Nas Asuf

[poliphilo]

Jesus survived the crucifixion, fled to Kashmir, lived to be 80 and is buried in Srinigar, where his tomb, under the same roof as the tomb of a much later Muslim holy man, is still venerated- though no-one seems to get terribly excited about it.

In Kashmir they remember him as Nas Asuf- meaning the Healer.

That's what they told me on TV last night. Wow.

So I Googled. The tomb is for real. And it contains a burial oriented east-west, which is the Jewish standard, rather than north-south, which is the Muslim standard.

It also contains an odd little carving of Nas Asuf's feet. The feet have marks on them which the easily-persuaded interpret as the scars of crucifixion.

So?

There the trail runs into the sand. We have traditions of Jesus (Isa) having visited India and studied Buddhism, but they are either oral or based on documents that have disappeared (rather in the manner of Joseph Smith's golden tablets.) The prime propagators of the legend were a nineteenth century Russian adventurer and a nineteenth century Muslim bloke who set himself up as the Messiah- dodgy characters, both of them.

I get a strong whiff of theosophical nuttiness.

But the story isn't utterly implausible. People did survive crucifixion, there were established trade routes between the eastern Roman Empire and Northern India, and there's a tradition that the people of Kashmir are descended from the Jews who were carted off into exile by the Assyrians- and didn't Jesus say he had a mission to preach to the "lost sheep of the house of Israel"?

A simple way forward would be to dig up Nas Asuf and have a look at his hands and feet. But that would be sacrilege. And consider all the vested interests...

It's not going to happen, is it?

Comments

[happydog.livejournal.com]

even if they dug up the body and proved conclusively, somehow, that it was Jesus, there would still be people who would steadfastly say that it was not him and that Jesus died, came back from the dead and floated up into the sky, from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead etc.

I think personally that this is one of those things where the truth can never be known. I passed by an old guy in the street talking to himself out loud, saying in a puzzled way, "Jesus appear here, he appear there, he invisible everywhere." I think that is quite true. Jesus has dissolved into a million different Jesuses for a million different faiths, a haze of possible divinity that shimmers around Western civilization, appear here, appear there, invisible everywhere.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You're right, of course.

It's like Elvis. We know he's dead; there can really be no doubt about it; but millions believe or half-believe he's still alive (and in a sense he is).