Nicolas Notovitch

Shulim or Nikolai Aleksandrovich Notovich (Николай Александрович Нотович), known in the West as Nicolas Notovitch (1858-after 1916) was a CrimeanJewish adventurer who claimed to be a Russian aristocrat and journalist.

Notovitch is known for his 1894 book claiming that during his unknown years, Jesus left Galilee for India and studied with Buddhists and Hindus there before returning to Judea. Notovitch's claim was based on a document he said he had seen at the Hemis Monastery while he stayed there, but he later confessed to having fabricated his evidence.

Some modern scholars view Notovitch's accounts of the travels of Jesus to India as a hoax which includes major inconsistencies.

Notovitch also wrote some political books on the role of Russia in war.

Notovitch claimed that he broke his leg in India and while recovering from it at the Hemis monastery in Ladakh, he learned of the "Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men" – Isa being the Arabic name of Jesus in Islam. Notovitch's story, with the text of the "Life," was published in French in 1894 as La vie inconnue de Jesus Christ. It was translated into English, German, Spanish, and Italian.

Notovitch claimed that the chief lama at Hemis told him of the existence of the work, which was read to him, through an interpreter, the somewhat detached verses of the Tibetan version of the "Life of Issa," which was said to have been translated from the Pali. Notovitch says that he himself afterward grouped the verses "in accordance with the requirements of the narrative." As published by Notovitch, the work consists of 244 short paragraphs, arranged in fourteen chapters. The otherwise undocumented name "Issa" resembles the Arabic name Isa (عيسى), used in the Koran to refer to Jesus and the Sanskrit "īśa", the Lord.

The "Life of Issa" begins with an account of Israel in Egypt, its deliverance by Moses, its neglect of religion, and its conquest by the Romans. Then follows an account of the Incarnation. At the age of thirteen the divine youth, rather than take a wife, leaves his home to wander with a caravan of merchants to India (Sindh), to study the laws of the great Buddhas. Issa is welcomed by the Jains, but leaves them to spend time among the Buddhists, and spends six years among them, learning Pali and mastering their religious texts. Issa spent six years studying and teaching at Jaganath, Rajagriha, and other holy cities. At twenty-nine, Issa returns to his own country and begins to preach. He visits Jerusalem, where Pilate is apprehensive about him. The Jewish leaders, however, are also apprehensive about his teachings yet he continues his work for three years. He is finally arrested and put to death for blasphemy, for claiming to be the son of God. His followers are persecuted, but his disciples carry his message to the world.

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