Lost years of Jesus Christ
Well, this is obviously a controversial topic and lots of people have different opinions on whether Christ came to India or not. However, one fact is known to everybody that there are 18 years that have no account in the New Testament. They are also called Silent Years, Lost Years or Missing Years of Jesus Christ.
The phrases "lost years of Jesus" is usually encountered in esoteric literature, (where it at times also refers to his possible post-crucifixion activities) but is not commonly used in scholarly literature since it is assumed that Jesus was probably working as a carpenter in Galilee from the age of twelve till thirty, so the years were not "lost years", and that he died in Calvary.
In the late medieval period, Arthurian legends appeared that the young Jesus had been in Britain. In the 19th and 20th centuries theories began to emerge that between the ages of 12 and 30 Jesus had visited India, or had studied with the Essenes in the Judea desert. Modern mainstream Christain scholarship has generally rejected these theories and holds that nothing is known about this time period in the life of Jesus.
Jesus in India before crucifixion
There are various theories raised by different people about this. Let's have a look at all of them.
Louis Jacolliot, 1869
The idea of Indian influences on Jesus (and Christianity) has been suggested in Louis Jacolliot's book La Bible dans l'Inde, Vie de Iezeus Christna (1869), although Jacolliot does not claim travels by Jesus to India.Jacolliot compared the accounts of the life of Bhagavan Krishna with that of Jesus Christ in the gospels and concluded that it could not have been a coincidence that the two stories have so many similarities in many of the finer details. However, Jacolliot was comparing two different periods of history (or mythology) and did not claim that Jesus was in India. Jacolliot used the spelling "Christna" instead of "Krishna" and claimed that Krishna's disciples gave him the name "Jezeus," a name supposed to mean "pure essence" in Sanskrit. However, according to Max Müller that is not a Sanskrit term at all and "it was simply invented" by Jacoillot.
Nicolas Notovich, 1887
In 1887 a Russian war correspondent, Nicolas Notovitch claimed that while at the Hemis Monastery in Ladakh, he had learned of the document "Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men" - Isa being the Arabic name of Jesus in Islam. Notovitch's story, with a translated text of the "Life of Saint Issa," was published in French in 1894 as La vie inconnue de Jesus Christ (Unknown Life of Jesus Christ).
Levi H. Dowling, 1908
In 1908 Levi H. Dowling published the Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ which he claimed was channeled to him by a supernatural being called "Akashic Records" as the true story of the life of Jesus, including "the 'lost' eighteen years silent in the New Testament." The narrative follows the young Jesus across India, Tibet, Persia, Assyria, Greece and Egypt. Dowling's work was later used by Holger Kersten who combined it with elements derived from other sources such as the Ahmadiyya beliefs.
Rejection of the claims
There has been a complete rejection of this idea by mainstream Christian scholars. Let's have a look at them.
Robert Van Voorst
Robert Van Voorst states that modern scholarship has "almost unanimously agreed" that claims of the travels of Jesus to Tibet, Kashmir or rest of India contain "nothing of value"
Marcus Borg states that the suggestions that an adult Jesus traveled to Egypt or India and came into contact with Buddhism are "without historical foundation".
John Dominic Crossan
John Dominic Crossan states that none of the theories presented about the travels of Jesus to fill the gap between his early life and the start of his ministry have been supported by modern scholarship.
Leslie Houlden states that although modern parallels between the teachings of Jesus and Buddha have been drawn, these comparisons emerged after missionary contacts in the 19th century and there is no historically reliable evidence of contacts between Buddhism and Jesus.
Paula Fredriksen states that no serious scholarly work places Jesus outside the backdrop of 1st century Palestinian Judaism.
Life after surviving crucifixion
The swoon hypothesis in critical western literature concerns later years of Jesus after the crucifixion, with a range of hypotheses that suggest later death in Kashmir, Rome or during the Siege of Masada in Judea. The traditional Islamic view of Jesus' death does not propose later years of Jesus, since based on the statements in Quran 4:157–158, most Muslims believe Jesus was raised to Heaven without being put on the cross and God transformed another person (at times interpreted as Judas Iscariot or Simon of Cyrene) to appear exactly like Jesus who was crucified instead of Jesus. Some interpretations of Hadith and other traditions have Jesus life continuing on earth. Ibn Babawayh (d.991 CE) in Ikhmal ad Din recounts that Jesus went to a far country.
A look at later claims
Let's now look at the claims that are put for this belief or claim.
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, 1899
According to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad the founder of the Ahmadiyyas, the further sayings of Muhammad say that Jesus died in Kashmir at the age of one hundred and twenty years. They identify the holy man Yuz Asaf buried at the Roza Bal shrine in Srinagar, India as Jesus on the basis of an account in the History of Kashmir by the Sufi poet Khwaja Muhammad Azam Didamari (1747) that the holy man Yuz Asaf buried there was a prophet and a foreign prince.
Denial of this claim
Paul C. Pappas states that from a historical perspective, the Ahmadi identification of Yuzasaf with Jesus relies on legends and documents which include clear historical errors (e.g. Gondophares' reign) and that "it is almost impossible to identify Yuz Asaf with Jesus". In his 1957 book "The Wisdom of Balahvar" David Marshall Lang presented evidence of how confusion in diacritical markings in Arabic texts transformed Budhasaf (Buddha-to-be) into Yudasaf, Iodasaph, and then Yuzasaf, and resulted in the Ahmadiyya assertions; also confusing Kashmir and Kushinara, the place of Buddha's death. The Swedish scholar Per Beskow in Jesus in Kashmir: Historien om en legend (1981) also concluded that Ahmad had misidentified traditions about Gautama Buddha in the Bilawhar wa-Yudasaf legend as being about Jesus. Beskow updated his conclusions in English in 2011.
Holger Kersten, 1981
In 1981 Holger Kersten, a German writer on esoteric subjects popularised the subject in his Christ Lived in India. Kersten's ideas were among various expositions of the theory critiqued by Günter Grönbold in Jesus in Indien. Das Ende einer Legende (Munich, 1985).
Denial of this claim
Wilhelm Schneemelcher states that the work of Kersten (which builds on Ahmad and The Aquarian Gospel) is fantasy and has nothing to do with historical research. Schneemelcher states that Kersten combines elements from various previous authors such as Notovitch, Ahmadiyya beliefs, and Levi Dowling. Gerald O'Collins also states that Kersten's work is simply the repackaging of a legend for consumption by the general public. Among texts cited by Kersten, following Andreas Faber-Kaiser, is the third khanda of the Pratisarga Parvan in the Bhavishya Mahapurana which contains discussion of "Isa Masih" and Muhammed. However Indologists such as Grönbold note that this section postdates not just the Quran, but also the Mughals. Hiltebeitel (2009) establishes 1739 as the very earliest possible date for the section.
A number of other theories have been proposed, e.g. in 1992, in her book Jesus the Man Barbara Thiering suggested that Jesus and Judas Iscariot had been crucified together but Jesus survived, married Mary Magdalene, traveled around the Mediterranean area and then died in Rome. In 1995 Kenneth Hosking also suggested that Jesus survived crucifixion, but stated that Jesus was the Teacher of Righteousness mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls and decades later (73-74 AD) died as the leader of the Jewish forces which unsuccessfully fought the Romans during the Siege of Masada.
Sathya Sai Baba
Sri Sathya Sai Baba has also mentioned several times in his discourses that Jesus did visit India. In fact, he said that he was named Isa here.
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