Jesus in India / Jesus in Kashmir / Tomb of Jesus-Mary in India - - Debate

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I saw a program about it apparently there is a 2nd century Hindu text which mention’s Jesus in India. I don’t know how authentic the text is but 1 thing I noticed was that it used a name for Jesus which came from its Greek transliteration which is something jesus would never have used , he would have never called himself iesous but rather yeshua so I do have some questions about its veracity.
 
St.Thomas The Apostle and may be even St Barthelomeow came to India , atleast as early as 52 A.D .;and they did bring The Lord and His Church , to India ; hence same is the patrimony of people of India too , many of whom could have turned away from The Church in later years ; yet , very conceivable how remnants of the truth of our Lord has survived in one form or other ( as it it is in all pagan legends ) in the mind and heart of the locals …

May The Holy Spirit let the truth shine ever more brightly, through the intercession of our Mother !
 
Interesting refuting of the Jesus Tomb and other documents about Jesus in Indian by an Indian Kare Krishna.

I found it interesting to find an Indian man calling all of these Jesus in India stories lies when he is not even a Christian. Kind of hard to follow as much Hindu dialog is mixed in with some explanations.

saragrahi.org/Header%20Links/Articles%20By%20Author/Bhakti%20Anand%20Goswami/992%20Jesus%20in%20India%20Part%201.htm

Jesus in India? Plausible Deniability - Part One: In this three part series, Bhakti Ananda Goswami addresses some of the fraudulent and corrupted 19th and post-19th century New Age religious literatures often encountered and sometimes accepted as authentic by devotees. In doing so he will give references in Parts Two and Three to sites and scholarly texts where devotees can learn more about these inauthentic so-called ‘ancient’ scriptures, which are being aggressively promoted by various New Age ‘gurus,’ religious and esoteric groups.

saragrahi.org/Header%20Links/Articles%20By%20Author/Bhakti%20Anand%20Goswami/993%20Jesus%20in%20India%20Part%202a.htm

Jesus in India? Part Two (A): <<< With all due respect to your own great endeavors regarding the so-called “Talmud of Jmmanuel,” it is also another one of these esoteric frauds. You have been duped sir, and have invested years into the product of an esoteric conspiracy.>>>> “That’s your assumption, but you haven’t investigated the matter while I and others have. The Talmud of Jmmanuel (TJ) is only one translation and one or two editings away from its original, while other “known-to-be texts,” like the Gospels, are much further from their sources. As you well know.”

saragrahi.org/Header%20Links/Articles%20By%20Author/Bhakti%20Anand%20Goswami/994%20Jesus%20in%20India%20Part%202b.htm

Jesus in India? Part Two (B): Some Web Sources, Pro and Con, for Considering the Claims of the ‘Tomb of Jesus’ Ahmadiyya Messiah, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1839–1908), The Ahmadiyya Prophet, Messiah and Kalki Avatara, ‘Discoverer’ of the so-called ‘Tomb of Jesus’ in Kashmir.

saragrahi.org/Header%20Links/Articles%20By%20Author/Bhakti%20Anand%20Goswami/995%20Jesus%20in%20India%20Part%202c.htm

Jesus in India?Part Two (C) - Whose ‘Jesus,’ If Any, Is Buried In Kashmir: Abubakr Ben Ishmael Salahuddin is the author of “Saving the Savior,” the Qadiani sect Ahmadiyya Muslim propaganda literature about the so-called ‘Tomb of Jesus’ in Kashmir. He is also the ‘Tombmaster’ of the New Age popular Tomb Of Jesus website that promotes the Ahmadiyya teachings about the Muslim’s Jesus. This is Bhakti Ananda Goswami’s letter responding to some of the “Tombmaster’s” statements in his recent letter to B A Goswami on the jesus-christ Yahoo group.
 
Luke 4:14-16 (New International Version)

Jesus Rejected at Nazareth

14Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. 15He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.
16He went to Nazareth,** where he had been brought up**, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read.
 
Anymore thoughts on this subject?

