Oriental links of Jesus Christ

-Virag Pachpore

Swami Vivekananda in his famous speech on Jesus emphasized the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was necessarily a great savant of the Orient. The West ‘hijacked’ him and donned him as per their likes and presented him as ‘Christ’ to the world. At the speech delivered at Los Angles, California on January 7, 1900 on “Christ the Messenger” Swami Vivekananda made his point clear when he said:

“My view of the great Prophet of Nazareth would be from the standpoint of the Orient. Many times you forget, also, that the Nazarene himself was an Oriental of Orientals. With all your attempts to paint him with blue eyes and yellow hair, the Nazarene was still an Oriental.”

Jesus of Nazareth, as many of his believers believe, was an Asian. As Swami Sachidananda Bharati (2009) says, Jesus’ message and mission were set in the Asian milieu and from an Asian perspective. He underlines the fact that the message of Jesus of Nazareth can be better understood and assimilated from an Indian Advaitic perspective than from the Jewish, Roman or Greek dualistic perspectives. The vision of God as a loving Father to all the human beings as presented by Jesus was in contravention of the Jewish concept of God Yehowa who is jealous, and revengeful killing and destroying the enemies of Israel to protect and preserve this ‘chosen people’.

The faith we know today as Christianity was introduced to the world much after the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. Holger Kersten (1994) says: “Yet what is today called Christianity is in any case not so much the Word of Christ but something else: Paulinism—for the doctrine as we now know it rests in all its main points not on the message of Jesus, but on the totally different teachings of Paul. Modern Christianity only developed when Paulinism was promulgated as the state religion”. (Holger Kersten, Jesus Lived in India, 1994)

In their attempt to spread the gospel these modern Christians and their nations not only painted the image of Jesus in completely western colors, but his links with the Orient, especially with India, were also deliberately erased by them. However, contrary to this in their research related to the time and life of Jesus the Western scholars indicated a strong link that Jesus had with India. These researches also tried to prove that Jesus had spent 17 to 18 years of his life in the Orient in learning ‘Wisdom’ and ‘Divine Word’.

Elizabeth Clare Prophet (1987) in her much publicized book “The Lost Years of Jesus” says that the search for historical Jesus began at the end of the 18^th century when scholars and theologians began to examine critically the primary sources for Jesus’ life – the Gospels. In their ‘quest for historical Jesus’ these scholars began to discuss and decipher all the available information on Jesus and came to an virtual agreement that Jesus did exist but his biography could not be drawn in the modern sense for the lack of historical material available on him.

The four Gospels provide some information about Jesus, his life and mission. But they are more of a religious document than purely historical one. Then there is some material written by non-Christian scholars which includes records written by Josephus, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus and Suetonius. These records were brief and written sixty to ninety years after the crucifixion of Jesus, thus providing very little information. The Gospels were composed between A. D. 60 to 100. They formed the original and main source of information about Jesus but scholars believe that they have more religious than historical value.

According to Gospels Jesus was born of Mary, the virgin mother, who was betrothed to Joseph, the carpenter of Nazareth. But they do not say a word about how Jesus looked like or provide geographic and chronological data or any information about his exact occupation.

Prophet (1987) says that the discovery of a Gnostics library at Nag Hammadi in Egypt by Muhammad Ali al-Samman, an Arab farmer, in 1945 and a fragment of a ‘Secret Gospel’ of Mark in the Judean desert at Mar Saba by Morton Smith in 1958 strongly suggest that earlyChristians possessed a larger, markedly more diverse body of writings and traditions on the life and teachings of Jesus than appears in what has been handed down to us as the ‘New Testament’.

