DEVANAND Bhagwan in his letter dated August 23, 2010 said that Holger Kersten’s book Jesus lived in India is a joke. The author was a Christian who spent his precious time and money risking his life to find the truth. If to him the facts put out by this man and many more is a joke then everything seems to be a joke for him.
Here is a synopsis of the book. You may have read the Book Jesus Lived in India (Holger Kersten. 1986. Element Books), a book that goes over the lost years of Jesus- from the time of his childhood to when he returned to Israel in his mid-thirties, a gap of about 18 years.
“A short introductory section precedes a brief description of the early history of the people of Israel and the life of Moses. An account then follows of how the eternal Spirit resolves to take on human form ‘so that he might demonstrate by his own example how moral purity may be attained, and by freeing the soul from its rude mortality, achieve the degree of perfection required to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, which is unchanging and ruled by eternal happiness’. And so a divine infant is born in far-away Israel, and is given the name Issa. Sometime during the fourteenth year of his life, the lad arrives in the region of the Sind (the Indus) in the company of merchants, ‘and he settled among the Aryans, in the land beloved of God, with the intention of perfecting himself and learning from the laws of the great Buddha’. The young Issa travels through the land of the five rivers (the Punjab), stays briefly with the ‘erring Jains’, ‘and then proceeds to Jagannath’, ‘where the white priests of Brahma honored him with a joyous reception’. At Jagannath Issa/Jesus learns to read and understand the Veda. But by then instructing the Sudras of the lowest castes, he incurs the displeasure of the Brahmanas, who feel their position and power threatened. After spending six years in Jagannath, Rajagriha, Benares and other holy cities, he is compelled to flee the Brahmans who are outraged at his continuing to teach that it is not the will of God that the worth of human beings should be judged by the caste.
There is an extraordinary correlation between the accounts in the texts found by Notovitch and those of the Gospels, a correlation that can shed more light on Jesus’s own personality – especially in what he said. Notovitch’s Issa opposes the abuses of the caste system, which robs the lower castes of their basic human rights, saying, ‘God our Father makes no difference between any of his children all of whom he loves equally.’ And later on his travels he takes issue with a rigid and inhumane adherence to the letter of the law, declaring that, ‘The law was made for Man, to show him the way., He consoles the weal: ‘The eternal Judge, the eternal Spirit, who forms the sole and indivisible World Soul (Super-soul) …will proceed sternly against those who arrogate His rights to themselves.’ When the priests challenge Issa to produce miracles, to prove the omnipotence of his God, he retorts, ‘The miracles of our God have been performed ever since the first day when the universe was created; they take place every day and at every moment.
Those who cannot perceive them are robbed of one of the most beautiful gifts of life.’ Challenging the authority of the priests, he makes his position quite clear: ‘So long as the people had no priests, they were ruled by natural law and they preserved the flawlessness of their souls. Their souls were in the presence of God, and to commune with the Father they had no need to resort to the meditation of an idol or a beast, nor to fire, as is practiced here. You say that the Sun must be worshipped, as must the spirits of good and the spirits of evil. Well, I tell you your doctrine is an utterly false one, for the Sun has no power of its own, but solely through the will of the invisible Creator, who gave it birth, and who has willed it to be the star to light the day, and to warm the labour and the seed-time of Man.’
Notovitch’s text goes on to describe how Issa goes further into the Himalayan ranges, to Nepal, where he remains for six years and dedicates himself to the study of Buddhist scriptures. The doctrines that he teaches widely there are simple and clear, and are particularly aimed at uplifting the oppressed and the weak, whose eyes he opens to the falsity of the priests. Finally, he moves on towards the West, passing through various countries as an itinerant preacher, preceded well in advance by a celebrated reputation. He also stands up to the priests of Persia, who expel him one night in the hope that he would quickly fall prey to wild animals. But Providence allows the holy Issa to reach Palestine safely, where the wise men inquire of him, ‘Who are you, and from what country do you come? We have never heard of you and do not even know your name.’
‘I am an Israelite,’ Issa replies, ‘and on the day of my birth I saw the walls of Jerusalem and heard the sobs of my brothers in their slavery and the walls of my sisters condemned to live among the heathen. And my soul grieved sorely when I heard that my brothers had forgotten the true God. As a child, I left my parents’ home to live among other peoples. But after hearing of the great sorrows that my brothers were suffering. I returned to the land where my parents lived, in order to bring my brothers back to the faith of our ancestors, a faith which enjoins us to be patient on Earth so that we might achieve the consummate and highest happiness in the Beyond”.(Holger Kersten. 1986 & 1994. Jesus Lived in India. Pages 10-12.)
As well as this there is documented evidence that not only did he visits there at this time but also after the resurrection too.
In an English version of an Urdu treatise written by the Holy Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam, Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908) the theme is the escape of Jesus from death on the cross, and his journey to India in search of the lost tribes of Israel.  Christian as well as Muslim scriptures, and old medical and historical books including ancient Buddhist records, provide evidence about this journey.
Jesus is shown to have reached Afghanistan and to have met the Jews who had settled there after deliverance from the bondage of Nebuchadnezzar.  From Afghanistan Jesus went on to Kashmir, where other Israelite tribes had settled. There he made his home, and there in time he died; his tomb has been found in Srinagar.  Any one who is interested in the life and teachings of Jesus the Christ can go in the web site “Jesus in India.” There is also a beautiful book “the Aquarian Gospel” which gives a detail description of Jesus from the time he was born to the time he was nailed on the cross.