Question by gibbonedward: What is the evidence that Jesus Christ before teaching the Jews had studied scriptures in ancient India?
Best answer:
Answer by Michael
Absolutely None!!!! What scriptures would a devout Jew find in India
Add your own answer in the comments!
There is no evidence for that.
None.
Thats just weird.
Zero. Nothing mentioned in Holy Scriptures about this. Sorry.
You will find all kinds of crazy garbage on the internet, though.
Best to stick to the Bible. It’s the most historically accurate and backed-up document from antiquity.
It is said he curried his own cross at the crucifixion!
SORRY,
But I could not resist it.
lol
There is a tomb in Kashmir that the locals insist belongs to Jesus. There is also a Hindu saint with a similar name. But the real basis for the theory is a mysterious manuscript that a 19th century explorer claimed to find in a Tibetan monastery. It supposedly tells how Jesus left his home at the age of 14 and travelled in India and Tibet until the age of 29. But nobody has been able to confirm the contents of the manuscript, or even that it exists. The monks in the monastery routinely deny the whole thing. The explorer (I forget his name) admitted that he had heavily edited the manuscript before publishing his copy.
None. There are legends and rumors to that effect but most historians are now satisfied that they actually originate with the apostleship of St. Thomas who did indeed teach and die in India. No one to my knowledge has ever seriously suggested that Christ studied Vedic scripture – in India or elsewhere – other than New Agers,which is probably where you heard it from; that,or their precursors,the Theosophists of the 19th century. Blavatsky started that one in her book “Isis Unvelied” or whatever it was called. There is a difference between junk science and honest science and so it is with history also. Blavatsky wrote junk; her books were nothing but ludicrous pseudo-history and sheer fictions. It all made a big comeback in the 70’s. A book called “The Aquarian Gospel of Christ” is the contemporary origin of the idea that Christ’s teachings were inspired by Hinduism. But again,it goes back to Blavatsky – whose imagination was probably fired by the possibly authentic accounts of the mission of St. Thomas.
There is No connection between Christianity & Hinduism..and lets not get into Reincarnation.
Inside of almost every question is buried a fallacy. There is no evidence at all that person ever spoke in Judah. Check out your bible. There isn’t a single time he spoke there.
(The Temple is in Benjamite land.)
Shalom,
Gerson
Yes Jesus lived in India. You may verify the following as historical and scriptural evidence in the interest of Truth.
At the time of Jesus there were two major currents or sects within Judaism: the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees were extremely concerned with strict external observance of their interpretation of the Mosaic Law, ritual worship, and theology. The Sadducees, on the other hand, were very little concerned with any of these and tended toward a kind of genteel agnosticism. Today these two groups might be compared with the Orthodox and the Reformed branches of Judaism respectively.
There was also a third sect which both was and was not part of Judaism. They were the Essenes, whose very name means “the Outsiders.”
Whether they chose this name for themselves or whether it was applied to them by the disdainful Pharisees and Sadducees is not known. But that they were incongruent (even incompatible) to the normal life of Israel at that time is certainly known.
Their claims about their very existence was a controversial matter.
Isaiah and Saint John the Baptist were also Masters of the Essenes. Their purpose was to follow a totally esoteric religious philosophy and practice that was derived from the Egyptian Mysterieswhich were derived from India. As the grandson of the Pharaoh, Moses had been an initiate of those Mysteries and destined to ultimately become the head of the Egyptian religion.Because of this the Essenes had always maintained some form of contact and interchange with India-a fact that galled their fellow Israelites. Regarding this, Alfred Edersheim, in his nineteenth century classic The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, wrote: “Their fundamental tendency was quite other than that of Pharisaism, and strongly tinged with Eastern elements.”
The reality of this contact with India is shown in the Zohar (2:188a-b), a compilation of ancient Jewish mystical traditions and the major text of the Jewish Kabbalah. It contains the following incident regarding the knowledge of an illumined Rabbi concerning the religion of India and the Vedic4 religious rite known as the Sandhya, which is an offering of prayers at dawn and sunset for enlightenment.
