The Roza Bal, Rouza Bal, or Rozabal is a shrine located in the

Khanyar Khanyar is a locality in downtown from Khayam to Khwaja Bazar in Srinagar district in Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It lies about 4 kilometers north from Lal Chowk, Srinagar. This localty is known for being the power base of ...

quarter in

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

area of

Srinagar Srinagar (English: , ) is the largest city and the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It lies in the Kashmir Valley on the banks of the Jhelum River, a tributary of the Indus, and Dal and Anchar lakes. The city is known for its natu ...

in Kashmir, India. The word ''roza'' means tomb, the word ''bal'' mean place. Locals believe a sage is buried here,

Yuz Asaf Youza Asaf, Youza Asaph, Youza Asouph, Yuz Asaf, Yuzu Asaf, Yuzu Asif, or Yuzasaf, ( ur, ) are Arabic and Urdu variations of the name Josaphat, and are primarily connected with Christianized and Islamized versions of the life of the Buddha found ...

, alongside another Muslim holy man, Mir Sayyid Naseeruddin. The shrine was relatively unknown until the founder of the

Ahmadiyya Ahmadiyya (, ), officially the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community or the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at (AMJ, ar, الجماعة الإسلامية الأحمدية, al-Jamāʿah al-Islāmīyah al-Aḥmadīyah; ur, , translit=Jamā'at Aḥmadiyyah Musl ...

movement,

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Mirzā Ghulām Ahmad (13 February 1835 – 26 May 1908) was an Indian religious leader and the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement in Islam. He claimed to have been divinely appointed as the promised Messiah and Mahdi—which is the metaphoric ...

, claimed in 1899 that it is actually the

tomb of Jesus The tomb of Jesus refers to any place where it is believed that Jesus was entombed or interred. Church of the Holy Sepulchre The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. It contains, a ...

. This view is maintained by Ahmadis today, though it is rejected by the local

Sunni Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word '' Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disagr ...

caretakers of the shrine, one of whom said "the theory that Jesus is buried anywhere on the face of the earth is blasphemous to Islam."

Building

The structure stands in front of a Muslim cemetery. It consists of a low rectangular building on a raised platform, surrounded by railings at the front and an entry. Within is a shrine to

Youza Asouph Youza Asaf, Youza Asaph, Youza Asouph, Yuz Asaf, Yuzu Asaf, Yuzu Asif, or Yuzasaf, ( ur, ) are Arabic and Urdu variations of the name Josaphat, and are primarily connected with Christianized and Islamized versions of the life of the Buddha found ...

. The building also houses the burial tomb of a Shia Muslim saint, Mir Sayyid Naseeruddin, a descendant of Imam Musa-Raza, 8th Imam of the Shia Muslims whose shrine is in

Mashhad Mashhad ( fa, مشهد, Mašhad ), also spelled Mashad, is the List of Iranian cities by population, second-most-populous city in Iran, located in the relatively remote north-east of the country about from Tehran. It serves as the capital of R ...

. The structure was previously maintained by the local community, but is now maintained by a board of directors consisting of

Sunni Muslims Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word '' Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disagr ...

.''Three Testaments: Torah, Gospel, and Quran'' edited by Brian Arthur Brown 2012,

Rowman & Littlefield Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group is an independent publishing house founded in 1949. Under several imprints, the company offers scholarly books for the academic market, as well as trade books. The company also owns the book distributing compa ...

page 196 According to Kashmiri writer

Fida Hassnain Fida Muhammad Hassnain (Urdu فدا حسنین; Srinagar, 1924 – 2016) was a Kashmiri writer, lecturer and Sufi mystic. __NOTOC__ He was born in 1924 in Srinagar, Kashmir, as the child of schoolteachers. His father fought with the British Indi ...

