Christ is believed to have travelled to Kashmir, among other places...

Jesus, according to the group's writings, married a Kashmiri girl called Marjan from the village of Pahalgam, and lived to about 85....

K a s h m i r


Also see this book: Jesus, Last King of Kashmir : Life After the Crucifixion (Paperback)

Jesus Christ - in Japan, England, Kashmir and the Americas

by Alan Gill (OnlineCatholics, an independent Australian e-journal) Mar 14, 2006

As everyone who has read a newspaper will know, one of the stranger cases to have hit the London courts is now under way, with millionaire author Dan Brown defending his fictional work The Da Vinci Code against charges that it borrowed material from an earlier (supposed factual) work by fellow authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh.  By coincidence, due to the mergers and take-overs which have occurred in the publishing industry, the Baigent-Lee book, The Holy Bloodand the Holy Grail (two million copies), and The Da Vinci Code (30 million at the last count) now share the same publisher.

Random House - the one actually being sued - emphatically denies plagiarism and adds for good measure that there is no copyright on ideas. Heresy sells. And nowadays there is no one to hurl fatwas in defence of orthodox Christianity.  When it comes to challenging even the most sacred tenets of Christianity there is, indeed, no shortage of people willing to have a go. Feedback is not always as expected.

About 16 years ago controversy arose over a film, The Last Temptation of Christ, which showed the Saviour taken down, alive, from the cross, to be cared for by Mary Magdalene, who marries him and dies bearing his child. Christ then enters into a polygamous union with Mary (sister of Martha) and Martha herself. Children from this relationship are shown playing in the dust, while Christ plies his trade as a carpenter nearby.  Interestingly, some viewers warmed to this picture of domesticity, and got quite angry when I criticised it in the pages of the Sydney Morning Herald. It was to lead me down some strange byways of religious belief, including the discovery of a handful of religious groups who, possibly from a subconscious wish to avoid the horrors of the crucifixion, really do believe that Christ's 'cup' of suffering was lifted and that he married, raised several children, travelled extensively, and died of nothing more severe than old age.

While working at the Herald I was visited by a Tokyo businessman who asked me if I was aware that Christ had visited Japan. He promised to send me some literature and was as good as his word. Followers of this modest religious group, apparently of Shinto-Christian origins, believe that the Saviour 'escaped' from Palestine and travelled, via the former Soviet Union, to northern Japan.  Here Christ married a Japanese woman and lived to the age of 102. In a small town in Aomori prefecture, there are two burial mounds said to be the graves of Jesus Christ and his Japanese wife. I do not know if locals take the legend seriously, but the tourist board has discovered it and is finding it good for business.

The desire to equate religious figures with ?our own kind? has produced some strange byways. Folk legends exist about Christ visiting England and Wales. The line in the hymn: 'And did those feet in ancient times, walk upon England's mountains green'? says it all.

In the mid 1980s I corresponded with a Catholic priest, John Rooney, of the Mill Hill Fathers, who was a missionary in Pakistan. He enclosed a book* he had written about a Muslim-Christian cult based in the disputed Indian province of Kashmir. The group, which has about 5000 members, believes Christ did not die on the cross, but was taken barely conscious and revived in the sepulchre by Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimethea.  Cured of his wounds, he appeared briefly among the disciples in Galilee, as the Bible narrates, but then, in fear of his life, fled from Palestine with his mother Mary and disciple Thomas.

They stayed first in Damascus, then headed east in search of the 10 lost tribes of Israel, scattered throughout the Middle East. Mary did not survive the journey, but died at Murree (a corruption of her name) near Rawalpindi, in present-day Pakistan, where her tomb may be seen. Jesus and Thomas headed on; Jesus to settle in Kashmir, and Thomas going further to southern India.  Jesus, according to the group's writings, married a Kashmiri girl called Marjan from the village of Pahalgam, and lived to about 85. He is buried in the town of Srinagar.

Not many westerners have visited the site. One who has is my former Herald colleague David Frith. He recalls being taken by tribesmen to a low, unpretentious building with whitewashed walls and a triple-tiered galvanised iron roof. He was introduced to the caretaker, who treated his role with solemnity.

As Frith tells the story: 'There were fairy lights, wired up but not working, strung across one side of the screen. They did not look as though they had worked in a long time. And behind the screen, glimpsed darkly through the fretwork or through a little swinging door, was a catafalque: dusty, covered in fraying velvet.  This was it ? the grave of Jesus, laid to rest, so the story has it, by the loving hand of his last disciple, Thomas.'

AND IN AMERICA?

In 1978, while travelling in the United States, I spent a memorable week in the Mormon capital of Salt Lake City. Over breakfast my host?s 20-year-old son (just back from missionary service in Queensland) slipped into the conversation a reference to Christ 'in America'.  I nearly choked on my cornflakes, but tried not to look surprised. We turned to safer topics.

Historians have described the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) as the only truly 'home grown' white American religion. There is truth in this, but the belief concerning 'Christ in America' does not mean what many people assume it does.  The belief actually refers to the resurrected Christ (its views of the crucifixion and evens leading to it are orthodox) and the 'America' which Christ allegedly visited is Central and South America. As a spokesman put it: 'We do not say Christ walked in 5th Avenue.'

Teachings about an exodus are common to many religions. Mormons believe that, about 600 BC, a group of Israelites was warned by a prophet to leave Jerusalem, prior to the Babylonian conquest. The small colony built a vessel and crossed the ocean to the western world, acting under God?s guidance. They settled on the American continent and were the ancestors of the Incas, Aztecs, Mayans and other American non-European civilisations. The Book of Mormon teaches that, many centuries later, the resurrected Saviour visited these people, stating: 'Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world'?  Mormons also claim support for their belief from orthodox Christian sources, notably John 10:16: 'And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice'?

Illustrated panels in the church?s Salt Lake City visitors? centre depict the Spanish Conquistadores, Christopher Columbus and even Captain James Cook, being greeted as 'gods' during their travels.  Mormons believe the native Americans and Hawaiian Islanders who made this assumption were recalling folk memories of the resurrected Christ visiting their continent, and that the ?Great White God of ancient America? had returned.

Alan Gill was, for 23 years, the Sydney Morning Herald religious affairs writer.

*Shadows in the Dark, by John Rooney MHM, Christian Study Centre, 126-B Murree Road, Rawalpindi Cantt., Pakistan.