Film traces Christ's journey to India

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Film traces Christ's journey to India

Dec. 18: Seeking to throw light on an obscure and controversial phase in the life of Jesus Christ, a city film-maker has made a documentary tracing the messiah's fabled travel to India where, some scholars say, he breathed his last, reports PTI.

"My film is not fiction. This is a docu-feature based on extensive research spanning several countries in Asia and also in the West," Subhrajit Mitra, maker of 'Unknown Stories of the Messiah' due for release this season, told PTI.

The film, Mitra explains, develops through narratives of an archaeologist and a writer, played respectively by well- known actors Soumitra Chattopadhyay and Aparna Sen.

"The archaeologist is actually a 'sutradhar' -- a joiner who puts together tales, folklore and fables under a common thread. The writer, on the other hand, symbolises a probing mind which embarks upon a journey to a world generally unknown."

"Both the archaeologist and the writer may belong to any time and space, but taken together, they act as catalysts in taking the readers on the route followed by Christ to India," he said.

Mitra, a software engineer who has been making films since he was a student of standard XII, said he hit upon the idea about two years ago.

"I was shooting a film on Indian Tourism in Ladakh when I was told that manuscripts depicting Christ's travel to India and his subsequent death existed in the nearby Hemis monastery. That set me thinking. The research took more than 18 months."

He is thankful to his producer Atanu Roy, whose company Sweet Melody has agreed to produce the work with such a controversial content.

It was in the Hemis monastery that Nicholai Notovitch, a Russian Jew travelling to India in the 19th Century, found manuscripts depicting a 'Bodhisattva' called 'Issa,' whose life and teachings had remarkable parallels with those of Christ.

"Notovitch says 'Issa' had travelled to Ladakh, Kashmir, Varanasi and Puri, before moving over to Turkey, Persia and Europe. In the later years, he arrived with Mary to Kashmir where she died. After several years of preaching, Christ also died and was buried at a place near Kashmir," Mitra said.

Almost a century later, in the 1990s, German writer Holger Kersten drew from myriad other sources, including Hindu and Islamic religious scriptures, to write a full-blown account of Christ's travel to India and the last years of his life in Kashmir.

"I worked on the theories of both Notovitch and Kersten," Mitra said.

Quoting Kersten, he said that accounts of Christ's trail after the crucifixion is found in the work of a Persian scholar F Mohammed's 'Jami-ul-Tuwarik' which holds that he arrived in the kingdom of Nisbis, now known as Nusaybin in Turkey. This is reiterated in 'Tafsi-Ibni-Jamirat' the work of another Persian scholar, Imam Abu Zafar Mohammad.

"In both Persia and Turkey, Kersten came across stories of a saint called Yuz Asaf, whose behaviour, miracles and teachings were remarkably similar to those of Christ. Several works by Islamic and Hindu authors recording local history and legends of kings, nobles and saints in the areas thought to have been travelled by Jesus also bear evidence of a Christ- like man," Mitra said.

Besides, in soldering the missing links, Mitra has also taken the help of the 'Synoptic Gospels (the four gospels, collated by the Roman emperor Augustine, that forms the Bible) and nearly 100 'Apocryphal Gospels' which are often first-hand accounts of Christ's life and teachings, but not included by the Vatican in the official body of Christian scripture.

While Mitra is reticent about the evidence he has included in his documentary, he however, volunteered that the 'Bhavisya Mahapuran,' dating back to the second century AD, contain references of interactions between King Shalibahan, grandson of Emperor Vikramaditya, with Christ in Kashmir.

Mitra makes it clear that he is not taking any position. "My job is not to say whether or not Jesus travelled to India. I am merely assimilating the views on the subject and point out their underlying unity."

When contacted, a spokeman of the Roman Catholic Church here said that any film on Jesus and his travels in India was welcome because it was exploring the links of Jesus with India.

"Of course, the merit will depend on the test of history The Christians have the Gospel accounts to go by which highlight the last three years of his life with glimpses of his birth upto age 12. Then the Gospel narrations pick up the story only from age 30. So, any theory resulting from serious research would be welcome," the spokesman said.

Related stories:

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Jesus in India: About Issa

Jesus in India: Ancient scrolls

Jesus in India