 |
| Photograph from ‘The tomb of Jesus’ by Mutiur Rahman Bengalee (1946). Bengalee was instrumental in bringing Ahmediya movement to North America in the 1930s. |
According to the fantastical stories the rod of Moses was also originally kept at the grave of Yus Asaf of Khanyar but was later moved to the shrine of Sheikh Zain-ud-din at Aishmuqam, that there is another grave the real grave underneath the present one kept at the location. And so on. The stories are fantastic. Recently some one even wrote a thriller around the stories titled ‘Rozabal Line’ inspired by the’Rose Line’ in “Da Vinci Code”.
I first read about – ‘Rozbal, Jesus in Kashmir, grave of Yus Asaf (Kashmiri Jesus) at Rozbal Khanyaar…and so on’, many years ago as a teenager when one afternoon I discovered a tattered old thin book (don’t remember its name) in the Ranbir Singh library of Jammu about the Kashmiri Jesus. I was certainly intriguing, especially at that age. Now I am intrigued by interest of people in this tale. And since then, having read some original sources, I have learnt some new things about it the origins of this Jesus.
These fantastic stories about ‘Jesus in Kashmir stories’ first started doing rounds towards the end of 19th century and were spread and started by Ahmedias. It actually had more to do with power tussle among the Muslims.
Muslims believe Jesus Christ was not crucified but rather ascended straight to heaven. They also believe that his second advent would signal the end of world… that would be Qiyamat (the Day of Judgement). As opposed to this Ahmedians have their own concept of the last Messiah. Ahmedians believe Christ, wounded and in an unconscious state, was removed from the cross at the last moment and moved to a secret burial altar . Special ointment (marham-i-isa) was applied on his wounds and over days he eventually got better. But then he came out of the burial vault and traveled to the holy land of Kashmir where he taught the lost tribes of Israel, became known as Yus Asaf, lived until the age of 120 and was finally buried at Khanyaar.
Today’s the start of 20th century thee stories were picked by visiting foreigners who were already fascinated by the ‘Jewish’ looking Kashmiris and now by these interesting tales about Kashmiri Jesus.
Sir Francis Younghusband, Resident of Kashmir for three years starting 1906, about these Jesus in Kashmir stories, wrote in his book ‘Kashmir’ (1911):
“Other interesting types of Kashmir Mohamedans are found among the headmen of the picturesque little hamlets along the foot-hills. Here may be seen fine old patriarchal types, just as we picture to ourselves the Israelitish heroes of old. Some, indeed, say, though I must admit without much authority, that these Kashmiris are of the lost tribes of Israel. Only this year there died in the Punjab the founder of a curious sect, who maintained that he was both the Messiah of the Jews and the Mahdi of the Mohamedans; that Christ had never really died upon the Cross, but had been let down and had disappeared, as He had foretold, to seek that which was lost, by which He meant the lost tribes of Israel ; and that He had come to Kashmir and was buried in Srinagar. It is a curious theory, and was worked out by this founder of the Quadiani sect in much detail. There resided in Kashmir some 1900 years ago a saint of the name of Yus Asaf, who preached in parables and used many of the same parables as Christ used,as, for instance, the parable of the sower. His tomb is in Srinagar, and the theory of this founder of the Quadiani sect is that Yus Asaf and Jesus are one and the same person. When the people are in appearance of such a decided Jewish cast it is curious that such a theory should exist ; and certainly, as I have said, there are real Biblical types to be seen everywhere in Kashmir, and especially among the upland villages. Here the Israelitish shepherd tending his flocks and herds may any day be seen.”
The founder of the sect (Ahmedian) was Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian who died in 1908.
The really interesting thing is that at the root of these stories was a Russian Jew converted to Greek Orthodoxy, a man named Nicolas Notovitch ( believed to be the inspiration for the character of Great Game Spy in Rudyard Kipling’s Kim).
