JESUS OF TIBET

JESUS OF TIBET: MYSTERY YEARS REVEALED

The Gospels record Jesus age twelve in the temple. Then about age thirty at the river Jordan. That leaves approximately seventeen years unaccounted for. During those so called lost years, the child ‘increased in wisdom and stature,’ Luke wrote. But was it in the carpenter shop at Nazareth?

Nicolas Notovitch's Accident Near Himis Paintings © SteamChip http://www.harekrsna.com/sun/features/05-12/features2451.htm

According to ancient Tibetan manuscripts, Jesus secretly withdrew from the home of Mary and Joseph at age thirteen. Young ‘Issa’ joined a merchant caravan. Destination: India and the Himalayas. At Juggernaut, “the white priests of Brahma made him a joyous welcome. They taught him to read and understand the Vedas, to cure by aid of prayer, to teach, to explain the Holy Scriptures [1] to the people, and to drive out evil spirits from the bodies of men.

Notovitch writes in his Journal as his translator interprets the ancient language read by the lama from the Issa scrolls. http://www.harekrsna.com/sun/features/05-12/features2451.htm

• Buddhist scholoras documented “The life of Saint Isssa’ two thousand years ago.
• Nicolos Notovitch discovered the long-lost document in 1887 at the Himis monastery in Ladakh.
• Swami Abhedananada published a Bengali translation of the Himis manuscript in 1929.
• Nicholas Roerich quoted the same verses in a 1929 travel diary of his Asian expedition.
• And in 1939, a beaming lama at Himis presented a set of parchments to Elisabeth Caspari with the words:
“These books say your Jesus was here”

Hemis Monastery, Ladakh as it looked in 1876 http://www.universalfellowshipoflight.com/the-mysteries-of-jesus-and-mary-new-light-from-the-yogic-tradition-of-indian-siddhas-by-gonga

http://nipunscorp.com/2011/10/20/adventure-trekking-mountaineering-in-ladakh/

Ladakh (land of high passes) is in Jammu and Kashmir, the northernmost state of the India that lies between the Kunlun mountain range in the north and the main Great Himalayas to the south. Being closed in by mountain ranges of rock and ice dividing the Indus Valley from Tibet, Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, in Ladakh, the human habitation is restricted to narrow strips of greenery clinging to the rivers that drain down from mountain glaciers. The people therein at Ladakh are of Indo-Aryan and Tibetan descent. It is one of the most sparsely populated regions in Jammu and Kashmir of India.

Now you can read the controversial stories of these travelers together with the original Buddhist scriptures on the most important events that shaped the life and work of the savior Jesus Christ.
A historical breakthrough that will shake the foundations of modern Christendom!

Above is a gleaning from the book titled “The Lost Years of Jesus” and subtitled ‘Documentary evidence of Jesus’s 17-year journey to India, Nepal and Tibet written by Elizabeth Clare Prophet. ISBN-13: 978-81-8495-019-9, 1984

Jesus' journey to the East as per the book

Above text is annotated on both sides of a single leaf sandwiched between the two title pages and three pages of Critical  Acclaim in the beginning of the book.

Moreover, following gleaning is off the rear cover of the same book:
Ancient texts reveal that Jesus spent seventeen years in the Orient. They say that from age 13 to age 29 he was both student and teacher. The events of his pilgrimage from Jerusalem to India were recorded by Buddhist historians.
For the first time Elizabeth Clare Prophet brings together the testimony of four eye witnesses of these remarkable documents. With the thoroughness of a determined disciple turned detective she tells the intriguing story of the international controversy that arose when the manuscripts were first discovered in 1887 by Nicolas Notovitch-how experts “proved” they did not exist, only to have them rediscovered in this century by Swami Abhedananda, Professor Nicolas Roerich, and Mme Elisabeth Caspari.
Now you can read in one volume the chronicled and legends of what Jesus did and said in India, Nepal, Ladakh, and Tibet prior to his Palestinian mission-and the heartwarming personal accounts of those who made the trek to the Himalayas and brought back the most revolutionary message of our time.

