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* The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ the
In the Notovich translation, the section regarding Pontius Pilate is of particular note; in this version of the events around the death of Jesus, the Sanhedrins go to Pilate and argue to save the life of Jesus, and they are the ones who 'wash their hands' off his death, instead of the Roman Pilate.
Virchand Gandhi refers to a controversy in the wake of the publication of Notovitch's book. Edgar Goodspeed describes Notovitch's claims as a hoax. Notovitch's writings immediately became controversial and then the German orientalist, Max Muller corresponded with the Himis Monastery Notovitch claimed to have visited, and J. Archibald Douglas visited Himis Monastery, but neither Max Muller nor J. Archibald Douglas found any evidence that Notovich (much less Jesus) had even been there himself, his claims were widely rejected. The head of the Himis community signed a document that denounced Notovitch as an outright liar.
The story of his visit to Himis seems to be taken from H. P. Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled in the original, the traveller with the broken leg was taken in at Mount Athos in Greece and found the text of Celsus 'True Doctrine ' in the monastery library.
Though the claims of Notovitch were dubbed as hoax, there were some defenders, too, says Virchand Gandhi. Notovitch's claims were taken up, however, by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (d. 1908), who proclaimed himself as the awaited Messiah. Unlike Notovitch, he claimed that Jesus had travelled to India, post-crucifixion in search of the lost tribes of Israel and there he died a natural death. Many other New Age or Spiritualist authors have incorporated this information into their own works and systems. For example, in her book “The Lost Years of Jesus: Documentary Evidence of Jesus' 17-Year Journey to the East", Elizabeth Clare Prophet asserts that Buddhist manuscripts provide evidence that Jesus travelled to India, Nepal, Ladakh and Tibet.
