Roza Bal Shrine in Kashmir: Tomb of Jesus or a Myth?
(By Isabel Scharrer)
The state Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), or also known as “Heaven on Earth” or the “Switzerland of India”, is located in the far north of India, bordering with the Line of Control (the military control line between India and Pakistani controlled parts of the state Jammu and Kashmir) to the west and north and China to the north and east.
Nowadays the greater part of Kashmir is under the control of India and Pakistan and a small part under China, but the state has a special autonomous status. Soon after the division into independent countries of India and Pakistan, in 1947, the political conflicts in Kashmir began and have continued until today.
J&K is split into three districts: Ladakh, Jammu and the Kashmir Valley. Ladakh (“Little Tibet”) being a prevalent Buddhist area and Jammu and the Kashmir Valley being a prevalent Muslim area. J&K is also the only state in India with a dominant Muslim population (according to the 2014 census, Islam is practised by approx. 97.16% of the population).
I went to Ladakh last year in September and I absolutely fell in love with this region, the nature, the people, the atmosphere — everything was just stunning (to read about my journey there, please click here).
During my time there, I also wanted to visit the Kashmir Valley to see if the region deserves the name “Heaven on Earth”, but due to the political conflicts in the area, the highway connecting Leh (capital of Ladakh) to Srinagar was not so safe at that time. The situation was sensitive and everyone advised us not to go. We followed their advice and I told myself that I would return when the situation was more settled …
This year, in February, the situation in Kashmir became more stable and as soon as we found this out, we booked a flight to Srinagar. This was our chance! Besides seeing the natural beauty of this region, there was one thing in particular which attracted me to Kashmir: the Roza Bal shrine (Roza is a Persian word and means holy, Bal is Kashmiri and means shrine).
Roza Bal, is a shrine located in the old part of Srinagar and it is known to be the tomb of Yus Asaf, a saint for the people of Kashmir. However, it is assumed that Yus Asaf was no other than Jesus Christ who supposedly died at the age of 120 years, after living and preaching for many years in Kashmir.
Locals living near to the shrine (Sunni Muslims, the largest group of Islam), however, strongly believe that Yus Asaf was a Muslim holy man and not Jesus Christ.
This is a very controversial subject and it all started in the late 19th century when Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam, published the Urdu book “Christ in India”, after doing in-depth research on this specific shrine. Since then Ahmadiyya followers believe that Jesus did not die by crucifixion (they believe that Jesus was placed on the cross only for a few hours, but that death by crucifixion would usually take days), but that he survived and travelled all the way to India over the former Silk route, connecting Europe to Asia, in order to escape persecution.
His mother, Mary, accompanied him but she died along the way and her tomb is to be found in a town called Murree, which was named in honour of her and is now a part of Pakistan. The place where she is buried is known as Mai Mari da Asthan, which means “resting place of mother Mary”.
Apparently one more reason for Jesus to settle down in Kashmir was also to seek out the Lost Tribes of Israel. Apparently out of 12 Jewish tribes, 10 had migrated from Israel 700 BC and it is believed that many settled along the Silk route, for example in Afghanistan and Kashmir.
An interesting fact is that about 50 km from Srinagar, in the village of Gultibagh, such a lost Jewish tribe is to be found.
The inhabitants of Gultibagh came from the Afghanistan side and still speak the pastor language (pastor derives from the Latin and means “shepherd”). They themselves say that there is something special about them, that they are the original Jews from Palestine. They are known as the lost sheep of Israel and also call themselves such. The head of the village states that the culture, tradition, eating habits, lifestyle, physical features and even the language of this village are different in comparison to other Kashmir people.
Could this really be true? I would love to visit this village and see for myself and I really hope that the political situation is stable enough one day so that I can travel to this village.
Let’s see …
From my further research into the subject, I found out that Jesus apparently didn’t come to India for the first time after his crucifixion, but he had been there before, during his “unknown” years: from the age of 13 to 28. Information regarding the theory of Jesus’ journey to India started to appear with Nicholas Notovich, a Russian traveller, who visited Kashmir in 1887 and afterwards in 1894 published the book “The unknown life of Jesus Christ”.
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