Rachol

Rachol (also known as Raitura) is a prominent village in the Salcete taluka (subdistrict) of South Goa district, Goa state, peninsular India. It is located on the left bank of the Zuari River and is home to the famous Rachol Seminary. The famous Portuguese colonial Rachol Fort has been completely erased, leaving behind the traces of the moat and the main gate. The village has many heritage structures and is an important site to study the history of Salcete. The Church of Our Lady of Snows (Igreja da Nossa Senhora de Neves) at Rachol is said to be the first church of Salcete and is called the Matriz igreja de Salcette ('Mother church of Salcette'). Ilha de Rachol ('Island of Rachol') is a part of the village.

==Etymology and history== By the late 1400s, Rachol was part of a Muslim area, ruled primarily by a Muslim kingdom known as Bahmani Sultanate and the Sultan of Bijapur under Ismail Adil Shah. The rulers of Vijayanagar and Bijapur fought long battles to take control of this place. It was only in 1520 that the Hindus under King Krishnadevaraya, also known as Krishnaraya, from the Vijayanagar empire with help of the Portuguese took complete control of Rachol. Due to Jesuits being attacked in the late 1560s, a decree on December 1565, forbidding the erection of new temples and the repairs of the existing ones, was issued by the viceroy António de Noronha (1564–1568). This led to the mass exodus of Hindu Brahmins from the Portuguese-held territories that included Rachol and these Brahmins taking the idols of their deities across the Zuari River from Rachol to the territories of the Hindu Sonde Kings such as Shiroda, Ponda and Sanguem.