Over the centuries, various legends about Jesus have emerged, and people have speculated about his early years and after his suffering. Legend has it that he traveled to Egypt, India, England, Japan and the Americas. It is believed that he traveled, studied, and even fell in love in these places. Modern popular literature also claims that Jesus had descendants who became the ancestors of European royalty.
The claim that European royalty is a descendant of Jesus naturally excites the royals. Unexpectedly, India, far away from Europe, will also spread the story of Jesus who came to India and left his descendants. The Japanese Buddhist Shingon sect also came to join in the fun, saying that after the crucifixion of Jesus, he came to Japan and married and had children in Japan. There are also legends of Jesus going to England and America. But not all rumors are true, unless Jesus can move and teleport.
Since there is no clear record of Jesus' early years between about 12-30 years old, this also gives people a huge amount of room for imagination. Some believe that Jesus came to the East when he was young. In India, it is said that Jesus came to India after his crucifixion and became a Buddhist teacher. This theory was first proposed by the Russian traveler Nicholas Notovich. In 1887, he went to the Hermis Monastery in Ladakh and saw a special manuscript. The manuscript records Jesus' unknown life experiences. The jesus in the manuscript is called Issa, who practiced with yogis in India, Nepal, and the Himalayas.
Nicholas Notović
Notovich believes that the manuscript was written after Jesus' resurrection and is true. The manuscript was from the 3rd century AD, and the manuscript he saw was a Tibetan translation of the original manuscript, which was stored in Lhasa. However, Notovich's statement attracted many people's opposition, and such a controversy spread this statement. The Sanskrit scholar Max Miller believed that Notovich might not have been to the Monastery of Hermis at all, that the story was all fabricated by him, or that some monks were making fun of him and making up stories to deceive him. Later, when someone visited the Monastery of Hemis, the lamas in the monastery completely denied that Notovich had come or that there was a manuscript of him. In 1922, the Indian scholar Abenanda personally visited Hermis and gained the trust of the lamas and saw the legendary manuscript. Subsequent explorers confirmed this claim, and it appears that Notovich did not lie.
Notovich believes that Indian traders brought manuscripts about Jesus to Hermis, but Notovich does not believe that Jesus came to Hermis, but says that the manuscripts recording the deeds of Issa were brought from India to Nepal and from Nepal to Tibet. But as more and more people visited Hermis, somehow it was said that Jesus had practiced here. The contents of the manuscript may be a record of stories circulating among the merchants, and it is not necessarily what they saw with their own eyes in India or Tibet.
The temple of Hermis
Hearsay stories are not to be believed, and there are many strange things about Notovich's claims. He said that Issa was a saint and was widely known in India and other parts of Asia, and in fact not many people knew about Issa except the lamas who had studied the manuscripts. The original legend about the manuscript in Sanskrit is also untenable. The Tibetan language was only created in the 7th century AD, so how can there be translation manuscripts from the 3rd century? In fact, Tibetan documents before the 9th century are very sparse, and the manuscripts stored in Hermis are very suspicious.
Interestingly, Notovich spent six days in srinagar, the sun city of Srinaga in the Kashmir Valley, and went to the tomb of the prophet Yuz Assaf, who is said to be Jesus. This tomb is called the Rozabal Shrine, and if it is really the tomb of Jesus, it is a perfect proof of Jesus' life in India.
But Notovich didn't record the place because he didn't believe the legend at all. Above the tomb there are clear footprints, with traces of nails, as if Jesus had been crucified. However, this so-called holy relic is very common in India, and many of the footprints of the gods bear the marks of nails.
Crucially, the pronunciation of Yuz Assaf does not represent Jesus, but Joseph. This is not a real name, but a synonym for the clergy. There are even Oriental scholars who call Joseph the name of a bodhisattva, while many saints are revered as bodhisattvas, and it is difficult for the people in the tomb to determine who it is.
Rozabar Shrine
Legend has it that Isa once attacked Brahmanism, which is the Buddhist view. The local Buddhists seem to want to prove that Jesus, a Western sage, was deeply influenced by Buddhism and even taught by the Buddha. Legend has it that the Buddha chose Issa as the propagator of the Dharma, and Issa was quite accomplished in her understanding of the Dharma. The purpose of these legends is probably to raise the status of Buddhism and to see Christianity as a tributary of Buddhism in the West.
On the other hand, manuscripts may also have been forged by Christians. They wanted to use the influence of Buddhism in the local area to enhance the status of Jesus Christ. The content of the manuscript placed great emphasis on women, as the low status of Indian women attracted women to Isa. The image of Isa in the manuscript is simply a representative of the lower classes, which is extremely attractive to the Shudra caste and the Dalit class. In fact, today these people are also the main target group of Christian missions.
For ordinary people, the most reasonable explanation for these rumors about Jesus is that the Jesus in the story is a mythical figure, a cultural symbol, rather than a real person who travels the world. Legends are legendary because they have bizarre plots, but there is no conclusive evidence. For these brain-opening stories, we may as well listen to them, and the truth behind the stories is more worthy of our playfulness and contemplation.