Tuesday 5 July 2011

#23 Jesus in India

There is an interesting book that was published in the year 1894 by Nicolas Notovitch. It is called
The Unknown Life of Christ.  Notovitch was a Russian doctor who journeyed extensively throughout Afghanistan, India, and Tibet.  During one of his jouneys  he had an accident and broke his leg in Leh which is the capital of Ladak. He had an opportunity to stay awhile at the Hemis buddhist convent.

Notovitch learned while he was there that there existed ancient records of the life of Jesus Christ and located a Tibetan translation of the legend and carefully noted over two hundred verses from the document known as "The Life of St. Issa."  The ancient scrolls reveal that Jesus spent seventeen years in India and Tibet  and that from age thirteen to age twenty-nine, he was both a student and teacher of Buddhist and Hindu holy men.

There was much controversy as to the authenticity of  Notovitch's document but he ncouraged a scientific expedition to prove the original tibetan documents existed.
 
One of his skeptics was Swami Abhedananda who journeyed into the arctic region of the Himalayas and was determined to find a copy of the Himis manuscript or to expose the fraud. His book of travels entitled Kashmir O Tibetti, tells of a visit to the Hemis gonpa and includes a Bengali translation of two hundred twenty-four verses essentially the same as the Notovitch text. Abhedananda was thereby convinced of the authenticity of the Issa legend.


The lost years of Jesus map
Map of Jesus's eastern travels
Source: Summit University Press

This is a very important piece of history that has been debated over time.

I will try and piece together Edgar Cayce, Jesus and Buddha as it relates to Notovitch's book in a future post.

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