, a supporter of the Ahmadiyya views of Jesus, the tomb contains a rock carving that is said to show feet bearing crucifixion wounds and the body is buried according to what Hassnain considers are the

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

tradition of directions and not according to the Islamic tradition. Academic reception of Hassnain's works has been highly critical - academics dismissing these claims includes

Günter Grönbold Günter Grönbold (Munich, 18 September 1943) is a German Indologist and Tibetologist. He was head of the Oriental Section at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Munich. He is an authority on the Pāli Canon and the Buddhist art of the Silk Road and ha ...

Wilhelm Schneemelcher Wilhelm Schneemelcher (21 August 1914, Berlin – 6 August 2003, Bad Honnef) was a German Protestant theologian and expert on the New Testament Apocrypha. Career He obtained through Hans Lietzmann a post researching Latin and Greek manuscripts ...

Norbert Klatt Norbert Klatt (24 December 1949 – 1 October 2015) was a German scholar of Buddhism and Christianity and publisher; he was the founder of Norbert Klatt Verlag, Göttingen. Klatt proposed Buddhist influence on some New Testament narratives (1982), ...

Per Beskow Per Erik Beskow (23 December 1926 in Stockholm − 3 March 2016 in Visby) was a Swedish biblical scholar, theologian, church historian, patrologist and associate professor at Lund University. Biography Per Beskow was born on December 23, 1926 as ...

, and

Gerald O'Collins Gerald Glynn O'Collins (born 1931) is an Australian Jesuit priest and academic. He was a research professor and writer-in-residence at the Jesuit Theological College (JTC) in Parkville, Victoria, and a research professor in theology at St Mary's ...

History

Buddhist and Hindu period

There is no record of the shrine during Kashmir's Buddhist period, nor during the Kashmir Sultanate (1346–1586) when many Buddhist temples were converted into mosques, such as the

Shankaracharya Temple Shankaracharya Temple or Jyeshteshwara Temple is a Hindu temple situated on top of the Shankaracharya Hill on the Zabarwan Range in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India. It is dedicated to Lord Shiva. The temple is at a height of above the val ...

or "Throne of Solomon."

Muhammad Dedamari, 1747

The shrine is first mentioned in the ''Waqi'at-i-Kashmir'' (Story of Kashmir, published 1747), also known as the ''Tarikh Azami'' (History by Azam) by the

Khwaja Muhammad Azam Didamari Khwaja Muhammad Azam Kaul Didamari (died 1765) was a Sufi Kashmiri writer in the Persian language. Khawaja Khawaja ( Persian: خواجه ''khvâjəh'') is an honorific title used across the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia and Central ...

, a local Srinagar Sufi writer. Muhammed Azam states that the tomb is of a foreign prophet and prince, Yuzasuf, or in modern local Kashimiri transcription Youza Asouph. The name may derive from the Urdu "Yuzasaf" in the legend of Balauhar and Yuzasaf, Yuzasaf being a name for

Gautama Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in Lu ...

. Yuzasaf occurs as a spelling in the ''

Rasail Ikhwan al-Safa The Brethren of Purity ( ar, إخوان‌ الصفا, Ikhwān Al-Ṣafā; also The Brethren of Sincerity) were a secret society of Muslim philosophers in Basra, Iraq, in the 9th or 10th century CE. The structure of the organization and the id ...

'' of the Brethren of Purity and other sources.

David Marshall Lang David Marshall Lang (6 May 1924 – 20 March 1991), was a Professor of Caucasian Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He was one of the most productive British scholars who specialized in Georgian, Armenian and an ...

(1960) notes that the connection of the Buddhist Yuzasaf with Kashmir in part results from a printing error in the Bombay Arabic edition referencing the legend of the Wisdom of Balahvar which makes its hero prince Yuzasaf die in "Kashmir" (Arabic: كشمير) by confusion with

Kushinara Kushinagar ( Hindustani: or ; Pali: ; Sanskrit: ) is a town in the Kushinagar district in Uttar Pradesh, India. It is an important and popular Buddhist pilgrimage site, where Buddhists believe Gautama Buddha attained ''parinirvana''. Etymo ...

