History of Mangeshi Temple......

 

The original site of Sri Mangeshi temple is Kushasthali or Cortalim in Salcette Taluka. To avoid the increasing portuguese missionary activities in Goa, the GSB community was afraid for the safety of the temples and idols. Hence the families worshipping Shree Shantadurga and Shree Manguesh, on a moonless night, leaving their homes and hearths crossed over the Zuari river  to a safer region which was under the rule of the Muslim King Adil shah. 

After remaining in the house of a temple priest for sometime, the deity idol was finally installed at its present site in the village.

The territory of Ponda was not under Portuguese rule in the 16th Century and hence was seen as a safe haven by the Hindus fleeing persecution by the Jesuits and Portuguese. The forests of Ponda were ideal places for Hindus to form makeshift temples with the Idols they had salvaged from the broken temples of salcette.