It is a very controversial subject for many people.
 
On the primary question of whether Jesus ever went to India, I would say that that possibility cannot be ruled out. One reason for saying this is that Jewish communities have been living in India for at least 2000 years, if not longer. We might not think about it today, but 2000 years ago, there was significant trade and intercourse between the Mediterranean and India and China, so that notion that some Jews may have gone to Persia, India, or China, is not all that farfetched. It’s conceivable that Jesus might have had relatives in India, whom he visited sometime between 12 and 30 years of age.

Regarding the whole Notovitch story, and the Ahmadiyyah accounts, I don’t see much evidence for the Ahmadiyyah perspective, and even less evidence for Notovitch’s story.

However, I can speculate on how Notovitch was inspired. “Jesus” was pronounced in Syriac as “Isho”. In Sanskrit (the sacred language of Hinduism, and a language that Buddhism often used), the word for “Lord, Ruler” is “Isha”. “Ishwara” is a name of God in Hinduism. “Isho” and “Isha” sound pretty close, so maybe this is the source of Notovitch’s confusion: he saw “Isha” in a Buddhist or Hindu text, and thought “Jesus Christ”. (In Arabic, “Jesus” becomes “Isa”, which might have led to even more confusion.)

Regarding Yogananda’s claims of a connection between Jesus and India, allow me to outline Yogananda’s main claims:
  1. The wise men who visited the baby Jesus were not Persian magi, but Indian/Hindu sages. Yogananda gives several arguments for this view, drawing upon Henry Heras, S.J., The Story of the Magi, 1954: (1) the patristic tradition does not link the “magoi”, “wise men”, with Persia specifically; (2) Israel had trade relations with India ever since King Solomon’s trade with “Ophir” (“Sopara”, on the coast of Bombay); (3) St. Jerome wrote that St. Thomas preached the gospel in the land of the Magi, and we all know Thomas preached the gospel in India; (4) offering gold, frankincense, and myrrh to parents of newborns is part of the Indian gift tradition, not the Persian tradition; (5) Portuguese historians reported in the 1500s that the western coast of India has traditions about Indian kings going to Bethlehem to adore the infant Jesus.
  2. Jesus went to India to receive the blessings of those sages, blessings meant to further His world mission. The main reason Jesus went to India, was to reciprocate the visit that the wise men made at His birth. And Yogananda is quick to point out that this does not mean that Jesus somehow became Buddhist or Hindu, but that Jesus learned significant lessons from the Indians, without ceasing to be Jewish. The presence of Jewish communities in India could have helped Jesus maintain His Jewishness.
Yogananda refers to Notovitch, but he also refers to two other individuals who tried to collaborate Notovitch’s account: (1) Swami Abhedananda, who wrote Journey into Kashmir and Tibet, which contains his translations of the supposed “Jesus” documents in the Tibetan monastery; and (2) Nicholas Roerich, who wrote in Heart of Asia, that legends of Christ’s appearance in those regions was quite prevalent. I haven’t read all of Abhedananda’s translations, to compare them to Notovitch, but what I have read, shows that Notovitch added words that were not in the original document. And, in fairness to Yogananda, he states that the Notovitch document is evidence, not proof, that Jesus was in India.

Yogananda writes: “The great message of Jesus Christ is living and thriving in both East and West. The West has concentrated on perfecting the physical conditions of man, and the East on developing the spiritual potentials of man. Both East and West are one-sided. Granted, the East is not practical enough; but the West is too practical to be spiritually practical! That is why I advocate a harmonious union of the two; they need each other.” [93, *The Second Coming of Christ]

Personally, I think two things are likely. Jesus, like other Jews of the time, might have visited different nations (not only Egypt, of course), and learned certain spiritual techniques of meditation (as we see among the desert prophets and John the Baptist), lessons that do not detract from His Divinity. Alternatively, Jesus may have remained in Galiliee, which itself was a very cosmopolitan region, and other spiritual figures from other lands came to Galilee and visited Jesus, giving blessings for His mission.
 