(

Pali Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or ''Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of ''Theravāda'' Buddhism ...

: كوشينر), the traditional place of the original Buddha's death.

Court case 1770

A court case was brought mentioning the shrine in 1184 AH/1770AD: Hassnain's translation follows Ghulam Ahmad in dividing the name of Yuzasaf, found in the Bilhawar and Yuzasaf tradition about Gautama Buddha, into two syllables, "Yuz Asaf." Yuzasaf, Arabic ''Yūdhasaf'' or ''Būdhasaf'', is derived from the Sanskrit ''

Bodhisattva In Buddhism, a bodhisattva ( ; sa, 𑀩𑁄𑀥𑀺𑀲𑀢𑁆𑀢𑁆𑀯 (Brahmī), translit=bodhisattva, label=Sanskrit) or bodhisatva is a person who is on the path towards bodhi ('awakening') or Buddhahood. In the Early Buddhist schools ...

''. The Sanskrit word was changed to ''Bodisav'' in Persian texts in the 6th or 7th century, then to ''Budhasaf'' or ''Yudasaf'' in an 8th-century Arabic document (from Arabic initial "b" ﺑ to "y" ﻳ by duplication of a dot in handwriting).

Indo-Pakistan War, 1965

In the aftermath of the

Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 or the Second Kashmir War was a culmination of skirmishes that took place between April 1965 and September 1965 between Pakistan and India. The conflict began following Pakistan's Operation Gibraltar, which was d ...

and continuing Hindu-Muslim and Muslim-Muslim tensions and incidents the Ziarat Rozabal was desecrated and the grave dug up on 27 October 1965. Indian columnist

Praveen Swami Praveen Swami (born 1969) is an Indian journalist and author specialising on international strategic and security issues. He is currently the Group Consulting Editor at Network18 Group. He was the Diplomatic Editor of ''The Daily Telegraph'' new ...

(2006) identified the culprits as a "stay-back cell" of Pakistani operatives, but this is not confirmed by other sources.

Ahmadiyya claims

Roza Bal Tomb in Srinagar Kashmir Interior

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad

The founder of Ahmadiyya, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, inferring from the Verse 23:50 of the Quran, believed that the only occasion in the life of Jesus, son of Mary, that his life was seriously threatened, when an attempt was made to kill him by the cross. The Quran saying that "We...prepared an abode for them in an elevated part of the earth, being a place of quiet and security, and watered with running springs"; Ahmad says, may very fittingly apply to the Valley of Kashmir. In his book ''

Jesus in India The unknown years of Jesus (also called his silent years, lost years, or missing years) generally refers to the period of Jesus's life between his childhood and the beginning of his ministry, a period not described in the New Testament. The " ...

,'' he elaborately claimed that Roza Bal was the tomb of Jesus (Urdu 1899, English 1944 مسیح ہندوستان میں ''Masih Hindustan-mein'').The publisher's note (page v) at the beginning of the book states: "Written in 1899, and partly serialized in

Review of Religions The ''Review of Religions'' is an English-language comparative religious magazine published monthly by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. Regularly in print since 1902, it is one of the longest running Islamic periodicals in English. It has been de ...

in 1902 and 1903, the book itself was posthumously published on 20th November 1908." ''Jesus in India'' by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1 July 2003) The book was fully published in 1908, and the first complete English translation in 1944. Ahmad had separately advocated the view that Jesus did not die by crucifixion, but travelled to the Indian subcontinent and died there at age 120.''Focus on Jesus'' by

and Daniel Kendall (1 September 1998) Mercer Univ Press pages 169–171

states that Ghulam Ahmad separated Yuzasaf into two components Yuz and Asaf, interpreted Yuz as Jesus and Asaf (the Hebrew for gather) as signifying "Jesus the gatherer". The Ahmadiyya writer

Khwaja Nazir Ahmad Khwaja Nazir Ahmad (Urdu: خواجہ نذیر احمد ; December 2, 1897 – 1970) was an Ahmadiyya writer. After experiments with Hinduism and Christianity he converted back to Islam in 1919 and in 1923, aged 25, became imam of Woking's mosque. ...

