I AM disappointed that you printed the (long!) letter by Jagessar Sukhraj, ‘Jesus Christ may have died in India’ (Chronicle 21-08-10).  I wonder what criteria you have in deciding to publish a letter.

Mr. Sukhraj took his ‘facts’ mainly from the book by Holger Kersten, Jesus lived in India.  To any academician, that book is a joke; it is devoid of any scholarship.  Its bold claims are superfluous as they are egregarious.

Mr. Sukhraj claims that Kersten “went to India to find out if the story from Nikolai Notovitch’s (from Russia) discovery of the tomb of Jesus in India was true. He did not only find the tomb of Jesus but also documents of Jesus.”   What credible evidence was/is there to conclude that that was the tomb of Jesus.  Also, what credible “documents of Jesus” did Kersten find?

I have lived many years in the great land of India.  Incidentally, I also spent several of our wedding anniversaries in the houseboats of Srinagar, in the beautiful state of Kashmir, India – where supposedly the tomb still exists.  The concept of the “tomb of Jesus” to the locals is taken seriously in Srinnagar and in the rest of India as one of many ideas that crop up everyday out of people’s superstition, desire for notice or petty claim towards the outrageous.

Jesus was a historical figure – the incarnated one who was born in Bethlehem, died in Jerusalem and rose again from the dead after three days!

I shall not further engage in a debate whether Jesus lived in India or not; the answer to any credible researcher is obvious.

Editor’s Note:  For purposes of healthy discussions, Chronicle has always opened its pages to diverse thoughts and philosophies so as to encourage debates that could enlighten the public.  Comparative religion, and religion per se, has always engendered deep interest in our yet very religious society, and any subject that would stimulate conversation on theories in the various theological doctrines surely should be entertained and considered, if only for the sake of disproving what may be groundless theories by learned persons versed in religious histology and philosophy.