15. Nicolas Notovitch and The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ
One problem with the document purported to be concealed in an ancient Buddhist monastery in the remote Himalayas is that few, if any, from the west have ever seen it, although some have claimed to have read the document. One such individual was a Russian war correspondent named Nicolas Notovitch, who published his story of seeing the original, and a translation of it in French, in 1894. According to his account, Jesus went to India at the age of 13, remaining there until he was 29, studying Buddhism at various locations. His account presented Jesus as studying in Tibetan monasteries, both under Brahmin priests and alone, including at Nalanda, the traditional seat of Buddhist reflection and learning.
Notovitch was immediately condemned as a fraud and huckster, an evaluation which time and further study strengthened. Even his visit to the monastery at which he claimed to have seen the manuscript was revealed to be a fabrication. Yet one of his most vocal debunkers, Swami Abhedananda, later (1922) claimed to have been to the same monastery and seen the same manuscript, though it was a copy of the original, written in Tibetan. After his death one of his students asked to see a copy of the manuscript allegedly studied by his master, to learn that it had disappeared and that the original was in a monastery near Lhasa. Swami’s recantation of his refutation of Notovitch reopened interest and speculation over whether Jesus of Nazareth had been a student in India prior to his ministry in Judea.