's ''Jesus in Heaven on Earth'' (1952) developed Ghulam Ahmad's ideas. There are ruins of a Hindu temple near Srinagar where Ghulam Ahmad claimed Jesus had preached. Due to the lack of other western sources, the Ahmadi rely on the 3rd century

apocrypha Apocrypha are works, usually written, of unknown authorship or of doubtful origin. The word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to writings which were kept secret because they were the vehicles of esoteric knowledge considered ...

Acts of Thomas ''Acts of Thomas'' is an early 3rd-century text, one of the New Testament apocrypha within the Acts of the Apostles subgenre. References to the work by Epiphanius of Salamis show that it was in circulation in the 4th century. The complete ve ...

and generally post-15th century Muslim sources in their reconstruction of an eastern travel path for Jesus.''Jesus' Tomb in India: The Debate on His Death and Resurrection'' by Paul C. Pappas 1991 ; page 77: "Because of the absence of any western records of Jesus' travels from Nisibis and on, the Ahmadis rely on the Acts of Thomas and Muslim sources written primarily since the fifteenth century in their endeavor to trace Jesus' journey to the East"

J. Gordon Melton John Gordon Melton (born September 19, 1942) is an American religious scholar who was the founding director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion and is currently the Distinguished Professor of American Religious History with the Ins ...

states that having assumed the ''mujaddid'' (faith renewer) appellation in the 1880s, and having declared himself the Promised Messiah for the Christians, Ghulam Ahmad simply picked up the legend that Jesus had visited India to increase his self-identification with Jesus.''Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices'' Second Edition, ABC-CLIO page 55

states that no historical evidence has been provided to support Ghulam Ahmad's theory that Jesus died in India. Simon Ross Valentine classifies the theory as a legend and considers the burial of Jesus in Roza Bal a myth in the scale of the legend of

Joseph of Arimathea Joseph of Arimathea was, according to all four canonical gospels, the man who assumed responsibility for the burial of Jesus after his crucifixion. The historical location of Arimathea is uncertain, although it has been identified with several t ...

taking the

Holy Grail The Holy Grail (french: Saint Graal, br, Graal Santel, cy, Greal Sanctaidd, kw, Gral) is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miracul ...

to Britain. Paul C. Pappas states that from a historical perspective, the Ahmadi identification of Yuzasaf with Jesus was derived from legends and documents which include a number of clear historical errors (e.g. confusing the reign of Gondophares) and that "it is almost impossible to identify Yuz Asaf with Jesus". Ghulam Ahmad's theory that Jesus died in India is distinct from the 1894 suggestion of

Nicolas Notovitch Shulim or Nikolai Aleksandrovich Notovich (russian: Николай Александрович Нотович) (August 13, 1858 – after 1916), known in the West as Nicolas Notovitch, was a Crimean Jewish adventurer who claimed to be a Russian ar ...

that Jesus travelled to India in his earlier years (before the start of his ministry) during the

unknown years of Jesus The unknown years of Jesus (also called his silent years, lost years, or missing years) generally refers to the period of Jesus's life between his childhood and the beginning of his ministry, a period not described in the New Testament. The " ...

and Ghulam Ahmad specifically disagreed with Notovitch. Notovitch's claims to have found a manuscript about Jesus' travels to India have been totally discredited by modern scholarship as a hoax. Notovitch later confessed to having fabricated his evidence.''Indology, Indomania, and Orientalism'' by Douglas T. McGetchin (1 January 2010) Fairleigh Dickinson University Press page 133 "Faced with this cross-examination, Notovich confessed to fabricating his evidence." Modern scholars generally hold that in general there is no historical basis to substantiate any of the claims of the travels of Jesus to India.''All the People in the Bible'' by Richard R. Losch (1 May 2008) Eerdsmans Press page 209

20th century

Khwaja Nazir Ahmad

After Notovich and Ahmad the next widely noticed text was the 1908 '' The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ – Transcribed from The Book of God's Remembrance (Akashic Records)'', which Levi H. Dowling (1844–1911) claimed he had transcribed from lost "Akashic" records.

