Thursday, 9 August 2012

A Tomb in Kashmir


Other evidence has been brought forward, such as a tomb in Srinagar, the capital city of Kashmir, where legend claims Jesus is buried. Another tomb near Taxila  in Afghanistan (Taxila is near the border of Kashmir) has long been recognized by locals as the final resting place of "the Mother Mary".

The Acts of Thomas, an astonishing early Christian text, describes how Jesus commanded his disciple, the famous Doubting Thomas, to sail to India to teach. Then it suggest that Jesus himself visited Thomas in north India.

That Christian missionaries established a church in India not long after Jesus' crucifixion is an uncontested historical fact. But we need to approach the rest of the evidence presented here very cautiously. The resting places of saints have always been big business, and what is now called the tomb of Jesus might just as well have been called the tomb of Mohammed a few centuries ago, depending on what pilgrims were passing through town and how much they were willing to pay to see the tomb.

A Doubting Thomas myself, at the back of my mind is the nagging concern that the famous Tibetan manuscript could be a modern forgery. Or, to put it more generously, a well meaning work of historical fiction. It's extremely unfortunate that the manuscript has vanished, so we'll probably never have an opportunity to examine it more closely.

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