Out of the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John only two – Matthew and Luke give information on Jesus’ life prior to his preaching. They basically confine themselves to Jesus’ genealogy, conception and birth and a number of family events like coming of the wise men from the East, manger visit of shepherds, the presentation in the Temple at Jerusalem, the flight into Egypt and return to Nazareth. But for this short account the Gospels are mostly silent on Jesus’ life in respect of his training in theology. A reference is made about his ‘disappearance’ from the temple at Jerusalem when he went their accompanied by his parents. They later found him and again he disappeared on way home. He was 12 years old then. The Gospels are almost silent on the next 17-18 years of his life and activities except one verse that we find in the Gospel of Luke: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man”.

These ‘lost years’ of Jesus were like a Rubik cube puzzle for the scholars to solve. The solution became even more difficult as the scholars have concentrated on Jesus’ preaching and ignored the ‘lost years’. The traditional stand taken by the Christian theologians was that Jesus was in Nazareth during these years and nothing significant happened in his life so as to take cognizance of reporting.

However, the silence on the ‘lost years’ was first broken by a Russian journalist Nicolas Notovitch, who published a book ‘La Vie inconnue de Jesus Christ’ or ‘The Unknown life of Jesus Christ’ challenging this point of view in 1894. The Russian scribe claimed that while traveling in Ladakh in 1887 he came across a copy of an ancient Buddhist manuscript which clearly said where Jesus was during the lost years.

And lo and behold! Jesus was in India!!

Nicolas Alexandrovitch Notovitch was born on 25^th August 1858 in Kerch, in the Crimea in a house of a rabbi. He had education at the University of St Petersburg where he studied history as main subject. He received military training and participated in Serbian campaign against the Turks in 1876 and Russo-Turkish war in 1877-78. He was a good writer and worked as a correspondent of a newspaper Novaya Vremiya. In 1887 Notovitch began his travels in Kashmir and Ladkah regions of India where he happened to meet the Lama at Himis monastery who told him the ‘secret about Jesus or Saint Issa’. In course of his Himalayan itinerary Notovitch happened to visit the Buddhist monastery of Himis located about 25 miles from Leh, the capital of Ladakh. Himis happens to be the largest and most celebrated monastery in Ladakh situated at the height of 11000 feet from the sea level. Notovitch persuaded a lama there to tell him about the events of the life of ‘saint Issa’ as Jesus was known by this name then, recorded in the scrolls at Himis and succeeded in his mission.

The text is known as ‘The life of Saint Issa: Best of the Sons of Men’ and records the events from 13^th year of his life. According to the manuscript Notovitch had published Issa secretly left his parents’ house joined the caravan of merchants and traveled east in order to perfect himself in the “Divine Word” and to study the laws of the great Buddha.

“Issa spent six years studying Sanskrit and Vedas at Juggernaut (Jagannath, Puri), Rajgriha, Benaras, and other holy cities”, writes Notovitch. “He invited the wrath of Brahmins and Kashtriyas by indulging in teaching the knowledge to the lower castes that were not authorized to learn it. The Brahmins and Kshatriyas plotted to eliminate Issa physically for this ‘crime’ but he fled from Juggernaut and went to Nepal. In six years Issa acquired perfect knowledge of ‘Divine Word’ and left the Himalayas to begin his journey westward preaching against idolatry along the way and finally reaching Palestine at the age of 29.”

The book of Notovitch soon became controversial with the western scholars including noted Indologist Max Muller refuting the claim made by the Russian journalist. Max Muller rejected Notovitch’s book as ‘fraud’ most likely perpetrated by the Russian journalist. The book generated a fairly great deal of debate in the Western Christian world with scholars putting across different points of view on the subject most of them rejecting the findings of Notovitch.

But surprisingly, Notovitch found a supporter in Swami Abhedananda, a brother-disciple of Swami Vivekananda who was also a close acquaintance of Max Muller. Swami Abhedananda claimed to have seen and verified the documents at Himis lamasery and certified the story ‘Saint Issa’ penned by Notovitch.