, an Ahmadi missionary in Woking, developed Ghulam Ahmad's ideas in the 1940s. He also claimed that Moses was buried at Boot on Mt. Niltoop near Bandipur. His book (1952) contained a translated section of the Ikmal al-din of Shia authority

Ibn Babawayh Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn 'Ali ibn Babawayh al-Qummi (Persian: ar, أَبُو جَعْفَر مُحَمَّد ٱبْن عَلِيّ ٱبْن بَابَوَيْه ٱلْقُمِيّ; –991), commonly referred to as Ibn Babawayh (Persian: ar, � ...

(d. 991, called "as-Saduq") where Yuzasaf (Ahmad "Yuz Asaf") is mentioned. The claim that this text relates to Isa (Jesus) and not

Barlaam and Josaphat Barlaam and Josaphat, also known as Bilawhar and Budhasaf, are legendary Christian saints. Their life story was based on the life of the Gautama Buddha, and tells of the conversion of Josaphat to Christianity. According to the legend, an Indian ...

originates in Ahmad's earlier 1902 use of the same text. Ahmadiyya claims that this section of the ''Ikmal al-din'' of

relates to Isa (Jesus) is rejected by Shia Muslims. The Orientalist

Max Müller Friedrich Max Müller (; 6 December 1823 – 28 October 1900) was a German-born philologist and Orientalist, who lived and studied in Britain for most of his life. He was one of the founders of the western academic disciplines of Indian ...

had already translated this section into German (1894) when refuting the claims of

. Ahmadi websites and print sources cite various local documents and traditions in support of Ghulam Ahmad's identification of the Srinagar shrine as Jesus tomb. These include:
(1) Islamic versions of the legend of

, in Arabic Budasaf or Yuzasaf: * Ikmal-ud-Din of Ibn Babuyah (d.962 AD) – regarded by scholars as concerning the

legend. * Qisa-shazada, Qisa Shazada Yuzasaph wo hakim Balauhar (The Story of the Prince Yuzasaph and the Philosopher Balauhar) 18th–19th Century Urdu version of the Book of Balauhar and Budasaf. * The '' Ain-ul-Hayat'' of Ibn-i-Muhammad Hade Muhammad Imail, Allamah Majlisi (1616–1698) (2) Texts mentioning Jesus (Isa) * '' Rauzat-us-Safa'' of Mir Muhammad Bin Khawand (1417, published 1852 Bombay) – which contains a version of the legend of Abgar concerning the conversion of the king of

Edessa Edessa (; grc, Ἔδεσσα, Édessa) was an ancient city (''polis'') in Upper Mesopotamia, founded during the Hellenistic period by King Seleucus I Nicator (), founder of the Seleucid Empire. It later became capital of the Kingdom of Osroene ...

(called Nasibain or

Nisibis Nusaybin (; '; ar, نُصَيْبِيْن, translit=Nuṣaybīn; syr, ܢܨܝܒܝܢ, translit=Nṣībīn), historically known as Nisibis () or Nesbin, is a city in Mardin Province, Turkey. The population of the city is 83,832 as of 2009 and is ...

in Persian) in Turkey before Jesus' crucifixion. Ghulam Ahmad (Urdu, 1899, English 1978) gives a paraphrase of th
original
* Bhavishya Maha Purana (after 1739), a Hindu text with a section discussing Jesus and Mohammed, also Queen Victoria (3) Local history of Kashmir * A 1946 photograph of a single page purporting to be from

Tarikh-i-Kashmir The ''Tarikh-i-Kashmir'' (History of Kashmir) refers to several history books of Kashmir's Sultanate period, some of them lost and partially used as sources for the others. Lost sources Earlier lost sources include; * History of Mullah Ahmad Kash ...