Himis Monastery Festival http://kunzum.com/2009/09/21/hemis-monastery-ladakh-inspired-by-a-vulture%E2%80%99s-nest/

Himis Monastery http://kunzum.com/2009/12/07/can-lamas-buddhist-monks-really-fly/

The book consists of
Content page
Chapter 1 :THE LOST YEARS OF JESUS
Analysis of eyewitness accounts of travelers who have made the trek to Himis: Case for Issa
Illustrations: paintings
Chapter 2: THE UNKNOWN LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST
Nicolas Notovitch’s original work, including The Life of Saint Issa: Photograph of Nicolas Notovitch; Translators note; To the Publishers; preface; Journey to Tibet; The Life of Saint Issa –Best of the Sons of Men
Engravings: The Author’s Itinerary across India; The Author’s Itinerary across- Kashmir and Ladak; Portrait of the Governor of Ladak; Musicians of the Monastery; Masquerades with Conical Hats, Copper Masks; Thlogan-Pouduma-Jungnas; Masqueradore in the Suite of the Gods; Masquerades with olden Crowns; The God of Animals; Youth Dressed as Warriors
Chapter 3: ON THE TRAIL TO HIMIS
Selections from Swami Abhedananda’s In Kashmir and Tibet with his translation of the Himis manuscript: Photograph of Swami Abhedananda; Editors Note; Himis Monastery; Jesus Christ, the Leader of Men As Described in the Manuscripts of the Himis Retreat
Chapter 4: LEGENDS OF THE EAST
Nicholas Roerich-Excerpts from Altai-Himalaya, Heart of Asia, and Himalaya with original texts on Saint Issa; Photograph of Nicholas Rorich; Roerich the Man, His Expeditions and Finds; The Ancient Texts on Christ in India, Nepal, Ladakh, and Tibet
Chapter 5: THESE BOOKS SAY YOUR JESUS WAS HERE!
Elisabeth Caspari’s testimony on the texts at Himis: Photograph of Elisabeth Caspari; The Parchment in Hand; Photographs by Charles and Elisabeth Caspari
Chapter 6: LADAKH TODAY-IMPRESSIONS OF A CULTURAL ANTHROLPOGIST
Dr. Robert S. Ravicz traces the traditions of life and worship to the present: Colorful Crossroads of An Ancient Culture
Chapter 7: EPILOGUE: A Tale of Two Worlds: Jesus Approaching Ladakh as a Youth by J. Michael Spooner; A Few Final Questions
Chapter 8: CREDITS: After the Final Curtain: A tribute to the Scriptwriter and the Cast: Acknowledgement of Collaborators
Notes, Bibliography and Letters From Readers

http://www.vajra-voyages.com/cultural.html

Given below are the first three entries of the critical reviews of this groundbreaking wealth of information, the fascinating story of the lost years of Jesus.
(1) The first review is by no other than John c. Trever, Ph. D., Director of the Dead Sea Scrolls Project of the school of Theology at Claremont, California, U. S. A. Here are his words:
“An interesting addition to the ongoing investigation into the lost years of Jesus. The sources for the traditions of Jesus’ journey to the East apparently grew out of medieval observations that similarities in the teachings of Buddha and Jesus were not a coincidence that two traditions-but must have had some sort of logical connection. I would like to suggest another chapter be added discussing not only what Jesus did in his early life but some believe he did in Kashmir after the Crucifixion.”
(2) The second review is by John Dependahl, Chairman of the Religion Department, Seabury Hall Hawaii, U.S. A. http://www.seaburyhall.org/
“The book may well change the way academia, clergy and the laity view the son of God. Moreover, it may well set a foundation for a transcultural hermeneutic that unites the religious disciples of East and West. Guaranteed to set off an array of theological fermentations! I heartily recommend it.”
(3) “I have read the whole book. It is interesting and very important. We should be grateful to you for publishing this book”

Religions in Ladakh
Religion			Percent
Hindus			8.1%
Muslims			13.7%
Buddhists			77.2%
Others†			1%
Distribution of religions †Includes Sikhs (0.2%), Buddhists (<0.2%).

