According to the legend, Issa left his father's house secretly at age thirteen. He joined a merchant caravan and arrived in India "this side of the Sind" sometime during his fourteenth year.

        Young Issa, the Blessed One, traveled south to Gujarat, through the country of the five streams and Rajputana, then on to the holy cities of Jagannath and Benares where Brahman priests taught him Vedic scripture.

        Issa continued north into the Himalayas and settled in the country of the Gautamides, followers of the Buddha Gautama, where for six years he applied himself to the study of the sacred sutras. He left India in his twenty-sixth year, traveling to Persepolis, to Athens, to Alexandria.

        Issa was twenty-nine when he returned to Israel--and reentered the familiar gospel of St. Luke, chapter three. His baptism by John in the river Jordan.

        Criticism of "The Life of St. Issa" recorded by Nicolas Notovitch began soon after its original publication.

        A trenchant note from the author "To the Publishers" in the later English translation counters allegations that he never entered Tibet, "that I am an impostor," and that the Himis manuscript never existed at all.

        Notovitch argues that the Vatican library contains sixty-three manuscripts in various Oriental languages which refer to the Issa legend-documents brought to Rome by Christian missionaries from India, China, Egypt, and Arabia. He even suggests that one of the missioners may have been the apostle Thomas-yes, "doubting Thomas," the empiricist.

        That is possible. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, St. Thomas evangelized India and the territory between the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea. The apocryphal Acts of Thomas describe him as a carpenter who preached the gospel and performed miracles. He could not have preached in his native Greek to men who spoke only Pali or Sanskrit. So it is possible, even probable that he wrote or edited the historical narratives we now know as "The Life of St. Issa."

        Notovitch says that he believes in the authenticity of the Buddhist narrative "because I see nothing that can contradict or invalidate it from a historical or theological point of view."

        "Before criticizing my' communication." He suggests, "any learned society can equip a scientific expedition having for its mission the investigation of these manuscripts on the spot."

        In 1922, a punditic disciple of Ramakrishna named Swami Abhedananda took Notovitch up on his offer.

        Abhedananda lived in North America for a quarter of a century, traveled extensively, and was acquainted with Thomas Edison, William James, and Dr. Max Muller. He was fascinated by Jesus and skeptical of Notovitch.

        Abhedananda journeyed into the arctic region of the Himalayas, determined to find a copy of the Himis manuscript or to expose the fraud. His book of travels, entitled Kashmir 0 Tibetti, tells of a visit to the Himis gonpa and includes a Bengali translation of two hundred twenty-four verses essentially the same as the Notovitch text. Abhedananda was thereby convinced of the authenticity of the Issa legend.

        In 1925, another Russian named Nicholas Roerich arrived at Himis. Roerich, the towering artist, was also a profound philosopher and a distinguished scientist. He apparently saw the same documents as Notovitch and Abhedananda. And he recorded in his own travel diary the same legend of St. Issa.

        Nicholas Roerich was a man of strong and definite personality. His writing is characteristically intimate and eloquent.

        Speaking of Issa, Roerich quotes legends which have the estimated antiquity of many centuries.

        ... He passed his time in several ancient cities of India such as Benares. All loved him because Issa dwelt in peace with Vaishas and Shudras whom he instructed and helped. But the Brahmins and Kshatriyas told him that Brahma forbade those to approach who were created out of his womb and feet. The Vaishas were allowed to listen to the Vedas only on holidays and the Shudras were forbidden not only to be present at the reading of the Vedas, but could not even look at them.

        Issa said that man had filled the temples with his abominations. In order to pay homage to metals and stones, man sacrificed his fellows in whom dwells a spark of the Supreme Spirit. Man demeans those who labor by the sweat of their brows, in order to gain the good will of the sluggard who sits at the lavishly set board. But they who deprive their brothers of the common blessing shall be themselves stripped of it.

        Vaishas and Shudras were struck with astonishment and asked what they could perform. Issa bade them "Worship not the idols. Do not consider yourself first. Do not humiliate your neighbor. Help the poor. Sustain the feeble. Do evil to no one. Do not covet that which you do not possess and which is possessed by others."

        Many, learning of such words, decided to kill Issa. But Issa, forewarned, departed from this place by night.

        Afterward, Issa went into Nepal and into the Himalayan mountains ....

        "Well, perform for us a miracle," demanded the servitors of the Temple. Then Issa replied to them: "Miracles made their appearance from the very day when the world was created. He who cannot behold them is deprived of the greatest gift of life. But woe to you, enemies of men, woe unto you, if you await that He should attest his power by miracle."

        Issa taught that men should not strive to behold the Eternal Spirit with one's own eyes but to feel it with the heart, and to become a pure and worthy soul....

        "Not only shall you not make human offerings, but you must not slaughter animals, because all is given for the use of man. Do not steal the goods of others, because that would be usurpation from your near one. Do not cheat, that you may in turn not be cheated ....

        "Beware, ye, who divert men from the true path and who fill the people with superstitions and prejudices, who blind the vision of the seeing ones, and who preach subservience to material things. "...