, (History of Kashmir) a lost history by Mullah Nadri 1420 AD, used as a source by

Haidar Malik Haidar Malik Chadurah (died 1627) was an administrator, and soldier in Kashmir in the service of Salim Nuruddin Jahangir, the fourth Mughal Emperor from 1605 until his death in 1627. Haidar Malik wrote the best known Persian-language history of ...

(1620s).

printed this photograph in ''Jesus in Heaven on Earth'' (1952) The text in the photograph contains mention of Yuzasaf, but the standard text of the Mullah Nadri traditions transmitted by

contain no mention of Yuzasaf, and no historian cites Tarikh-i-Kashmir as containing a Yuzasaf tradition. The original page, which Ahmad tried to buy in 1946 is now lost, so no tests can be conducted to the age of the document. * ''Waqiat-i-Kashmir'' of

Muhammed Azam Didamari Khwaja Muhammad Azam Kaul Didamari (died 1765) was a Sufi Kashmiri writer in the Persian language. Khawaja Khawaja ( Persian: خواجه ''khvâjəh'') is an honorific title used across the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia and Central ...

(1747) History of Kashmir, mention of Prince Yuzasaf * Official Decree of 1770 court case, – identifying the two saints at the Rozabal as Yuzasaf and Sayyid Naseeruddin. * ''Bagh-i-Sulaiman'' (The Garden of Solomon) of Mir Saadullah Shahabadi Kashmiri (1780), a history of Kashmir which comments on the other Muslim holy man buried at the Roza Bal shrine, Sayyid Naseeruddin. * '' Wajeesut Tawarikh'' of Abdul Nabi Khanyari (1857) – History of the Sikh period of Kashmir which mentions the Rozabal as grave of Sayyid Naseeruddin and prince Yuzasaf. * Takhat Sulaiman (Throne of Solomon), remains of a temple on hill near

Dal Lake Dal is a lake in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir. It is an urban lake, the second largest lake in Jammu and Kashmir, and the most visited place in Srinagar by tourists and locals. It is integral to tourism and recreation in th ...

in Srinagar, Kashmir * '' Tahrik-i-kabir-Kashmir'', of Haji Mohiuddin, (Amritsar, Suraj Prakash Press, 1902) – the first source to mention that some believe the Roza Bal to be the tomb of Jesus (Isa), three years after Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's identification.

Pappas Pappas or Papas ( el, Παππάς, ) is a Greek surname, which means "priest" (occupational surname). In the United States, it is often a shortened form of a longer surname like ''Papadopoulos'' or ''Papageorgiou''.Louis Adamic, ''What's Your Nam ...

states that the analysis of any possible combinations of date assignment to Nazir Ahmad's theory about the travels of Jesus indicates that none of the scenarios can be consistent with the generally accepted historical dates such as the reign of Gondophares, in part because Nazir Ahmad relied on the dating methods used in the court of

Zain-ul-Abidin , spouse = , issue = Haider Shah , issue-link = , issue-pipe = , house = Shah Mir dynasty , father = Sikandar Shah Miri , mother = , birth_date = 25 November 1395 , birth_place = Kashmir, Shah ...

(1423–1474).

Andreas Faber-Kaiser and Holger Kersten

In 1976 Andreas Faber-Kaiser, a Spanish

UFOlogist Ufology ( ) is the investigation of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by people who believe that they may be of extraordinary origins (most frequently of extraterrestrial alien visitors). While there are instances of government, private, and ...

