The story of us…from Benjamin to Borkar to Rodrigues: A snapshot

We were originally Jewish, from the tribe of Benjamin, the twelfth (lost) tribe of Israel, the descendants of, me, Jacob! It is an unfortunate tale how we lost Israel and Israel lost us. There was some animosity between the tribe of Benjamin and the tribe of Dan. It so happened that a Benjaminite youth assaulted and murdered the wife of a priest of Dan.

Despite that priest of Dan being a very wicked man! And history has seen Dragons kill Men, and Men kill Dragons, the other eleven tribes of Israel ganged up to declare war on the Benjaminites. As a result, much of the Benjaminite tribe was decimated. The few of us remaining, very aggrieved, left the land of Israel from Elat, from where we embarked toward the East, and some kind of intuition took us to the Western Shores of Hindusthan to Goa, to the tiny village of Varca.

The then ruler of Goa, a Hindu King, only permitted us into his territory if we accepted being the lowest caste, the caste of Sudras (who were meant to be the menial class in Hinduism). You see the caste system in Hinduism was not earlier meant to be an inheritance; but, in fact, depending on the Horoscope; where persons from the Fire signs were meant to be priests and scholars, or Brahmins, the earth signs to be Kings, nobles and soldiers, or Kshatriyas; the air signs, to be tradesmen and merchants, the Vaisyas; and the water signs to be the servants and menials, Sudras!

It was meant to structure Hindu society, not degrade it. Later, in Hindu society, the priests who wanted to monopolise the structure itself – turned it into something hereditary, where priesthood was handed down from father to son (regardless of the star sign) and meniality, likewise!

As Benjaminites, our particular family, were known to be artificers in metal and gold! It was we who carved the Ark of the Covenant, under instruction from aliens, at the onset! The Ark of the Covenant, in fact, was a shem (or flying machine) and quite radioactive. The few of us Benjaminites, who arrived in Varca, Goa also brought the Ark of the Covenant with us (be informed to note that the name Varca, itself, contains the monosyllable `arc’, it is my (God’s) trick of sacred destiny, that Varca got its name when the Portuguese arrived there!

We the Benjaminites, did not disclose to the Hindu King there, that we were in possession of something so exotic and precious! However, we divulged to him that we were craftsmasons (an allusion to the fact that we were custodians of the knowledge of Freemasonry!) As a result of being craftsmasons, we assumed the Konkani name Borkar (which means craftsmasons in metals and gold). And we adopted the religion – Hinduism! Please also note, that it was my (God’s) trick of destiny that Borkar also contains the letters that form the word Ark! It also indicates `Bore the Ark’ or Bearers of the Ark!

In around 1670, Portuguese missionaries arrived in Varca. There is comitragic tale how we became Catholics. The Portuguese had a very ignoble way of converting before using the sword to convert. They would fling bread into the wells of unsuspecting Hindus. Anyone who consumed water from the particular well that was thus vandalised, would be excommunicated by the Hindu priesthood, so the victims would have no option but to convert to Catholicism. What the bread symbolises, if you don’t already know, I leave it to your conjecture! Just like what wine meant! Like Catholics were meant to play it safe!

However, it was a very wicked custom that developed later on by the Church, that only the priest had both bread and wine, and the laity only had bread. It was an utter abandonment of the Church of its following to consign them to be bodygrabbed! Anyways, the same act of chicanery (described above) was done to the Sudra village well in Varca. And we were forced to convert to Catholicism. We borrowed the family name Rodrigues from the Portuguese priest who converted us.

The last time I lived permanently in Varca, Goa, was when I incarnated as Jacao (on the cusp of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries), the father of my son Salvador.; who also was my father when I birthed as his son Monte Cyril Rodrigues, in then Bombay or now Mumbai, India!