchmen, Catini.

But that is a different story and we now turn to the other stone. This stone is about 1.8 x 0.7 metres and bears the court of arms of the Mourão Coutinho family, prominent noblemen of 17th and 18th century Northern Portugal. It is a tombstone which bears the legend “Here lies Domingos de Mourão Coutinho, who was Captain of Fort Mangalore. He died on April 30, 1629.” It clearly once lay within the first church built in Mangalore, Nossa Senora de Rosario, built within the fort of Sao Sebastio.

The foundation stone of the Portuguese fort of Sao Sebastio was laid on 20 January 1568 at Bolar, a short distance from the palace of the Bangher king who extended labour and material for its construction.

A small chapel with a thatched roof, Rosario, served the garrison. By the time of Pietro della Valle’s visit in 1623, two more chapels, served by two Franciscan padres came up beyond the fort but within the settlement.

A 1635 map (in the picture) shows the northern boundary of the settlement along a ditch leading to the river Gurpur. This is almost certainly the present ditch along the railway line that forms the boundary wall of the Albuquerque Tile Factory. The area under Portuguese jurisdiction extended upto a falcon shot (approx. 2 kms) from the fort.

The extent on the east and south would have been about 2 Kms from the fort so that the total extent of Portuguese Mangalore was around 5 to 6 sq kms. In 1619, Venkatappa Nayaka’s army had surrounded the fort and starved the garrison and forced it to surrender.

He, however, allowed the fort, rather a house as it was deprecating described by della Valle, to remain under Portuguese control for the trade and customs revenue that it brought.

In 1653, however, Shivappa Nayaka, captured it along with the other three Portuguese forts in Kanara, at Kundapur, Gangolly and Honavar. When the Portuguese were allowed to return to Mangalore, they built a factory or warehouse on the elevated site where the present Deputy Commissioner’s offices are located, which Hyder took over in 1771.

The church had a thatched roof and was in a dilapidated condition when Padre Jose Vaz came to Mangalore in 1684. He had the church repaired and it probably survived until it was pulled down by Tipu in 1784. Today little remains in the heavily populated area to remind us of Sao Sebastiao’s 85 year domination of the entrance to the bundar. Its memory, however, lives on in the name given to the area ‘hale kote,’ and hidden in a neglected spot lies the forgotten tombstone unearthed from where it once protected the disintegrated bones of Domingos de Mourão Coutinho, once Captain of the Fortaleza de Mangalore, Sao Sebastio.

By: Alan Machado-Prabhu. (Extract from his forthcoming book on Mangalore History). He has also authored two other books one historical 'Sarasvati's Children' (1999),and a novel based on old Mangalore 'Shades within shadows' (2011).