“Rabbi Yose and Rabbi Hiyya were walking on the road. While they were walking, night fell; they sat down. While they were sitting, morning began to shine; they rose and walked on. Rabbi Hiyya said, ‘See, the face of the East, how it shines! Now all the children of the East [in India], who dwell in the mountains of light [the Himalayas], are bowing down to this light, which shines on behalf of the sun before it comes forth, and they are worshipping it….Now you might say: ‘This worship is in vain!’ but since ancient, primordial days they have discovered wisdom through it.”
Their contact and interchange with Indian religion-Brahminical practices in particular-were manifested in several ways among the Essenes:
1) They practiced strict non-violence.
2) They were absolute vegetarians and would not touch alcohol in any form. Nor would they eat any food cooked by a non-Essene.
3) They refused to wear anything of animal origin, such as leather or wool, usually making their clothes of linen.
4) They rejected animal sacrifice, insisting that the Torah had not originally ordered animal sacrifice, but that its text had been corrupted-in regard to that and many other practices as well. Their assertion was certainly corroborated by passages in the scriptures such as: “Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?
5). To what purpose [is] the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord:…I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.
6). For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices.
7). The quotations from Isaiah are particularly relevant since he was himself the Master of the Essenes.
Among the Essenes of Israel at the threshold of the Christian Era, none were better known or respected than Joachim and Anna of Nazareth. Anna was renowned as a prophetess and teacher among the Essenes. Their daughter Mary [Miryam], Who had been conceived miraculously beneath the Holy of Holies of the Temple, had passed thirteen years of Her life as a Temple Virgin until her espousal to Joseph of Nazareth. She gave birth to a Son in a cave of Bethlehem. His given name was Jesus (Yeshua in Aramaic and Yahoshua in Hebrew).
His parents took Him into Egypt for some years where they lived with the various Essene communities there. But before that flight, when the Child had been about three years old, sages from India had come to pay Him homage and to establish a link of communication with Him, for His destiny was to live most of His life with them in the land of Eternal Dharma before returning to Israel as a messenger of the very illumination that had originally been at the heart of the Essene order. Through the intermediary of merchants and travellers both to and from India, contact was maintained with their destined Disciple.
At the age of twelve, during the passover observances on Mount Carmel (not in Jerusalem), Jesus petitioned the elders of the Essenes for initiation-something bestowed only on adults after careful instruction and scrutiny. Because of His well-known supernatural character, the elders examined Him before all those present. Not only could He answer all their questions perfectly, when the examination was ended He began to examine them, putting to them questions and statements that were utterly beyond their comprehension. In this way He demonstrated that the Essene order had nothing whatever to teach Him, and that there was no need for Him to undergo any initiation or instruction from them.
Upon His return to Nazareth preparations were begun for His journeying into India to formally become a disciple of those Masters who had come to Him nine years before. The necessary preliminaries took something more than a year, but sometime between the age of thirteen or fourteen, Jesus of Nazareth set forth on a spiritual pilgrimage that would transform Jesus the Nazarene into Isha the Lord, the Teacher of Dharma and Messiah of Israel.
The spiritual training of Jesus
In the Himalayan fastnesses Jesus was instructed in yoga and the highest spiritual life, receiving the spiritual name “Isha,” which means Lord, Master, or Ruler, a descriptive title often applied to God, as in the Isha Upanishad. Isha is also a particular title of Shiva.
Isha’s life in India
For the next few years the Himalayas became Jesus’ well-travelled home. During part of that time Jesus meditated in a cave north of the present-day city of Rishikesh, one of the most sacred locales of India, and also on the banks of the Ganges in the holy city of Hardwar. In the years He spent in the Himalayas, He attained the supreme heights of spiritual realization.
First he went to live in Benares, the spiritual heart of India, the city most consecrated to the worship of Shiva and the major center of Vedic learning in all of India. During His time in the Himalayas, Jesus’ endeavors had been centered almost exclusively on the practice of yoga. In Benares Jesus engaged in intense study of the spiritual teachings embodied in the Vedic scriptures-especially the books of spiritual philosophy known as the Upanishads.