 Above is a must view documentary film produced by the government of India narrating Jesus in India in search of wisdom & knowledge.

Following footnotes are by bunpeiris

The third review  (3)  is by the illustrious and most pious Buddhist monk Balangoda Ananda Maitreya, former vice-chancellor of university of Sri Jayewardenepura, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Buddhist monk Balangoda Ananda Maitreya wasn’t simply a scholar.  Balangoda Ananda Maitreya (August 23, 1896 – July 18, 1998)  had been known to have attained a certain lower plain in enlightenment in line with Buddhism by means of two forms of Buddhist meditation called Samatha meditation and Vipassana meditation. It has been recorded that he had once witnessed god Skanda, the deity of Kataragama, Sri Lanka.

The gods such as God Skanda that has been embraced by some of the Buddhists in Sri Lanka stand in sharp contrast with the almighty or eternal or gods in the main religions of the world. These gods go through the process of death and rebirth, just as human beings do. Most possibly those gods are superior beings living in other planets.

There is no almighty God in Buddhism: there is no one to hand out rewards or punishments; there is no judgment day.

Buddhism isn’t a religion that demands blind faith, worship and allegiance to a supernatural being.

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.

Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.

Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.

Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.

Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

Buddha was a man who attained supreme enlightenment. Buddhism focuses entirely on the practical ways to end suffering caused by the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.

Furthermore Buddhism doesn’t contribute towards the notion of permanent individual soul that keeps being reborn into new bodies in the process of reincarnation. Everything is  impermanent.

[1] Scriptures

The Western terms "scripture" and "canonical" are applied to Buddhism in inconsistent ways by Western scholars: for example, one authority refers to "scriptures and other canonical texts", while another says that scriptures can be categorized into canonical, commentarial and pseudo-canonical.

A rather more definite division is that between Buddhavacana [Pali, Sanskrit and Sinhala: the Word of the Buddha. It refers to the works accepted within a tradition as being the teachings of the Buddha]. and other texts. In Theravada Buddhism, the standard collection of Buddhavacana is the Pali Canon or Tipitaka: Pali language texts which form the doctrinal foundation of Theravada Buddhism, and is the main body of scriptures for Buddhists. Tipitaka is translated as "three" (Ti) "baskets" (pitaka), in the Pali language. The three baskets are: the Basket of (monastic) Discipline; the Basket of Discourses; the Basket of Further Dhamma.

Despite the differences among Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana schools of Buddhism, traditional Buddhists of all schools recognize the Pali suttas as being the most uncontested records of the Buddha’s teachings.

With a view to preserve the purity of the doctrine of Buddha Buddhist councils has been held since the final extinction of Gautama Buddha.

First Buddhist Council

Location: Sattapanni Cave near mount Vebhara in Rajagaha, India

Time: 544 BC, three months after the demise of Buddha

Duration: seven months

Presided by: Buddhist monk venerable Mahakassapa

Participants: Five hundred Elder Arahant monks [Supremely enlightened monks]

Patron: King Ajatasattu

Objective: to preserve the Buddha's sayings (suttas) and the monastic discipline or rules (Vinaya). The Suttas were recited by Ananda, and the Vinaya was recited by Upali. According to some sources, the Abhidhamma Pitaka, or its matika, was also included. Also the Sangha made the unanimous decision to keep all the rules of the Vinaya, even the lesser and minor rules.

.

Second Buddhist Council

Location: Valukarama monastery in Vaisali

Time: one hundred years after the extinction of Buddha in 450 BC

Duration: eight months.

Presided by: venerable Sabbakami

Participants: Seven hundred Buddhist monks

Patron: King Kalasoka

Objective: to arrest the growth of irreligion and ensuring the conservation of Vinaya. It was at this council that the schism brook out upon the Buddhist monastic conventions. The Vajjins refused to obey these conventions whereas the Orthodox group of monks called Theravadins reasserted same.

