The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 4) — Page 303
PT. 18 AL-MU'MINŪN at Nişībīn (Ṭabarī) and left for far-off Kashmir. Finding unsafe to travel under his real name he henceforward, travelled under the assumed name of Yüz Asaf (Yüz in Hebrew being the same as Yasu' and Āsaf meaning the gatherer). Henceforward Jesus becomes Yüz Āsaf and is known by this name till his death. On his way from Nişībīn to Kashmir he passed through Iran and Afghanistan. At last he reached his destination. The last vestiges of doubt as to Jesus' travel to Afghanistan and Kashmir are dispelled by that very useful book "The Unknown Life of Jesus" written by Nicholas Notovitch, a Russian traveller, who visited the Far East in about 1877. He calls Kashmir "the valley of eternal bliss" which may be regarded as an apt rendering in English of the Quranic ذات قرار و معين words In this book Notovitch tells us that Jesus came to India, while he was only 14 years of age, lived there for some time, learnt the use of herbs, medicine and mathematics and studied also the Hindu religion and held religious discussions with the Brahmans who ultimately became his enemies. The fact having come to his knowledge that the Brahmans were seeking to kill him, he left India for Nepal and then went to Kashmir and Afghanistan and stopping on the way in Persia he went back to Judea. Sir Francis Young husband, who was at the time when Nicholas Notovitch visited Kashmir, British resident at the court of the Maharaja of Kashmir, met him near the Zojila Pass. Recent research about Jesus' travels CH. 23 in the East lends powerful support to Notovitch's book. The following quotations are very significant: In Srinagar we first encountered the curious legend about Christ's visit to the place. Afterwards we saw how widely spread in India, in Laddakh and in Central Asia, was the legend of the visit of Christ to those parts ("Heart of Asia," by Professor Nicholus Roerich). All over Central Asia, in Kashmir and Laddakh and Tibet and even further north, there still exists a strong belief that Jesus or Issa travelled about there ("Glimpses of World History," by Jawaharlal Nehru). One day Raja Shalewahin went to a country in the Himalayas. There he saw a Raja of Sakas (foreigners) at Wein, who was fair of colour and wore white clothes. The Raja asked him who he was. He replied that he was Yusashaphat (Yūz Āsaf) and was born of a woman (according to another report, "born of a virgin". . . ) The Raja asked him about his religion. He replied, 'it is love, truth and purity of heart and on account of this I am called ‘Isā Masīḥ': (Sutta. Bhavishya Maha Purana, P. 282, translated by Dr. Shiv Nath Shastri and quoted by Robert Graves and Joshua Podro in "Jesus in Rome"). some Finding it impossible to deny the fact of Jesus' having been taken down alive from the cross and of his journey to the East, some scholars have taken refuge behind obscure passages in Notovitch's book to claim that Jesus came to East before and not after he was commissioned as a Divine Prophet. But this inference appears manifestly 2217