Roman Catholic Brahmin or Christian Brahmin (IAST Bamonns in Romi Konkani and Kupari in Bombay East Indian dialects) is a Christianised caste among the Goan, Bombay East Indian and Mangalorean Catholics, who are patrilineal descendants of Brahmin and Prabhu converts to the Latin Church. This occurred in parts of the Konkan region that were annexed into the Portuguese East Indies, with the capital (metropole) at Velha Goa, and Bombay (Bom Bahia) was the largest territory (province) of Portuguese India. They retain some of the ethno-social values and customs of their ancestors and most of them exhibit a noticeable hybrid Latino-Concanic culture.
In Goa, the Brahmins were engaged in the priestly occupation, but had also taken up various occupations like agriculture, trade, goldsmithing, etc. The origins of this particular caste can be traced back to the Christianisation of the Velhas Conquistas () that was undertaken by the Portuguese, during the 16th and 17th centuries. It was during this period that, the Jesuit, Franciscan and Dominican missionaries converted many Brahmins to Christianity. The first mass conversions took place among the Brahmins of Divar and the Kshatriyas of Carambolim (Karmali).
All converts from Brahmin sub-castes (Chitpavan Brahmins, Deshastha Brahmins, Karhada Brahmins, Saraswat Brahmins etc) and Prabhus were unified into a single Christian caste of Bamonn. Since the conversions of Brahmins of a particular area, were instrumental in the conversions of members of other castes, due to the resulting loss of priests, such converts were highly valued by the church and Portuguese rulers alike.
The Christian Brahmins were even allowed to wear the Yajnopavita (sacred threads) and other caste markings by a special dispensation of Pope Gregory XV in 1623; on the condition that these were to be blessed by a Catholic priest.
The Bamonns in general consider their Indian caste system, to be a class form of social categorisation. Since their concept is divorced from the religious elements associated to it, by their Hindu counterparts, they tend to justify their maintenance of caste as a form of social stratification, similar to the Western class concept. They are an endogamous group and have generally refrained from inter-marriage with Catholic Christians of other castes. However, while the Bamonns never inter-married or mingled with the lower castes, the statutes or norms of the Roman Catholic Church restrained them from practising Hindu caste based discrimination against the latter.
Although most now carry Portuguese surnames, some have retained the knowledge of their ancestral pre-conversion surnames; such as Bhat, Kamat, Nayak, Pai, Prabhu, Shenoy, Shett and others. The konkanised variants of these surnames are Bhôtt, KÃÂmot, NÃÂik, Poi, Porbà ³ (Probà ³), à  eà Âai, à  et etc. However, only Pundit, Bhatta, Shenoy (Shenvi) and Joshi suggest Brahminical roles; such as priesthood, astrology, etc. The meanings of the other surnames are as follows: Kamath (cultivator or landholder), Nayak (military leader), Dessai (headman), Pai/ Prabhu (lord), Baaliga (soldier) and so on. The Gaud Saraswat Brahmin subcaste was created by Shenoi Goembab in the 19th century, Shenoi found the supporting genealogy of GSBs in the writings of the Christian Brahmin Jose Gerson da Cunha, during this time the Brahminhood of Saraswats was denied by Hindu Marathi Brahmins and Jose was labeled a "defiled Christian" by a Mahratti-speaking Saraswat Brahmin.
Mudartha is a unique surname to be found among some Bamonn families that hail from Udipi district in Karnataka. Some Mangalorean Catholic Bamonn families trace their patrilineal descent to Konkani Saraswat Brahmins. There was one instance in the Mangalorean Catholic community, wherein some Protestant Anglo-Indians were admitted into the Bamonn fold, by Catholic priests at the time of their conversion to Catholic Christianity, their descendants are known as Pulputhru Bamonns (Pulpit Brahmins).
In 1976, a genetic testing study conducted on three groups of Goan Saraswat Brahmins and one group of Goan Catholic Bamonns in Western India; confirmed the historical and ethnological evidence of a relationship between, Goan Catholic Bamonns and Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmins. The study further revealed that intergroup differences between the subject groups suggested a genetic closeness, with genetic distance ranging from 0.8 to 1.5.
Some Christian Brahmins such as the Pinto brothers Jose Antonio and Fransisco from the famous Goan noble family joined the army of Baji Rao II in Poona (Pune), after trying to overthrow Portuguese rule in the Conspiracy of the Pintos.
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