14. The Life of Saint Issa, the Best of the Sons of Men
High in the remote Himalayas, safely secured in a Buddhist monastery of indeterminate age, is an ancient manuscript, The Life of Saint Issa, which describes the life of Jesus in India during the years of which the gospels have no description. Or so some believe. Jesus living in India is a theory which has been condemned as nonsense and heresy by fundamentalist Christians for over a century. One argument against the theory of Jesus spending much of his life in India is based on the distance between the subcontinent and Palestine, an argument frequently put forth by Christian fundamentalists who conveniently forget that according to the Gospel of Matthew, the Magi visited the newly born Jesus, having presumably made a similar journey in the opposite direction (Matthew does not specify a number, it is accepted by tradition there were three).
The three are traditionally identified as Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, with Melchior coming from Persia, Balthazar from Arabia, and Gaspar from India. While it is true that the Magi so familiar as part of the Christmas story are likely mythological, their existence indicates that in the ancient world from which the tradition evolved, travel from the mysterious “East” was not out of the question. Neither was traveling in the opposite direction. During Jesus’ lifetime, the Silk Road was heavily traveled, and a journey to the East was not considered unusual, indeed it was mandatory for merchants needing products for their customers. Long-standing Christian tradition is that it was the Apostle Thomas (of doubting fame) who spread Christianity to India following Pentecost, spending the rest of his life and dying there.