The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ

Nicolas Notovitch

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780486121277
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christianity

Every Bible student knows there are several years in the life of Christ that are unaccounted for. But what accounts for that gap? Was Jesus in Nazareth from the ages of thirteen through twenty-nine? Or was he teaching and studying in India, as this thoroughly intriguing — and controversial — book suggests?  
The story begins in 1887, when Russian explorer Nicolas Notovitch went on an expedition to learn about the customs of the people of India. During his travels, he visited a Buddhist monastery where he heard about a holy man, thought to be Jesus, who visited the region 2,000 years before. The Buddhists called him `Issa` — and there was an ancient document that could confirm the similarities. As Notovitch embarked on a treacherous journey to track down the evidence, he broke his leg in an accident and found himself recuperating at a monastery that possessed a copy of the document. The chief lama showed him a scroll that described a man with an uncanny resemblance to Jesus of Nazareth and his teachings. In spite of warnings from various churches, Notovitch published his findings. Whether you accept or deny this fascinating account of Christ's `missing years,` — a claim that's attracted widespread attention — you'll agree it makes compelling reading for people of all faiths. 

The Life of Saint Issa

THE BEST OF THE SONS OF MEN

I.

1. The earth trembled and the heavens wept because of the great crime just committed in the land of Israel.

2. For they have just finished torturing and executing there the great, just Issa in whom dwelt the soul of the universe,

3. Who incarnated himself in a simple mortal in order to do good to men and to exterminate evil thoughts,

4. And in order to bring back man degraded by sins to a life of peace, love and good, and to recall him to the only and indivisible Creator, whose mercy is infinite and boundless.

5. This is what the merchants, who came from Israel, relate on the subject.

II.

1. The people of Israel lived on a very fertile land, yielding two harvests a year, and possessed large flocks; they excited by their sins the wrath of God,

2. Who inflicted on them a terrible punishment, taking away their land, their flocks and their possessions. Israel was reduced to slavery by the powerful and rich Pharaohs who then reigned in Egypt.

3. The latter had made slaves of the Israelites and treated them worse than beasts, overloading them with heavy and difficult work and putting them in irons and covering their bodies with wounds and scars, denying them sufficient food and shelter.

4. This was in order to keep them in a state of continual fear and deprive them of all resemblance to human beings;

5. And in this great calamity the people of Israel, remembering their heavenly Protector, prayed and implored His grace and pity.

6. An illustrious Pharaoh reigned in Egypt at this time who rendered himself famous by his numerous victories and riches which he had accumulated and the large palaces which his slaves had erected with their own hands.

7. This Pharaoh had two sons, the younger of whom was called Mossa; the wise men of Israel taught him different sciences.

8. And they loved Mossa in Egypt for his kindness and for the compassion which he showed to all those who suffered.

9. Seeing that the Israelites would not, in spite of the intolerable sufferings which they endured, abandon their God to worship those which the hand of man had made and which were the gods of the Egyptians,

10. Mossa believed in their invisible God who did not allow their weakened forces to fail,

11. And the Israelite teachers excited the ardor of Mossa and implored him to intercede with Pharaoh his father, in favor of his co-religionists.

12. The Prince Mossa applied to his father imploring him to ameliorate the fate of the unfortunate people, but Pharaoh was enraged against him and only increased the torments of his slaves.

13. Shortly afterwards, a great misfortune visited Egypt; the plague cut down the young and the old, the sick and the well, Pharaoh believed that his own gods were angry with him;

14. But Prince Mossa told his father that it was the God of the slaves who was interceding in favor of the unfortunates and was punishing the Egyptians;

15. Pharaoh then ordered Mossa to take all the slaves of the Jewish race and lead them out of the city, and to found at a great distance from the capital another city and there to live with them.

16. Mossa told the Hebrew slaves that he had freed them in the name of his God, the God of Israel; he departed with them from the city and from the land of Egypt.

17. He led them into the land which they had formerly lost by their many sins; he gave them laws and advised them always to pray to the invisible Creator whose kindness is infinite.

18. After the death of the Prince Mossa the Israelites observed his laws rigorously; God too recompensed them for the evils to which they had been subjected in Egypt.

19. Their kingdom became the most powerful in all the world, their kings became illustrious on account of their treasures and peace reigned long among the people of Israel.

III.

1. The fame of the riches of Israel was spread throughout the earth and the neighboring nations envied them.

2. But God led the victorious armies of the Hebrews and the heathen dared not attack them.

3. Unfortunately, man does not always obey his own better self, so the fidelity of the Israelities to their God did not long endure.

