The Haunting of Dona Paula Beach and the Pearl Wearing Ghost

People on the Dona Paula Beach in Goa, India claim to have seen the ghost of a woman coming out from the ocean, wearing only a pearl necklace. Legend claim it is Dona Paula, lamenting over her tragic love.

Along the coastline of Goa, Dona Paula Beach is a renowned destination for tourists seeking relaxation and adventure in Panaji. With its pristine sands, azure waters, and vibrant atmosphere, it offers an idyllic escape where the Mandovi and Zuari meet the Arabian Sea. It is crowded during the tourist season with people flocking to the beach, but a calm place during monsoons.

Read more: Check out all ghost stories from India

However, as the sun sets and shadows deepen over the Marmugao Harbour, this seemingly serene paradise transforms into one of the most haunted places in Goa, steeped in tales of love, loss, and the supernatural.

Goa beaches (Dona Paula, around Cidade de Goa) — *Dona Paula Beach: Source: Flickr*

The Story of Dona Paula

The Dona Paula Beach derives its name from Dona Paula de Menezes, or as her full name was: Paula Amaral Antonio de Souto Maior. She was the beautiful daughter of the Portuguese Viceroy of Jaffnapatnam, Sri Lanka, or at least related to him.

Dona Paula is said to have come to this place in 1744. It used to be a fishing village known as Oddavell. So what happened after Dona Paula arrived in the village that would eventually be named after her?

The legends about Dona Paula are many and confusion about who she really was runs so deep, even the tourists guides slip up.

The Tragic Love Story

Legend has it that Dona Paula fell deeply in love with a local fisherman, some give him the name Gaspar Dias or Paulo, a romance that defied the rigid social norms of their time. Her aristocratic family vehemently opposed the union, forbidding Dona Paula from seeing her beloved.

Heartbroken and despairing, she chose to end her life rather than live without him. One fateful night, she leaped from the cliffs into the turbulent Arabian Sea, her tragic story forever entwined with the locale. In some versions, he jumped with her.

Other Variations of the Legend

There is also a bit of a different myth about her where she was a lady-in-waiting for the Governor General’s wife. The Portuguese Governor took a shining to her and his wife didn’t like it one bit and took action to tear them apart.

According to the stories, the Governor even gifted her a pearl necklace. As punishment, she was stripped of all of her clothes on top of the cliff. With only a pearl necklace around her neck, the wife pushed her off the cliff.

File:Dona Paula, Goa.jpg — **Dona Paula Cliff**: It is also said that she actually did marry the fisherman, but he went to sea, but never returned. She waited for him at the cliff for the rest of her life, eventually turning into stone. Here from the unrelated statue on Dona Paula Beach that have started to merge with the legend. // Source: Wikimedia

Lovers Paradise in Goa and Dona Paula Beach

It is said that Dona Paula was entombed in the Cabo Chapel nearby and that her spirit remains. To this day, the area where she leapt off the cliffs are still referred to as lovers paradise. According to many locals, it is also thought to be haunted by Dona Paula.

It is said that on moonlit nights, the ghostly figure of Dona Paula can be seen emerging from the sea, clad only in a shimmering pearl necklace. Her spectral form glides silently along the shoreline, a forlorn reminder of her unfulfilled love and untimely demise. The sight of her apparition has left many with an unsettling chill, as her sorrowful eyes seem to search for the lover she lost to the cruel tides of fate.

The True Tale of Dona Paula

The haunting tales of Dona Paula Beach have persisted for generations, with each retelling adding new layers to the legend. Some believe that her spirit wanders not out of malevolence, but out of a desperate yearning to reunite with her lost love. Others suggest that her restless ghost guards the beach, ensuring that no one else suffers a similar fate. But how much of it is actually true?

What we do know is that Dona Paula married when she arrived in Goa, as her title Dona would suggest. She married a hidalgo, a Spanish nobility in 1756 called Dom António Caetano de Menezes Souto Maior. They were a very affluent family, owning everything from Cabo Raj Nivas to Caranzalem.

She was known to the locals as a woman with a big heart and remembered for her charity and this is the reason why the former village, now neighborhood, named it after her. As of her death, she is said to have died on 21st of December, 1782, but of what is uncertain.

How her legacy became a haunted one though is uncertain. One can perhaps wonder if a woman dedicating her life to charity, must be reduced to a lovesick woman that can’t deal with life if she can’t have her possible fictional lover.