[2][3] Garcia studied medicine, arts and philosophy at the Universities of Alcalá de Henares and Salamanca in Spain.

[5] Perhaps fearing the increasing power of the Portuguese Inquisition, and fortunately evading the ban on emigration of New Christians, he sailed for Portuguese India leaving the Tagus in March 1534 as Chief Physician aboard the fleet of Martim Afonso de Sousa, later to be named Governor.

Garcia de Orta reports that the cavalry commander sometimes violated religious directives, eating pork and drinking wine in these private dinners.

Firangi Khan had converted to Islam for apparently material reasons and had a very important role in the court of the Sultanate, but subsidized charities to Misericórdias in the relationship he had with the Portuguese empire (despite serving an intermittent enemy Muslim state) and, according to Orta, "urged other Christians to never abdicate their principles."

He even projected return to his home city in his country (already secretly pardoned by the viceroy Afonso de Noronha).

Garcia himself died in 1568, apparently without having suffered seriously from this persecution, but his sister Catarina was arrested as a Jew in the same year and was burned at the stake for Judaism in Goa on October 25, 1569.

[16] During his lifetime, Orta's family members, including his mother and sisters were arrested and interrogated briefly in Portugal but they were probably protected by his friend and patron, Martim Afonso de Sousa, who was Governor-General of Portuguese India from 1542 to 1545.

[17] Garcia de Orta's busy practice evidently prevented him from travelling much beyond the west coast of India, but in the busy market and trading hub of Goa he met spice merchants, traders and physicians from many parts of southern Asia and the Indian Ocean coasts.

He was confident in Portuguese, Spanish, Hebrew, Latin, Greek and Arabic (he did not know Sanskrit[18]); his work shows that he gathered considerable knowledge from traditional medicine practitioners from several regions of India.

[18] Garcia de Orta reveals in his writings an unusual independence in the face of the usually revered texts of ancient authorities, Greek, Latin and Arabic.

[3][19] Orta's work questions assumptions made in the past with alternative hypotheses to the ideas from Ibn-Sina and Averroes.

Through his character he commented that Fuchs "...knew little of physic, and still less of things to save his soul, being a heretic condemned for Lutheranism.

[26] The errata, probably the longest in printing history, ran to twenty pages and end with a statement that the list was probably incomplete.

[27] The English translation by Clements Markham included illustrations of some of the Indian plants by Cristóvão da Costa.

[18][29] Garcia's travels to Portuguese Ceylon (Jaffna) on campaigns with Martim allowed him to study Sri Lankan medicinal plants.

In his poem Os Lusíadas, Camões plays on the word "Orta" which refers to his friend as well as meaning "garden".

The book was dedicated to Dom Francisco Coutinho, Count of Redondo, Viceroy of Goa from 1561 to 1564, and to his friend Martim de Sousa.

[3] Garcia de Orta's work was accidentally discovered by Clusius in early 1564 and he translated it into Latin, while also changing it from a dialogue to an epitomized form,[19] and this was widely read across Europe and underwent several editions.

In Goa, the municipal garden (built in 1855) in the capital city of Panjim has been named as "Garcia de Orta" in his memory.

[21] It is located facing the main city square that also houses the majestic church of Our Lady of Immaculate conception (Nossa Senhora da Concepção Imaculada) and was renovated in 2010.