Swami Abhedananda was born as Kaliprasad Chandra on October 2, 1866 in Kolkata. He was brilliant from his childhood and soon became proficient in Sanskarit and English at an early age. He studied all schools of thought, attended numerous lectures by learned people and exponents of Christianity, Brahmoism and Hinduism and finally in 1884 became a disciple of Ramkrishna Paramhansa, the spiritual guru of Swami Vivekananda.

He traversed the length and width of India in 1886 barefoot and without money for ten years. Thereafter he went to London as preacher and exponent of Vedanta philosophy. There he met scholars like Paul Deussen and Max Muller. While in America the Swami came across the book ‘The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ by Russian traveler Nicolas Notovitch, which revealed the fact that Jesus lived in India during the sixteen year of his unknown life, i.e. from 13 to 28 years of his age.

After he sailed back to India in 1921 from San Francisco, Swami Abhedananda at the age of 56 decided to undertake the pilgrimage of Himis monastery. The Swami recorded the events of his sojourn in the Himalayas originally in Bengali in “Kashmir O Tibbat” i.e. Kashmir and Tibet in English. It was his cherished dream to visit the Himis monastery as he wrote in his diary: “In 1922….. I went to Tibet from Kashmere, crossing the Himalayas on foot, to study the manners, customs and the Buddhist philosophy and Lamaism which prevail among the Tibetan Lamas. I went along Yarkand Road, the highway to Europe and stopped at “Leh”, the capital of Ladak in western Tibet. My destination was “Hemis Monastery” about twenty-five miles north of the City of Leh”.

In 1927, the rough account of Swami’s Himalayan itinerary was serialized in Vishwavani, the monthly magazine published by the Ramkarishna Vedanta Math which invoked considerable interest. In 1929 Swami Abhedananda revised the entire writing in to a book form entitled initially as Parivrajaka Swami Abhedananda which was later renamed as Kashmir O Tibbet in Bengali language. In 1954, fifteen years after Swami Abhedananda’s departure from this mortal world, his disciple Swami Prajnananda edited and published this book.

Swami Abhedananda recounts in this book the veracity of Notovitch’s findings on Jesus. He writes: “The lama who was showing Swamiji around took a manuscript about Issa off the shelf and showed it to Swamiji. The original was written in Pali and this was translation into Tibetan.” The lama helped Swami Abhedananda in translating this text into English. Besides corroborating the details recorded by Notovitch, Swami Abhedananda added some details which were omitted by the Russian journalist.

Some more evidence supporting Notovitch and Swami Abhedananda came from another Russian versatile personality known as Nicholas Roerich who undertook extensive travels in the East and led an expedition through Central Asian regions of Sikkim, Punjab, Kashmir, Ladakh, Karakoram, Khotan, Kashgar, the Altai Mountains, Mongoliam Central Gobi, Kansu, Tsaidam and Tibet between 1924 and 1928. In course of his sojourn he recorded the living history of Issa’s travels to the East.

Nicholas Roerich was born on October 10, 1874 at St Petersburg in Russia. He studied at the University of St Petersburg and Academy of Fine Arts. By 1920, he became an internationally acclaimed artist.

Roerich is described as a Russian-born painter, poet, archaeologist, philosopher, and mystic. He was also a diplomat, writer, critic, educator, set and costume designer and explorer. Roerich accompanied by his wife Helena and son George conducted his Central Asia expedition which had nine Europeans, 36 natives, and 102 camels, yaks, horses and mules. They were accompanied by his other son Sviatoslav and famous scholar of Tibetan literature Lama Lobzang Mingyur Dorje.

Based on his findings, experiments and experiences Roerich wrote numerous books. Three amongst them Himalaya (1926), Heart of Asia (1929) and his travel diary Altai-Himalaya (1929). He says in his book Heart of Asia: In Srinagar we first encountered the curious legend about Christ’s visit to this place. Afterwards we saw how widely spread in India, in Ladak and in Central Asia, was the legend of the visit of Christ to these parts during his long absence, quoted in the gospel.