Third Buddhist Council

Location:  was held at Asokarama Monastery in Pataliputta (Patna)

Time:  in 260 BC for

Duration: nine months.

Presided by: venerable Moggaliputta Tissa Thera

Patron: Mauryan Emperor Asoka

Participants: One thousand Buddhist monks well-versed in canonical scriptures

Objective:  Its objective was to purify the Buddhist movement, particularly from opportunistic factions which had been attracted by the royal patronage. It compiled the original Tipitaka Scriptures including the Abhidhamma Pitaka and a new treatise Kathavatthu Pakarana.

Fourth Buddhist Council

Location: was held at Aloka Cave or Sri Lanka Holidays Aluvihara in Matale located between 26km north of  Sri Lanka Holidays Kandy [Southernmost point of Cultural Triangle] and 48km south of Dambulla [the main transportation hub of Sri Lanka Cultural Triangle] on A9 Kandy Jaffna highway in Sri Lanka

Time: in 80 – 100 BC

Presided by: Venerabe Maharakkhita 

Participants: five hundred Buddhist monks

Patron: Sinhalese King Vattagamini Abbaya (Valagambahu) [108 BC, 89-76 BC], the builder of Golden Dambulla Rock Cave Temple [A UNESCO World Heritage Site].

It was at this Buddhist Council in Sri Lanka that the Tipitaka along with the Atthakathas [Sinhala; commentaries] was committed to writing (in palm leaves) for the first time in the world. While the Sinhalese were inscribing the greatest contribution to the humanity. The hoards of painted barbarians were still fighting the two legions of Julius Caesar at the beachhead  of modern Wilmer on the coast of Kent (55 BC) of England.

Objective: to secure the words in Buddha in its purest form in writing in the background of recurrent invasions by marauding Dravidians from Southern India and severe famine resulting in death of a significant number of Buddhist Monks and populace at that time in Sri Lanka.

Copies of Tipitaka written in Pali language was taken to the Asian neighbors: Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos.

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Friends of Opposite Gender

Everything is possible is human condition: supreme eminence to ultimate debasement; selfless love to demonic barbarism not to forget sexual love to platonic love.

Platonic love between the friends of opposite gender and open declaration of same hasn’t been uncommon in his story of the humankind, even in the Muslim countries.

Following is an excerpt from the book titled “Indentity and Violence” by Amartya Singh

Religious Identity and Cultural Variations

There can also be vast differences in the social behavior of differen persons belonging to the same religion, even in fields often thought to be closely linked with religion. This is easy to illustrate in the contemporary world, for eample, in contrasting the typical practices of traditionalist rural women in, say Saudi Arabia and those of Muslim women in urban Turkey where head scarves are rare, dress codes that often similar to those of European women.

 It can also be illustrated by noting the vast diffenrnces in the habis of socially active women in bangaldesh and the less outgoing women in more conservative circles in the very same country, even though the persons involved may all be Muslim by religion.

These differences must not, however, be seen simply as aspects of a new phenomenon that modernity has brought to Muslim people. The influence of  other concenrns, other identities, can be seen throughout the history of Muslim people. Consider a debate between two Muslims in the fourteenth century. Ibn Battuta [1], who was born inn Tangier in 1304 and spent thirty years in various travels in Africa and Asia, was shocked by some of the things he saw in a part of the world that now lies between Mali and Ghana. In Iwaltan, not far from Timbuktu [2], Ibn Battuta befriended the Muslim qadi, who beheld an important civic office there.

Ibn Battuta records his digust wiuth the social behavior in the qadi’s family:

One day I went to the presence of the qadi of Iwaltan, after asking his permission to enter, and found with him a young and remarkably beautiful woman. When I saw her I hesitated and wished to withdraw, but she laughed at me and experienced no shyness. The qadi said to me: “Why are you turning back? She is my friend.” I was amazed at their behavior.