Information about the Magi from apocryphal Christian Documents with Catholic Commentary:

THE FIRST GOSPEL OF THE INFANCY OF JESUS CHRIST

CHAPTER 3
  1. The wise men visit Christ. Mary gives them one of his swaddling clothes. 3. An angel appears to them in the form of a star. They return and make a fire, and worship the swaddling cloth, and put it in the fire, where it remains unconsumed.
  2. And it came to pass, when the Lord Jesus was born at Bethlehem, a city of Judaea, in the time of Herod the King; the wise men came from the East to Jerusalem, according to the prophecy of Zoradascht, and brought with them offerings: namely, gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and worshipped him, and offered to him their gifts.
The wise men, or Magi, who came from “the east,” that is, outside Israel and probably from Persia, were scholars of their time. They were followers of Zoradascht, that is, Zoroaster, a Persian religious figure in the sixth or seventh century before Christ, who taught that Ahura Mazda created the universe. His divine nature was composed of two opposite (but not opposing) principles or forces, one constructive and beneficent, the other destructive and maleficent. These forces were conflicting only in name, for the resulting good or evil was brought about by the free agent, man.

(Zoroastrianism is often confused with Manicheanism, which was an absolute dualism of the leaders of darkness and light. Zoroastrianism was a mixture of old Babylonian and Oriental elements raised to the maximum; Manicheanism, condemned by the Church as a heresy, was Gnosticism with Christian elements reduced to a minimum, an Oriental dualism under Christian names.)
  1. Then the Lady Mary took one of his swaddling clothes in which the infant was wrapped and gave it to them instead of a blessing, which they received from her as a most noble present.
Swaddling clothes were bands of cloth used to wrap infants. A similar custom is still used by North American Indians, who tightly wrap their babies (papooses) and carry them about bound to a board until they are two or more years old. This does not retard their muscular development, but actually aids it; their straining against the wrappings provides isometric exercise so they do not go through a “toddling” stage, but are ready to walk as soon as the practice is discontinued.
  1. And at the same time there appeared to them an angel in the form of that star which had before been their guide in their journey; the light of which they followed till they returned into their own country.
If “an angel in the form of that star” seems a too facile explanation, nothing in astronomy accounts for the movements of the star. In any case, in ancient times a star signified a god, a deified king; see Numbers 24:17.
  1. [New paragraph in the original] On their return their kings and princes came to them inquiring What had they seen and done? What sort of journey and return they had? What company they had on the road?
  2. But they produced the swaddling cloth which St. Mary had given to them, and they made a great feast because of that.
  3. According to the custom of their country, they made a fire and worshipped it.
  4. And casting the swaddling cloth into it, the fire took it, and kept it.
  5. And when the fire was put out, they took forth the swaddling cloth unhurt, as much as if the fire had not touched it.
  6. Then they began to kiss it and put it on their heads and their eyes, saying, This is certainly an undoubted truth, and it is really surprising that the fire could not burn and consume it.
  7. Then they took it, and with the greatest respect laid it up among their treasures.
Fire was a Zoroastrian symbol of the constructive force in the divine nature. Today’s Zoroastrians are the Parsees; it would be interesting to know whatever happened to this miraculously imperishable cloth that “with the greatest respect was laid up among their treasures.”
 
More references to the Magi in Apocryphal documents:

THE PROTEVANGELION OF JAMES

CHAPTER 15
  1. Wise men come from the east. 3. Herod alarmed; 8. tells them if they find the child, to bring him word. 10. They visit the cave and offer the child their treasure, 11. and being warned in a dream, do not return to Herod, but go home another way.
  2. Then Joseph was preparing to go away, because there arose a great disorder in Bethlehem by the coming of some wise men from the east,
The arrival of the wise men from the east and their meeting with Herod is also in Matthew 1:1ff.
  1. Who said, Where is the king of the Jews born? For we have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him.
  2. When Herod heard this, he was exceedingly troubled, and sent messengers to the wise men, and to the priests, and inquired of them in the town-hall.
Herod was troubled because he was the representative appointed by the Roman government and mention of the birth of a king portended sedition.
  1. And said to them, Where have you found it written concerning Christ the king, or where should he be born?
  2. Then they said to him, In Bethlehem of Judaea; for thus it is written: And you Bethlehem in the land of Judah, are not the least among the princes of Judah, for out of you will come a ruler, who will rule my people Israel.
The Old Testament prophecy is in Micah 5:2, which adds the messianic intimation that the king would be the Son of God, whose “goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”
  1. And having sent away the chief priests, he inquired of the wise men in the town-hall, and said to them, What sign was it you saw concerning the king that is born?
  2. They answered him, We saw an extraordinary large star shining among the stars of heaven, which so out-shined all the other stars, so that they became invisible, and we knew thereby that a great king was born in Israel, and therefore we are come to worship him.
  3. Then said Herod to them, Go and make diligent inquiry; and if you find the child, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.
  4. So the wise men went forth, and behold, the star which they saw in the east went before them till it came and stood over the cave where the young child was with Mary his mother.
Here is an apparent discrepancy of time or place. Matthew 2:11 says the wise men found Mary and the babe in a house, not a cave, indicating they arrived at a later time. Christian art has reconciled the cave with the manger by putting the manger in a kind of cave, but depicting the wise men there is probably an anachronism.
  1. Then they brought forth out of their treasures, and offered to him gold and frankincense, and myrrh.
  2. And being warned in a dream by an angel that they should not return to Herod through Judaea, they departed into their own country by another way.
CHAPTER 16
  1. Herod enraged, orders the infants in Bethlehem to be slain. 2. Mary puts her infant in an ox manger. 3. Elizabeth flees with her son John to the mountains. 6. A mountain miraculously divides and receives them. 9. Herod incensed at the escape of John, causes Zacharias to be murdered at the altar, 23. the roofs of the temple rent, the body miraculously conveyed, and the blood petrified. 25. Israel mourns for him. 27. Simeon chosen his successor by lot.
  2. Then Herod perceiving that he was mocked by the wise men, and being very angry, commanded certain men to go and to kill all the children that were in Bethlehem, from two years old and under.
Herod was a resentful descendant of the Idumeans who had been forcibly converted to Judaism. His cruelty was prefigured at Moses’ birth, when Pharaoh attempted to destroy the firstborn males (Exodus 1:16, 22). This event is also in Matthew 2:16-18, where it indicates the event was a fulfillment of prophecy: “Thus saith the Lord: A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.” (Jeremiah 31:15) He records that as the Jews were on their sad pilgrimage to an alien land, they passed Ramah, where Rachael, who had long been dead, is pictured weeping even in her tomb for the fate that had befallen the people, her children. As Rachael was tod her children would return from exile in Babylon (Jeremiah 31:16, 17), so Jesus will return from his exile in Egypt.
 
firstmode said:
Jesus in Kashmir, The Lost Tomb (Paperback) by Suzanne Olsson: Evidence is strong that Jesus survived crucifixion and has a tomb in Kashmir; Discover history of Jews in India, influence of Christianity in India; Jesus-magi-Buddhist connections to Hebrews. Professor Emeritus Robert E. Frykenburg is among those whose research inspired the author. The result is this incredible bold new view of the real Jesus and unknown influences on his world and on the crucifixion. Olsson made headlines when she received permission to obtain the “DNA of God.” Her evidence supports a true ‘Grail child’. The list of her “firsts” is extensive, includes documenting the shocking and deliberate destruction of ancient sites. This book will ripple through our future with chilling consequences.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A thought-provoking book about the ancient history of Christianity, and her own travels through the east. Troubling yet thrilling.” – Jason Axlerod, Author House

Congratulations on an awesome task splendidly accomplished. In years to come our race will still reference your contributions, follow the trails you blazed, and uncover new things. You have properly muddied the waters and nurtured the young lotus. --Church of the East