As he traveled Roerich learned how widespread were the legends about Issa in Kashmir, Ladakh, Mongolia, Sinkiang and other places. The Lamas knew the importance of these legends. Roerich noted in Heart of Asia that “all versions agree on one point, that during the time of His absence, Christ was in India and Asia”.

Prophet (1987) notes that Roerich found more than legends. He noted while he was in Ladakh that “the writings of the Lamas recall how Christ extolled woman—the Mother of the World.” In a long passage in Altai-Himalaya, he records: “…..It is difficult to understand why the wandering of Issa by caravan path into India and into the region now occupied by Tibet should be so vehemently denied”.

Penelope Chetwode, who wrote Kulu: The End of the Habitable World (1972) treated Roerich’s discovery of a document about Issa as a rediscovery that was a bit old hat. She wrote: “In Tibet he claimed to have discovered an ancient Buddhist chronicle which stated that Christ had spend the ‘hidden years’ partly there and partly here in India. This, in fact, was nothing new as therehas always been a strong tradition that these were spent in Kashmir where a collection of Our Lord’s sayings from this mysterious period of his life is still preserved; one of them was quoted by Akbar on his Victory Gate at Fatehpur Sikri: “Said Jesus, on whom be peace! The world is a bridge, pass over it but build no house there. He who hopeth for an hour, may hope for eternity; the world is but an hour, spent it in devotion; the rest is worth nothing”.

Hogler Kersten (1994) says that in 1931 Lady Henrietta Merrick in her book “In the World’s Attick” (London, 1931, page 215) confirmed the existence of ‘Jesus legends’ in Central Asian lands. She wrote: “In Leh is the legend of Christ who is called “Issa”, and it is said that the monastery at Hemis holds precious documents fifteen hundred years old which tell of the days that he passed in Leh, where he was joyously received and where he preached”.

In 1939, Madam Elisabeth Caspari, a Swiss musician and professor of music pedagogy and her colleague Mrs. Gasque paid a visit to Himis lamasery and spent some days there. One day as they were seated alone on the roof of the monastery, a lama who was also the librarian there, approached them with some manuscripts in his hands. He presented those manuscripts to Mrs Gasque with great reverence and said: “These books say your Jesus was here”.

Each of these four people undertook a treacherous journey into the Himalayan region of Ladakh and went up to Himis monastery to ascertain the veracity of documents related to Jesus’ presence in India during the ‘lost years’ of his life. They were in various states of mind and different levels of expectation, yet each one uncovered the same story. Nicolas Notovitch heard the rumors and went there to verify them; Swami Abhedananda undertook a trip to Himis to verify Notovitch’s findings on Jesus. Nicholas Roerich too came in contact with the legends of Issa spread all over Ladakh and Central Asia and mentioned them in his writings. Finally, Madam Elisabeth Casperi and Mrs. Clarence Gasque were told by the Lama at Himis monastery about the presence of Jesus ‘Our Lord’ there when he offered them ancient books that contained related references.

Asia has been the land of great religions of the world. Almost all the major religions – Sanatana or Hindu, Bouddh, Jain, Sikh, Zoroastrian, Shinto, Islam and Christianity of Jesus of Nazareth—are the greatest gifts of Asia to the world and the humanity. Swami Vivekananda referred to Jesus’ Oriental existence repeatedly only because of this reality. J. Ransome Bransby recalls this feeling of Swami Vivekananda about Jesus in his reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda. He writes: “We had a lecture on Christmas day from the Swami entitled “Christ’s Mission to the World”, and a better one on this subject I never heard. No Christian minister could have presented Jesus as a character worthy the greatest reverence more eloquently or more powerfully than did this learned Hindoo, who told us that in this country on account of his dark skin he has been refused admission to hotels, and even barbers have sometimes objected to shave him. Is it any wonder that our “heathen” brethren never fail to make mention of this fact even “our Master was an Oriental”?