He then journeyed to the sacred city of Jagannath Puri, which at that time was a great center of the worship of Shiva, second only to Benares. In Puri Jesus officially adopted the monastic life and lived some time as a member of the Govardhan Math. There He perfected the synthesis of yoga, philosophy, and renunciation, and eventually began to publicly teach the Eternal Knowledge.
As a teacher Jesus was as popular as He was proficient in teaching, and gained great notoriety among all levels of society. However, because He insisted that all men should learn and be taught the meaning of the Vedas and their allied scriptures and began teaching the “lower” castes accordingly, as well as teaching that all could attain spiritual perfection without the intermediary of external, ritualized religion, He incurred the hatred of many religious “professionals” in Puri who began to plot His death.
Since “His hour was not yet come,” He left Puri and returned to the Himalayas where He again spent quite some time in meditation, preparing Himself for His return to Israel. He also lived in various Buddhist monasteries in the Himalayan region, studying the wisdom of the Buddha.
Before beginning the long journey westward, instructions were given Him regarding His mission in the West and the way messages could be sent between Jesus and His Indian teachers. Jesus was aware of the form and purpose of His life and death from His very birth, but it was the Indian Masters who made everything clear to Him regarding them. They promised Jesus that He would be sent a container of Himalayan Balsam to be poured upon His head by a close disciple as a sign that His death was imminent, even “at the door.” When Saint Mary Magdalene performed this action in Bethany, Jesus understood the unspoken message, saying: “She is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying.”
Return to the West.
Jesus then set forth on His return journey to Israel with the blessings of the Masters to thenceforth be a Dharmacharya, a missionary of Arya Dharma to the Mediterranean world, which at that time was “the West.” All along His way, Jesus taught those who were drawn to His spiritual magnetism and who sought His counsel in the divine life. He promised that after some years He would be sending them one of His disciples who would give them even more knowledge and benefit.
Arriving in Israel, Jesus went directly to Jordan where his cousin John, the Master of the Essenes, was baptizing. There His Christhood was revealed to John and those who had “the eyes to see and the ears to hear.” In this way His brief mission to Israel was begun. Its progress and conclusion are well known, so we need not recount it here except to rectify one point after the next section.
Return to India-not ascension
It is generally supposed that at the end of His ministry in Israel Jesus ascended into heaven. But Saint Matthew and Saint John, the two Evangelists that were eye-witnesses of His departure, do not even mention such a thing, for they knew that He went to India after departing from them. Saint Mark and Saint Luke, who were not there, simply speak of Jesus being taken up into the heavens. The truth is that He departed into India, though it is not unlikely that He did rise up and “fly” there. This form of travel is not unknown to the Indian yogis.
That Jesus did not leave the world at the age of thirty-three was written about by Saint Irenaeus of Lyon in the second century. He claimed that Jesus lived to be fifty or more years old before leaving the earth, though he also said that Jesus was crucified at the age of thirty-three. This would mean that Jesus lived twenty years after the crucifixion. This assertion of Saint Irenaeus has puzzled Christian scholars for centuries, but if we put it together with other traditions it becomes comprehensible. Basilides of Alexandria, Mani of Persia, and Julian the Emperor said that Jesus had gone to India after His crucifixion.
Some Buddhist historical records about Jesus
A contemporary written record of the life and teachings of Jesus in India was discovered in 1887 by the Russian traveler Nicholas Notovitch during his wanderings in Ladakh. He had it translated from the Tibetan text (the original, kept in the Marbour monastery near Lhasa, was in Pali) and, despite intense opposition from Christians in Russia and Europe, published it in his book The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ.32
As would be expected, the authenticity of Notovitch’s book was attacked and various articles written claiming that the monks of the Himis monastery, where Notovitch had found the manuscript, told investigators that they knew nothing of Notovitch or the text. But both Swami Abhedananda and Swami Trigunatitananda-direct disciples of Sri Ramakrishna and preachers of Vedanta in America-went at separate times to the Himis monastery. The monks there not only assured them that Notovitch had spent some time in the monastery as he claimed, they also showed them the manuscript-part of which they translated for Swami Abhedananda, who knew from having read Notovitch’s book that it was indeed the same writing found in The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ. Subsequently, Abhedananda had the English translation of Notovitch’s text printed in India where the Christian authorities had until then prohibited both its publication or its importation and sale.