She gained the nickname Indiana Sue for her formidable, and sometimes considerably risky, efforts to research a variety of sites across Northern India and Pakistan, including the alleged grave of Mary at Murree. Sadly, the Murree site has since been commandeered by the Pakistan military, who have built a communications tower directly over the grave. Roza Bal has also been recently fell on hard times and is badly desecrated. In spite of this, Olsson very nearly succeeded in uniting India and Pakistan, at a time of heightened tension, in this joint archeological venture. Her aims were to compare samples from the two tombs. Her research has uncovered a wealth of valuable new information. --Fortean Times Magazine

She’s now the world expert on Jesus in India. I delighted in every new discovery by this brave, dedicated woman. – Noah Books, December 10, 2005

What has been laid on these pages, the pictures, the references, the words, and the thoughts are about the real story of Jesus. Here you will follow his family sagas. Olsson has opened hearts and minds to astounding new facts about Jesus, and swept clear the dust of centuries of misinformation and misunderstandings. This is an incredible effort that will be referenced far into the future. --Professor Fida Hassnain, Director of State Archives, India
NOT A CRITICAL REVIEW, BUT A POSITIVE REVIEW THAT GIVES MORE DETAIL OF WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT:

Jesus Life After Crucifixion, September 12, 2008
By Paul Von Ward “Cosmologist and Author” (Dahlonega, GA USA) - See all my reviews

Suzanne Olsson has written a plausible, more robust picture of the personality known as Jesus in the West which deserves the attention of both serious scholars and believers who wonder about the veracity of some of the claims about his life.

Not an arm-chair scholar, Suzanne has spent years with Persian, Afghani, Pakistani, Kashmiri, Indian, and Sri Lankan professionals and ordinary people in a search for the Jesus beyond the Gospels. She was caught up in the aftermath of “9/11” on the other side of the Kyber Pass. She often traveled by foot and animal power to identify the legendary sites associated with the major figures of Hebrew history and the Eastern ministry of Jesus and some of his disciples beyond the Tigris and Euphrates and down through India to Sri Lanka.

Old documents and artifacts accessed by Suzanne, with the assistance of indigenous scholars, reveal numerous corroborations of the life of Jesus and his family before and after his crucifixion. Material written in ancient Persian, Pali-Prakit (ancient Indian languages), Sanskrit, Vedic, Hebrew and other regional scripts fleshes out (literally) the saga of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Solomon, David, and Joseph and Jesus. This historical evidence, unknown to all but a few Western scholars, place these legendary archetypes, along with their female partners like Sarah, Mary, and Marjan, in real time and actual places. These mystical figures are grounded in history by their actual homes, temples, and tombs whose existence has been lost to the Western mind for almost two millennia.

Continued:::::::::::::::::::
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Does anyone have more info on some of the claims being made about Jesus’s grave in Kashmir and Mary Mother of God’s Grave in Pakistan>>???

What about all the archeological evidence of Jews in India?
 
From Who are the Jews of India?
In addition to commerce, art, and conquest, the Greeks valued philosophy. In the historian Megasthenes’s view, the philosophers are to Greece as the brahmins are to India and as the Jews are to the Middle East. According to the philosopher Clearchus, Aristotle taught that the Jews are descended from India’s brahmin’s, making them “the heirs and torch-bearers of the Indian sages, whose disciples they were.”
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The greatest Jewish historian of ancient times, Josephus, shared the Greeks’ high opinion of Indian philosophers. In his account of the martyrdom at Masada, the Jews’ leader, Eleazar, lauds Indian philosophers for their bravery in the face of death, thereby convincing the Jews to commit suicide rather than be conquered. Clearly, Jews of the late Second Temple period were aware of Indian spirituality and regarded it highly. Not only Josephus, but the other monumental Hellenized Jewish author of the period, Philo of Alexandria, idealized Indian philosophers or gymnosophists, depicting the renunciate Calanus as a paradigm of love of freedom and courage in the face of assimilationist demands from none other than Alexander [the Great] himself." [29-30]
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I should add that the connection between India and Israel is also acknowledged in Jewish tradition, which states that Abraham’s other sons went East to India, where they became the priestly caste known as the “brahmanas” “A-braham”? “Brahmana”?] and founded the Indian religions.
 
