Yes Jesus lived in India. You have got the right information.
At the time of Jesus there were two major currents or sects within Judaism: the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees were extremely concerned with strict external observance of their interpretation of the Mosaic Law, ritual worship, and theology. The Sadducees, on the other hand, were very little concerned with any of these and tended toward a kind of genteel agnosticism. Today these two groups might be compared with the Orthodox and the Reformed branches of Judaism respectively.
There was also a third sect which both was and was not part of Judaism. They were the Essenes, whose very name means "the Outsiders."1 Whether they chose this name for themselves or whether it was applied to them by the disdainful Pharisees and Sadducees is not known. But that they were incongruent (even incompatible) to the normal life of Israel at that time is certainly known.
Their claims about their very existence was a controversial matter. For the Essenes averred that Moses had created them as a secret fraternity within Judaism, with Aaron and his descendents at their head. The prophet Jeremiah was a Master of the Essenes, and it was in his lifetime that they ceased to be a secret society and became a public entity. From that time many of the Essenes began living in communities. Isaiah and Saint John the Baptist were also Masters of the Essenes. Their purpose was to follow a totally esoteric religious philosophy and practice that was derived from the Egyptian Mysteries. As the grandson of the Pharaoh, Moses had been an initiate of those Mysteries and destined to ultimately become the head of the Egyptian religion.2 These Mysteries were themselves derived from the religion of India: Sanatana-or Arya-Dharma.3 Because of this the Essenes had always maintained some form of contact and interchange with India-a fact that galled their fellow Israelites. Regarding this, Alfred Edersheim, in his nineteenth century classic The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, wrote: "Their fundamental tendency was quite other than that of Pharisaism, and strongly tinged with Eastern elements."
The reality of this contact with India is shown in the Zohar (2:188a-b), a compilation of ancient Jewish mystical traditions and the major text of the Jewish Kabbalah. It contains the following incident regarding the knowledge of an illumined Rabbi concerning the religion of India and the Vedic4 religious rite known as the Sandhya, which is an offering of prayers at dawn and sunset for enlightenment.
"Rabbi Yose and Rabbi Hiyya were walking on the road. While they were walking, night fell; they sat down. While they were sitting, morning began to shine; they rose and walked on. Rabbi Hiyya said, 'See, the face of the East, how it shines! Now all the children of the East [in India], who dwell in the mountains of light [the Himalayas], are bowing down to this light, which shines on behalf of the sun before it comes forth, and they are worshipping it....Now you might say: 'This worship is in vain!' but since ancient, primordial days they have discovered wisdom through it."
2006-06-28
14:31:21
·
9 answers
·
asked by
sun rays
1
in
Society & Culture
➔ Religion & Spirituality