, and in 1983 Siegfried Obermeier and

Holger Kersten Holger Kersten (born 1951) is a German writer on myth, legend, religion, and esoteric subjects. He is best known for speculative books about time Jesus spent in India. Kersten's views have received no support from mainstream scholarship. ''Jesu ...

, two German writers on esoteric subjects, popularised the subject in ''Christ died in Kashmir'', ''Christ in Kashmir'' and ''Christ Lived in India'' respectively. Kersten's ideas were among various expositions of the theory critiqued by

in '' Jesus in Indien. Das Ende einer Legende'' (Munich, 1985).

a German theologian states that the work of Kersten (which builds on Ahmad and '' The Aquarian Gospel'') is fantasy and has nothing to do with historical research.

an Australian Jesuit priest, states that Kersten's work is simply the repackaging of a legend for consumption by the general public. The interpretation that the tomb is aligned East-West is found in the Ahmadi publications such as, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's ''Kashti Noh'' and Ahmadiyya official magazines '' Islamic Review'' 1981 and ''

'' 1983. Ahmadis claim that this is supported by the reference from

's version of the Yuzasif-

story in Ikmal al-Din "Then he stretched out his legs and turned his head to the west and his face to the east. He died in this position."

Ahmaddiya claims in Popular media

Richard Denton wrote and produced a documentary for

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

titled ''Did Jesus Die?'' in 2004. It is narrated by

Bernard Hill Bernard Hill (born 17 December 1944) is an English actor. He is well recognized for playing King Théoden in ''The Lord of the Rings'' film trilogy, Captain Edward Smith in ''Titanic'', and Luther Plunkitt, the Warden of San Quentin Prison in the ...

and features

Elaine Pagels Elaine Pagels, née Hiesey (born February 13, 1943), is an American historian of religion. She is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. Pagels has conducted extensive research into early Christianity and Gnosti ...

Peter Stanford Peter James Stanford (born 23 November 1961) is an English writer, editor, journalist and presenter, known for his biographies and writings on religion and ethics. His biography of Lord Longford was the basis for the 2006 BAFTA-winning film '' ...

John Dominic Crossan John Dominic Crossan (born 17 February 1934) is an Irish-American New Testament scholar, historian of early Christianity, former Catholic priest who was a prominent member of the Jesus Seminar, and emeritus professor at DePaul University. His res ...

Paula Fredriksen Paula Fredriksen (born January 6, 1951, Kingston, Rhode Island) is an American historian and scholar of early Christianity. She held the position of William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of Scripture at Boston University from 1990 to 2010. Now emerit ...

, Father

Jerome Murphy-O'Connor Jerome Murphy-O'Connor (born 10 April 1935, Cork City, Ireland – died 11 November 2013, Jerusalem) was a Dominican priest, a leading authority on St. Paul, and a Professor of New Testament at the École Biblique in Jerusalem, a position ...

, Tom Wright, Thierry LaCombe (French

Knights Templar , colors = White mantle with a red cross , colors_label = Attire , march = , mascot = Two knights riding a single horse , equipment ...

conspiracy theorist), Richard Andrews,

James Tabor James Daniel Tabor (born 1946 in Texas) is a Biblical scholar and Professor of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he has taught since 1989 and serv ...

, Steve Mason, and Ahmadi editor Abdul Aziz Kashmiri. The documentary explores the survival from the cross theory and, in passing, mentions theories such as a journey to India by Jesus, with a section on the story of Yuz Asaf. In 2007

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

showed the documentary ''The Hidden Story of Jesus'' presented by Robert Beckford, which included filming inside Roza Bal, and an interview with Fida Hassnain about the shrine and Jesus "Indian connection". Gerald O’Collins criticised several aspects of the documentary, and stated that Hassnain "showed how he lives in an odd world of fantasy and misinformation." Around 2010 the tomb at Roza Bal began to gain popularity among western tourists as the possible tomb of Jesus. According to a 2010

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...