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

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

Hello. I have just friended you at the recommendation or [Bad username or site: 'purple_pen @ livejournal.com].

[suzilem.livejournal.com]

After 2000 years, wouldn't that pesky "dust to dust" thing have come into play anyway????

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Jesus survived the crucifixion, fled to Kashmir, lived to be 80 and is buried in Srinigar

Oh, I'd love this to be true! Personally I'm quite convinced that Jesus survived the crucifixion, but that he died of his injuries shortly after, probably from infection.

On the other hand, it would also be rather nice to think of him being packed off to Britain by his family to get him safely out of the way and thus leading to the Glastonbury tradition.

It's not going to happen, is it?

[jubal51394.livejournal.com]

Well, sadly for us, not soon anyway. You know it will eventually... and you also know that it matters not. We will all believe what we are comfortable believing... regardless of any "trivial" evidence. Who cares about the truth anyway? The legend is so much more palatable. *S*

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

Dan Brown and others of his ilk would love for this to be something more than idle speculation, I'm sure. That whiff you get comes across as a stench to me.

[pickwick.livejournal.com]

I saw the end of this, too. I liked the theory that Jesus was out in the East from 14-29, too, having been identified by the wise men (who followed stars) as the next Lama - I'm always happy about things that bring religions together, because the sheer number of different religions is part of my problem with the whole thing. And a lot of Jesus's views and teachings were kinda Buddhist in nature, even from what the bible says - they're closer to Buddhism than Judaism, certainly.

I was also interested in the people who pointed out that all the mentions of the Second Coming are very low-key, and could apply more to someone popping back over from Kashmir than to a miraculous return from the dead by the son of God.

[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.

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

in india they never dig anything up. there's a longstanding tradition of muslim conquerors knocking down hindu temples and building mosques on the foundation, and hindu conquerors knocking down mosques and building temples on the foundation, so that most old mosques and temples have been knocked down and rebuilt many times. the government never allows any investigation into what the sites originally were, because they don't want to give either side any more motivation to hate the other side. i imagine they'd feel similarly about this site.