firstmode said:
The Jesus in India / Jesus in Kashmir / Tomb of Jesus / Debate seems to be a very popular subject these days especially with Muslims, Hindus, people who refute Christianity, and new age thinkers. I am starting this thread to hopefully have a great debate started on this subject which would include Catholics, Protestants, Hindus, Muslims, and various other religions. So lets look at some of the most popular media out there and the claims of Jesus in India:

I have noticed that many new age Americans have collaborated the gathered ideas of Muslims and Hindus that Jesus did not die on the cross, but either survived it medically or someone was crucified in his place out of love for him. The Gnostic Gospel of Judas is the most recent controversial source that describes someone taking Jesus’s place on the cross and dying in his place. This and other Gnostic documents help in these arguments as they point out other resource for New Age people to use along with the Koran’s claim of someone being crucified in Jesus’s place and their beliefs that are formulated from the Gospel of Mary Magdalene and the Divinci code about Jesus surviving the resurrection, taking a wife, and living and teaching in another country.

The main idea is that Jesus went to India to learn from Gurus from 12 to 30 years old (lost years of Jesus from the Bible supposedly) and Jesus did not die and did not get resurrected, but went to India and taught there after the cross or because someone took his place or he medically survived. I will place the book title below, the description of the book if available, and a critical review of the book under the title and author to get the discussion going on some of these topics.

Lets look at the claims and discuss them:
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There is no more reason to debate this, than to lecture on which breed of pig has the best wings for flying to Kashmir​

 
Siddhartha said:
From Who are the Jews of India?

I should add that the connection between India and Israel is also acknowledged in Jewish tradition, which states that Abraham’s other sons went East to India, where they became the priestly caste known as the “brahmanas” “A-braham”? “Brahmana”?] and founded the Indian religions.
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Don’t forget that “Shiva” is from Hebrew “Sheva”, “oath”. Why would the people of India speak Hebrew, if they were not descendants of Abraham; if Abraham had not gone to India, as Genesis says he did ?​

 
Gottle_of_Geer said:

There is no more reason to debate this, than to lecture on which breed of pig has the best wings for flying to Kashmir​

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???

I thought this was a strong topic to debate. I mean, there are people saying that Jesus is Buried in Kashmir and they has supposedly taken Blood samples and matched them up to the Shroud of Turn blood samples, etc.

I do not believe Jesus went to India or died in India, but I would like to see if people have evidence to refute this supposed evidence.
 
Is the purpose of this a dialogue or a monologue? Most of the stuff here has been posted by firstmode.
 
firstmode said:
I do not believe Jesus went to India or died in India, but I would like to see if people have evidence to refute this supposed evidence.
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Other than the gospel accounts and the epistles, you won’t find any evidence to refute these claims. What is amazing to me is that many of these claims discredit the Gospel narratives, yet at the same time use particular details of the gospel as source material. Nobody has come up with an independent first century source that disprove the Gospels and the epistles.
 
I wonder what the history of the Jesus in India movement is? Who started all of this? Who built that tomb that is in India that is supposedly Jesus’s?
 
Jesus was temporarily buried in a tomb in Jerusalem, as was the Theotokos.

But their bodies are in neither place, as they were taken up to heaven.

So what’s to debate? One either accepts this truth or rejects it.
 
firstmode said:
I wonder what the history of the Jesus in India movement is? Who started all of this? Who built that tomb that is in India that is supposedly Jesus’s?
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I remember something about it. It was some Russian guy. In the 1800’s he traveled from Russia to Kashmir and stayed with some Tibetan Monks. According to my memory, he allegedly received an ancient scroll from the monks that mentioned a savior coming from the west to receive enlightenment.

The idea seems doubtful but to be honest, I’m not the most knowledgeable person on this subject. I have a fair amount of knowledge about India around the time of Buddha but theories like this one goes over my head.
 
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