Swami Trigunatitananda not only saw the manuscript in Himis, he also was shown two paintings of Jesus. One was a depiction of His conversation with the Samaritan Woman at the well. The other was of Jesus meditating in the Himalayan forest surrounded by wild beasts that were tamed by His very presence. A copy made from his description is reproduced on the cover of this booklet.
Later, Dr. Nicholas Roerich, the renowned scholar, philosopher, artist, and explorer, traveled in Ladakh and also was shown the manuscript and assured by the monks that Jesus had indeed lived in several Buddhist monasteries during His “lost years.” He wrote about his own viewing of the scrolls in his book The Heart of Asia.
In 1921 the Himis monastery was visited by Henrietta Merrick who, in her book In the World’s Attic tells of learning about the records of Jesus’ life that were kept there. She wrote: “In Leh is the legend of Jesus who is called Issa, and the Monastery at Himis 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 Elizabeth Caspari visited the Himis monastery. The Abbot showed her some scrolls, which he allowed her to examine, saying: “These books say your Jesus was here.”
Robert Ravicz, a former professor of anthropology at California State University at Northridge, visited Himis in 1975. A Ladakh physician he met there spoke of Jesus’ having been there during His “lost years.”
In the late 1970s Edward Noack, author of Amidst Ice and Nomads in High Asia, and his wife visited the Himis monastery. A monk there told him: “There are manuscripts in our library that describe the journey of Jesus to the East.”
Toward the end of this century the diaries of a Moravian Missionary, Karl Marx, were discovered in which he writes of Notovitch and his finding of scrolls about “Saint Issa.” (Marx’s diaries are kept in the Moravian Mission museum. The pages about Notovitch and the scrolls have “disappeared” and their existence is now denied in an attempt to discredit Notovitch, but before their disappearance they were photographed by a European researcher and have been made public.)
From all this testimony we see that Jesus studied the Buddhist Dharma as well as the Hindu Dharma during His life in India.
Notovitch also claimed that the Vatican Library had sixty-three manuscripts from India, China, Egypt, and Arabia-all giving information about Jesus’ life.
In 1812, Meer Izzut-oolah, a Persian, was sent to Ladakh and central Asia by the East India Company. Though religion was not his mission, he observed much and subsequently wrote in his book Travels in Central Asia: “They keep sculptured representations of departed saints, prophets and lamas in their temples for contemplation. Some of these figures are said to represent a certain prophet who is living in the heavens, which would appear to point to Jesus Christ.”
When Swami Abhedananda was in the Himis monastery doing his research on the records of Jesus life in India he was told by the abbot that Jesus had not departed from the earth at the time His Apostles saw Him ascend, but that He had returned to India where he lived with the Himalayan yogis for many years.
The Nathanamavali
The Bengali educator and patriot, Bipin Chandra Pal, published an autobiographical sketch in which he revealed that Vijay Krishna Goswami, a renowned saint of Bengal and a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, told him about spending time in the Aravalli mountains with a group of extraordinary ascetic monk-yogis known as Nath Yogis. The monks spoke to him about Isha Nath, whom they looked upon as one of the great teachers of their order. When Vijay Krishna expressed interest in this venerable guru, they read his life as recorded in one of their sacred books, the Nathanamavali.36 It was the life of Him Whom the Goswami knew as Jesus the Christ! Here is the relevant portion of that book:
“Isha Natha came to India at the age of fourteen. After this he returned to his own country and began preaching. Soon after, his brutish and materialistic countrymen conspired against him and had him crucified. After crucifixion, or perhaps even before it, Isha Natha entered samadhi by means of yoga.37
“Seeing him thus, the Jews presumed he was dead, and buried him in a tomb. At that very moment however, one of his gurus, the great Chetan Natha, happened to be in profound meditation in the lower reaches of the Himalayas, and he saw in a vision the tortures which Isha Natha was undergoing. He therefore made his body lighter than air and passed over to the land of Israel.