But the qadi was not the only one who shocked Iban Battuta, and he was particularly censorious of Abu Muhammad Yandakan al-Musufi, who was a good Muslim and had earlier on actually visited Morocco himself. When Ibn Battuta visited him at his house, he found a woman conversing with a man seated on a couch. Ibn Battuta reports:

I said to him: “Who is this woman?” He said: ‘She is my wife.” I said: ‘What connection has the man with her?’ He replied: “He is her friend.” I said to him: “Do you acquiesce in this when you have lived in our country and become aquainted with the precepts of the Shariah?” He replied: “The association of women with men is agreeable to us and a part of good conduct, to which no suspicion attaches. They are not like the women of your country.” I was astonished at his laxity. I left him and did not return thereafter. He invited me several times, but I did not accept.

Unquote “Indentity and Violence” by Amartya Singh, ISBN-13: 978-0-393-32929-2

[1] Ibn Battuta
The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, a Muslim Traveler of the Fourteenth Century By Ross E. Dunn
Ibn Battuta visited Ceylon (Sri Lanka) on his way to Ma’bar so that he might go on pilgrimage to the top of Adam’s Peak, the spectacular concical mountain that loomed over the southwestern interior of the island. “That exceeding high mountain hath a pinnacle of surpassing height, which, on account of the the clouds, can rarely be seen,” wrote John de Marignolli, the Christian monk who passed through Ceylon just a few years after Ibn Battuta. “But God, pitying our tears, lighted it up one morning just before the sun rose, so that we beheld it glowing with the brightest flame’ Ibn Battuta recalls that he  first saw the peak from far out to sea, “rising up into the sky like a column of smoke.” The mountain was scared to Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists alike, and pilgrims of all three faiths climbed together to the summit to behold a depression in the surface of the rock vaguely resembling the shape of an enormous foot. For Buddhists it is a trace of the Great God Shiva, and for some Christians it belongs to St. Thomas. In Muslim tradition God cast Adam and Eve from the seventh heaven in disgrace, and when they tumbled to earth the man landed hard on the peak on the mountain, leaving an impress of his foot in the solid rock. He remained there for a thousand years atoning for his sins, until the Archangel Gabriel led him to Arabia, where Eve had fallen. The man and the woman met on the plain of ‘Arafat and later returned  to Ceylon to propagate the human race. Adam was not only the first man but the first prophet of Islam as well, and it was to reverence him that Muslim pilgrim trekked to the Foot, As they still do today.

[2] Timbuktu
In its Golden Age, the town's numerous Islamic scholars and extensive trading network made possible an important book trade: together with the campuses of the Sankore Madrasah, an Islamic university, this established Timbuktu as a scholarly centre in Africa. Several notable historic writers, such as Shabeni and Leo Africanus, have described Timbuktu. T
Timbuktu is a town in the West African nation of Mali situated 15 km (9.3 mi) north of the River Niger on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. The town is the capital of the Timbuktu Region, one of the eight administrative regions of Mali. It had a population of 54,453 in the 2009 census.
Starting out as a seasonal settlement, Timbuktu became a permanent settlement early in the 12th century. After a shift in trading routes, Timbuktu flourished from the trade in salt, gold, ivory and slaves, and it became part of the Mali Empire early in the 13th century. In the first half of the 15th century the Tuareg tribes took control of the city for a short period until the expanding Songhay Empire absorbed the city in 1468. A Moroccan army defeated the Songhay in 1591, and made Timbuktu, rather than Gao, their stronghold. The invaders established a new ruling class, the arma, who after 1612 became independent of Morocco.
In its Golden Age,  Timbuktu's numerous Islamic scholars and extensive trading network made possible an important book trade: together with the campuses of the Sankore Madrasah, an Islamic university, this established Timbuktu as a scholarly centre in Africa. Several notable historic writers, such as Shabeni and Leo Africanus, have described Timbuktu. 
However, the golden age of the city was over and it entered a long period of decline. Different tribes governed until the French took over in 1893, a situation that lasted until it became part of the current Republic of Mali in 1960. Presently Timbuktu is impoverished and suffers from desertification. Several initiatives are being undertaken to restore the historic manuscripts still kept in the city. Meanwhile, tourism forms an important source of income.

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