        Then Pilate, ruler of Jerusalem, gave orders to lay hands upon the preacher Issa and to deliver him to the judges, without however, arousing the displeasure of the people.

        But Issa taught: "Do not seek straight paths in darkness, possessed by fear. But gather force and support each other. He who supports his neighbor strengthens himself

        "I tried to revive the laws of Moses in the hearts of the people. And I say unto you that you do not understand their true meaning because they do not teach revenge but forgiveness. But the meaning of these laws is distorted."

        Then the ruler sent to Issa his disguised servants that they should watch his actions and report to him about his words to the people.

        "Thou just man, "said the disguised servant of the ruler of Jerusalem approaching Issa, "Teach us, should we fulfill the will of Caesar or await the approaching deliverance?"

        But Issa, recognizing the disguised servants, said, "I did not foretell unto you that you would be delivered from Caesar; but I said that the soul which was immersed in sin would be delivered from sin."

        At this time, an old woman approached the crowd, but was pushed back. Then Issa said, "Reverence Woman, mother of the universe,' in her lies the truth of creation. She is the foundation of all that is good and beautiful. She is the source of life and death. Upon her depends the existence of man, because she is the sustenance of his labors. She gives birth to you in travail, she watches over your growth. Bless her. Honor her. Defend her. Love your wives and honor them, because tomorrow they shall be mothers, and later-progenitors of a whole race. Their love ennobles man, soothes the embittered heart and tames the beast. Wife and mother-they are the adornments of the universe."

        "As light divides itself from darkness, so does woman possess the gift to divide in man good intent from the thought of evil. Your best thoughts must belong to woman. Gather from them your moral strength, which you must possess to sustain your near ones. Do not humiliate her, for therein you will humiliate yourselves. And all which you will do to mother, to wife, to widow or to another woman in sorrow-that shall you also do for the Spirit."

        So taught Issa; but the ruler Pilate ordered one of his servants to make accusation against him.

        Said Issa: "Not far hence is the time when by the Highest Will the people will become purified and united into one family."

        And then turning to the ruler, he said, "Why demean thy dignity and teach thy subordinates to live in deceit when even without this thou couldst also have had the means of accusing an innocent one?"

        From another version of the legend, Roerich quotes fragments of thought and evidence of the miraculous.

        Near Lhasa was a temple of teaching with a wealth of manuscripts. Jesus was to acquaint himself with them. Meng-ste, a great sage of all the East, was in this temple.

        Finally Jesus reached a mountain pass and in the chief city of Ladak, Leh, he was joyously accepted by monks and people of the lower class .... And Jesus taught in the monasteries and in the bazaars (the market places); wherever the simple people gathered--there he taught.

        Not far from this place lived a woman whose son had died and she brought him to Jesus. And in the presence of a multitude, Jesus laid his hand on the child, and the child rose healed. And many brought their children and Jesus laid his hands upon them, healing them.

        Among the Ladakis, Jesus passed many days, teaching them. And they loved him and when the time of his departure came they sorrowed as children.

        Nicholas Roerich's Central Asiatic Expedition lasted four and a half years. In that time he traveled from Sikkim through the Punjab and into Kashmir, Ladak, Karakorum, Khotan, and Irtysh, then over the Altai Mountains and through the Oyrot region into Mongolia, Central Gobi, Kansu, and Tibet. "We learned how widespread are the legends about Issa," he writes. "The sermons related in them, of unity, of the significance of woman and all the indications about Buddhism, are so remarkably timely for us."

        Although Roerich was familiar with "The Life of St. Issa" recorded by Nicolas Notovitch thirty-five years before, "the local people know nothing of any published book," he says. Yet "they know the legend and with deep reverence they speak of Issa....

        "It is significant to hear a local inhabitant, a Hindu, relate how Issa preached beside a small pool near the bazaar under a great tree, which now no longer exists. In such purely physical indications you may see how seriously this subject is regarded."

        I agree with a sensitive Hindu who told Nicholas Roerich that "it is difficult to understand why the wandering of Issa by caravan path into India and into the region now occupied by Tibet should be so vehemently denied."

        What's wrong with my children knowing that Jesus went to school, too? What's wrong with explaining to me that my Exemplar pursued a tough inner discipline? That he studied the Upanishads, perhaps even Plato and Pythagoras. He was born without purse or pedigree. He worked hard within the free enterprise of individual integrity.

        Jesus Christ earned his grace and truth in the sense that he, like all of us, had to choose to externalize the Within so that the son of man might be the transparency for the Son of God. More than ever before I now know that because he lived I can overcome.

        I know him in his holy innocent, bright and obedient boyhood. I know him in his strong, searching youth engaged in the Quest-finding and becoming the Teacher and the teaching as a young adult. I know him in the one fully Self-realized as the Word incarnate, the Healer, the Fiery Baptizer and the One Sent to sacrifice for the many.

        Because in all of these Jesus is my example, I, too, will freely work the works of Him that sent me.