In 1887 Nicolas Notovitch, visited India and Tibet. Notovitch claimed that during his travels in the Himalayas, at the monastery of Hemis in Ladakh, he came to know about the ‘secret life of Jesus’ through a ‘Tibetan gospel’ (that he translated as) “Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men.” In 1894, Notovitch got this ‘unknown gospel’ published in French as La vie inconnue de Jesus Christ. And it later became famous ‘The Unknown Life of Chris’.
According to this text Jesus at the age of thirteen ( start of his lost years ) traveled to India and learned the local religions of Jains, Hindus and Buddhists and preached to them.
And so the stories goes on.
Now, here’s the interesting part.
In 1887, Nicolas Notovitch wasn’t the only one traveling in that region, another great gamer – Francis Younghusband was also on a journey that took him from ‘Peking to Kashmir via the Gobi Desert, Kashgaria, and the Mustang Pass’. The two men met on the edge of Zojila Pass somewhere between Srinagar and Leh. Nicolas Notovitch was on his way from Kashmir and Francis Younghusband was on his way to Srinagar.
Sir Francis Edward Younghusband was himself very much interested in the ‘new’ and strange ideas of ‘Easter Mysticism’, ‘Spiritualism’ – ‘the Occult’, Madame Blavatsky kind of ideas, the one in which world was run by secret cult of masters living in Tibet (again an idea first conceived in 1870s ). Younghusband certainly toyed with these ideas, especially in his later years – often to an absurd level, one can even call him the ‘Grand Daddy of Hippies’. At one time he did mingle with Theosophists of Blavatsky.
And yet in his book ‘The Heart of a Continent: A Narrative of Travels in Manchuria, 1884-1894’ , published 1896, Francis Younghusband wrote:
“A march or two after passing Skardu, the chief place in Baltistan, I met the first European on the south side of the Himalayas. He was not an Englishman, but a Frenchman, M. Dauvergne; and in his tent I has the first good meal and talk in English I had had for many a month. A few marches further on I met another European. This one at any rate, i thought, must be an Englishman, and I walked up to him with all the eagerness a traveller has to meet a countryman of his own after not seeing one for nearly seven months. But this time it turned out that the stranger was a Russian! He announced himself as M. Nicolas Notovitch, an adventurer who had, I subsequently found, made a not very favorable reputation in India. I asked M. Notovitch where he had come from, and he replied that he had come from Kashmir. He then asked me where I had come from. I said from Peking. It much amused me, therefore, when leaving he said in a theatrical way, “We part here, the pioneers of the East!”
The same M. Notovitich has recently published what he calls a new “Life of Chirst,” which he professes to have found in a monastery in Ladakh, after he had parted with me. No one, however, who knows M. Notovitch’s reputation, or who has the slightest knowledge of the subject, will give any reliance whatever to this pretentious volume.
But the stories were already travelling and there were many takers, there always are.
In fact according to one view, Notovitch actually took inspiration from an idea that was already in the air. This idea came from a fictional work of Blavatsky titled Isis Unveiled (1877) in which a traveler with the broken leg is taken to Mount Athos in Greece where, in the monastery library, he discovers the text of Celsus‘ True Doctrine . The idea of Jesus’ flight to India was also inspired by a particular statement in Isis Unveiled that alludes to his travel to the Himalayas. She wrote:
Do what we may, we cannot deny Sakya-Muni Buddha a less remote antiquity than several centuries before the birth of Jesus. In seeking a model for his system of ethics why should Jesus have gone to the foot of the Himalayas rather than to the foot of Sinai, but that the doctrines of Manu and Gautarna harmonized exactly with his own philosophy, while those of Jehovah were to him abhorrent and terrifying? The Hindus taught to return good for evil, but the Jehovistic command was: “An eye for an eye” and “a tooth for a tooth.”
– Isis Unveiled, Vol. 2, Page 164
And the story found a pioneer taker.
-0-
Sir Walter Roper Lawrence (1857-1940), in his book “The Valley of Kashmir” (1895), documented the curious custom of Kashmiri Pundits regarding Smallpox treatment. He wrote: 