“The day of his arrival was marked with thunder and lightning, for the gods were angry with the Jews, and the whole world trembled. When Chetan Natha arrived, he took the body of Isha Natha from the tomb, woke him from his samadhi, and later led him off to the sacred land of the Aryans. Isha Natha then established an ashram in the lower regions of the Himalayas and he established the cult of the lingam there.”38
This assertion is supported by two relics of Jesus which are presently found in Kashmir. One is His staff, which is kept in the monastery of Aish-Muqan and is made accessible to the public in times of public catastrophe such as floods or epidemics. The other is the Stone of Moses-a Shiva linga that had belonged to Moses and which Jesus brought to Kashmir. This linga is kept in the Shiva temple at Bijbehara in Kashmir. One hundred and eight pounds in weight, if eleven people put one finger on the stone and recite “Ka” over and over, it will rise three feet or so into the air and remain suspended as long as the recitation continues.39 “Shiva” means one who is auspicious and gives blessings and happiness. In ancient Sanskrit the word ka means to please and to satisfy-that which Shiva does for His worshippers.
The Bhavishya Maha Purana
One ancient book of Kashmiri history, the Bhavishya Maha Purana, gives the following account of the meeting of a king of Kashmir with Jesus sometime after the middle of the first century:
“When the king of the Sakas came to the Himalayas, he saw a dignified person of golden complexion wearing a long white robe. Astonished to see this foreigner, he asked, ‘Who are you?’ The dignified person replied in a pleasant manner: ‘Know me as Son of God [Isha Putram], or Born of a Virgin [Kumarigarbhasangbhawam]. Being given to truth and penances, I preached the Dharma to the mlecchas….O King, I hail from a land far away, where there is no truth, and evil knows no limits. I appeared in the country of the mlecchas as Isha Masiha [Jesus Messiah] and I suffered at their hands. For I said unto them, ‘”Remove all mental and bodily impurities. Remember the Name of our Lord God. Meditate upon Him Whose abode is in the center of the sun.”‘ There in the land of mleccha darkness, I taught love, truth, and purity of heart. I asked human beings to serve the Lord. But I suffered at the hands of the wicked and the guilty. In truth, O King, all power rests with the Lord, Who is in the center of the sun. And the elements, and the cosmos, and the sun, and God Himself, are forever. Perfect, pure, and blissful, God is always in my heart. Thus my Name has been established as Isha Masiha.’ After having heard the pious words from the lips of this distinguished person, the king felt peaceful, made obeisance to him, and returned.” The word mleccha is a powerfully derogatory term meaning one who is unclean, barbaric and abhorrent, an alien to all that is good and true. A mleccha is execrable on all levels of his being. The fact that Jesus would refer the Israelites themselves as “mlecchas” and Israel as “the land of the mlecchas…where there is no truth, and evil knows no limits…the land of mleccha darkness” indicates that He in no way identified with either the people or the religion of Israel. He was fully a Sanatana Dharmi-follower of the Eternal Dharma.
Another Kashmiri history, the Rajatarangini, written in 1148 A.D., says that a great saint named Issana lived at Issabar on the bank of Dal Lake and had many disciples, one of which he raised from the dead.
When teaching in Israel, Jesus told the people: “Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold,”speaking of His Indian disciples. For when Jesus came to the Jordan at the beginning of His ministry, He had spent more years of His life in India than in Israel. And He returned there for the remainder of His life, because in all things He was a Son of India-the Christ of India.
This is the cave north of Rishikesh in which Sri Isha lived for some time. In the last century both Swami Rama Tirtha and Swami (Papa) Ramdas lived there (at separate times), and had visions of Isha meditating there, though they had no prior knowledge of His having lived there.
After reading the aforesaid paragraphs by Eternity, I have no answer to offer. Either we accept it or pretend that we have not read it. It is revealing and mind boggling. It can not be a piece of imagination with so many references and cross references.
I must specially thank Eternity for such an astounding revelation.