4. They soon forgot all the favors which He had heaped upon them, and rarely invoked His name, but begged protection of the magicians and sorcerers;

5. The kings and captains submitted their own laws for those that Moses had left to them; the temples of God and the customs of worship were abandoned, and the people gave themselves up to pleasures and lost their original purity.

6. Several centuries had elapsed since their departure from Egypt, when God again thought of inflicting punishment on them.

7. Strangers began to invade the country of Israel, devastating the land, ruining the villages and forcing the inhabitants into captivity.

8. Heathens at one time came from beyond the seas from the country of Romulus; they subdued the Hebrews and appointed commanders of the army who governed them under the orders of Cæsar.

9. They destroyed the temples, compelling the people to sacrifice victims to the heathen gods instead of worshiping the invisible God.

10. Warriors were made of the nobles, the women were torn from their husbands; the lower class of the people, reduced to slavery, were sent by thousands across the sea.

11. As to the children they were killed by the sword, and throughout the whole country of Israel nothing but weeping and groaning was heard.

12. In their sore distress the people remembered again their great God; they implored His mercy and prayed Him to forgive them. Our Father in His inexhaustible kindness listened to their appeal.

IV.

1. The time had now come when the merciful Judge had chosen to incarnate Himself in a human being.

2. And the Eternal Spirit who remained in a condition of complete inaction and of supreme beatitude, aroused and detached Himself for an indefinite time from the Eternal Being,

3. In order to show, by assuming the human form, the means of identifying one’s self with divinity and attaining eternal felicity;

4. And to show by His example how we may attain moral purity and separate the soul from its material envelope so that it may reach the perfection necessary to pass into the Kingdom of Heaven, which is unchangeable and where eternal happiness reigns.

5. Soon after, a wonderful child was born in the land of Israel; God Himself spoke by the mouth of this child of the insignificance of body, and the grandeur of soul.

6. The parents of this child were poor people, belonging by birth to a family distinguished for their piety, who had forgotten their ancient grandeur on earth, in celebrating the name of the Creator and thanking Him for the misfortunes with which He was pleased to try them.

7. To reward this family for remaining firm in the path of truth, God blessed their first-born child and elected him to go forth and uplift those that had fallen in evil and to cure those that were suffering.

8. The divine child, to whom they gave the name of Issa, began to speak, while yet a child, of the one indivisible God, exhorting the erring souls to repent and to purify themselves from those sins, of which they were guilty.

9. People came from all parts to listen to him and they marvelled at the words of wisdom which issued from his childish mouth; all the Israelites affirmed that in this child dwelt the Eternal Spirit.

10. When Issa reached the age of thirteen years, the time when an Israelite should take a wife,

11. The house where his parents earned a livelihood by means of modest labor, began to be a place of meeting for the rich and noble people who desired to have the young Issa for a son-in-law, who was already well-known by his edifying discourses in the name of the All-Powerful;

12. It was then that Issa disappeared secretly from his father’s house, left Jerusalem, and with a caravan of merchants, went toward Sindh,

13. With the purpose of perfecting himself in the divine knowledge and of studying the laws of the great Buddhas.

V.

1. In the course of his fourteenth year, the young Issa, blessed of God, crossed the Sindh and established himself among the Aryas, in the cherished country of God.

2. The fame of this wonderful youth spread throughout Northern Sindh; when he crossed the country of the five rivers and Rajputana, the worshippers of the Jaina God implored him to dwell with them.

3. But he left them and went to Jagannath, in the country of Orissa, where lie the mortal remains of Vyasa-Krishna. Here the white priests of Brahma received him joyfully.

4. They taught him to read and understand the Vedas, to cure with the aid of prayers, to teach and explain the holy scriptures to the people, to drive away the evil spirit from the body of man, and to restore to him the human form.

5. He spent six years in Jagannath, Rajagriha, Benares and other holy cities. Every one loved Issa, for he lived in peace with the Vaishyas and Shudras, to whom he taught the holy scripture.

6. But the Brahmins and Kshatriyas said to him that the great Para-Brahma had forbidden them to approach those whom he had created from his belly and from his feet;

The Seventh Bridge of Shrinagar. (See page 7.)

7. That the Vaishyas were authorized to hear the reading of the Vedas only on the festival days,

8. That the Shudras were not only forbidden to attend the reading of the Vedas, but even to look at them; for their condition was to serve forever as slaves to the Brahmins, the Kshatriyas and even the Vaishyas;

9. “Death alone can free them from their servitude,” ParaBrahma has said: “Leave them, therefore, and come and worship with us the gods that will be angry with you if you disobey them.”

10. But Issa did not heed their words,...