Jesus in India

One of the ever selling names both in the international and local media is ‘Jesus Christ’. From
Hollywood film doyens to a local newspaper baron everyone in the media markets this name
making huge profit either eulogizing or maligning it. The recent announcement of a RSS affiliated
Marathi trust about republishing G. D. Sarvarkar’s book, Christ Parichay is intended for the latter
motive than anything born out of good will. The author is one of the founders of RSS and a
through-bred Hindutva propagator. He wrote in 1946 in his book that Jesus was a dark-skinned
Vishwakarma Tamil Brahmin from South India who after his sojourns all over the country finally
settled down as a devotee of Shiva and had many dharsans of him. He died eventually at age of 49
and was buried in Kashmir. The most audacious claim is that Christianity is only a sect of
Hinduism started by this itinerant preacher. Sarvarkar draws support for his arguments from two
sources. The first one is The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ (original in French La Vie Inconnue de
Jesus Christ published in 1894) of the Russian Jew, Nicholas Notovich, who visited in 1887 the
Hemis Buddhist monastery in Ladakh, Kashmir. He claimed that the monks read to him in Pali
language about a Bodhisatva Issa from a book titled: “Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men”.
Issa is the Arabic and Sanskrit rendering of the Hebrew name: Yoshua (Jesus). According to
Notovich, Jesus left his native place at the age of thirteen and came to India learned from
Buddhist and Jain monks and visited the holy places here. He finally returned to Jerusalem and
started preaching, where he was persecuted and killed by the leaders of the society. The second
source is the book, Jesus in India (Urdu title: Masih Hindustan) by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the
founder of Ahmadiyya Movement. He published his book in 1904 in which he claims to have
visited the tomb of a certain “Yuz Asaf” (Leader of the Healed) who went around preaching in
Turkey, Afghanistan and finally laid down himself as a Buddhist monk in Kashmir. Contrary to
Notovich Jesus in India states that after crucifixion Jesus escaped to Kashmir where he learned
Vedas and Yoga and became a Hindu hermit with miraculous powers and finally died at a ripe age
and was buried in Kashmir. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad claimed that the tomb of Youza Asouph, a
Muslim saint, in Roza Bal shrine is actually Hazrat Issa Sahib (Tomb of the Lord Master Jesus).
Almost all the biblical scholars and historians brush aside these claims as preposterous and
concocted stories, which help the media not only to make religious-profiteering but also mislead
the academics as well as the believers. Most of the major TV channels such as BBC, History
channel, etc. have made enormous profit selling these stories on the small and also big screens.
Film Division of the Government of India for its part brought out a documentary in 2011 with the
title, Rosa Bal in Kashmir: Tomb of Nabi Isa, to propagate the claim of these commercials and to
support Sarvarkar’s cock and bull stories about Jesus. What can we do with these stories, which
are brought to the public usually during the Christian festivals like Christmas and Easter?
First and foremost, just take them with a pinch of salt! Please give no serious attention to these
stories fabricated by media, which is interested in sensationalising anything and making profit
even out of dead corpse. In the West authors like Dan Brown and Kersten Holger and the
documentary film makers like Simcha Jacobovici and Barrie Wilson are churning out these kind
of stories and make huge profit not because of their artistic and scholarly works, just because the
name, Jesus which has a high market value and it still brings good dividends! Secondly there may
be 1% of truth in these stories but 99% is only imagination and fantasy. For example, there is a
famous tomb in Rosa Bal and the person buried there accidently bears the name Issa. These are
facts but establishing the connection between these facts and the person of Jesus is a commercial
plot for making revenue. So, enjoy reading them, if you are interested, as a historical novel but
never as a history book. And if the stories are from saffron clout you can close your eyes and
throw them into the nearest dustbin with an ease of conscience that you are only destroying the
inflammatory and seductive materials for sake of the common good and to save communal
harmony.
Biblical authors and secular historians of Jesus era have already ascertained the crucifixion and
resurrection of Jesus. All the four Gospels in the New Testament describe the death of Jesus on
the cross and his resurrection. The Acts of the Apostles and the Letters of St. Paul describe how
the belief in the Risen Lord metamorphosed into a community of believers who followed a ‘New
Way’ paved by the teachings of Jesus Christ. Secular historians had given testimony to the death
and resurrection of Jesus. Josephus Flavious, a Jewish historian wrote in his book, Jewish
Antiquities (93 A.D.) about the crucifixion of the Jesus under Pilate due to the insinuation of the
Jewish elders. And he adds further that Jesus ‘appeared to them on the third day, living again, as
the divine prophets foretold, along with a myriad of other marvellous things concerning him’. The
Roman historian, Tacitus wrote in 116 A.D. in his Annals that Jesus was condemned to death by
Pontius Pilate as a rebel against Roman Empire but his followers never ceased to believe in his
continued life after death. Another Roman official, Pliny the Younger, an imperial magistrate
mentions in his letters to the Emperor Trajan (98-117A.D.) about the Christians and their new
religion based on the teachings of Jesus. Therefore, there is no doubt about the historicity of the
death and resurrection of Jesus. Whatever is said and written contrary to the Christian belief is
only for making profit or to spread malicious stories to mislead the public.
The popular claim of some great Hindu sages like Swami Ramakrishna and Vivekanda that Jesus
is one of the avatars of God, is not tenable according to Christian belief. Because by incarnation
Jesus became fully human and fully divine, he did not merely put on the divine nature like a
garment. As the Letter to the Hebrews says, “He was like us in everything but sin” (Hebrews 4,
15). However, incarnation does not limit the divine presence to a single epoch and a particular
place in history. Indian theologians like Raimundo Panikkar acknowledge the pre-existence of
Christ in Indian religious tradition (The Unknown Christ of Hinduism). And as Desmond Tutu
says, “There was God in Africa before missionaries set in’. Both try in that way to uphold the
multi-forms of divine revelation though Christian theology still holds on to the position of
uniqueness of Christian revelation in and through Jesus Christ. Incarnation theology does not rule
out the pre-existence of Christ in other cultures and other histories. But what Hindutva stalwarts
are trying to do with their claim, that Christianity is a sect of Hinduism and Jesus hails from South
India or from Kashmir, is to create a monoculture and uniformity of religious expressions
subordinating all the religious traditions to Pan-Hindutva fold. That is a dangerous move that has
to be resisted with all good will and right force. Susannah Heschel’s book, The Aryan Jesus:
Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany published in 2009, shows how the Nazis
regime before the World War II tried to prove that Jesus had Aryan blood and he is a super Aryan
to save the world. There is nothing to be surprised that such claims soon would hit the media in
our country, as saffron colour is ruling the roost now! Caution is needed and courage is in demand
to resist such malignant and malicious attempts in the name of unity and nationalism!