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Translator's Introduction
The work, the translation of which I now put before the public, has created much comment among the thinking people all the world over, and journalists have written both favorable and hostile criticisms on it. I shall not devote the pages of this work to a consideration of those criticisms. Having, however, been born in India and travelled over that vast country, I feel it my duty to put before the reader some salient points which seem to me to have an important bearing on the facts set forth by the work.
I do not know why Christian theologians misrepresent the facts, which they can, if they intend to be truthful, put before the intelligent public in their true light. I can cite numerous instances in which reverend gentlemen have, intentionally or unintentionally, distorted, mangled and murdered the truth, do not know with what object. The intelligent public of this country are well acquainted with the Rev. Dr. Edward Everett Hale, of Boston, and had I not known him at all I would have said that he had intentionally misrepresented the facts when he wrote an article, in the North American Review (May, 1894) on "The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ;" but knowing, as I do, of his broad views and catholic spirit, I would simply attribute his statements in that article to ignorance on the subject. That Reverend gentleman, while criticizing this work (The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ), says: “But now Mr. Notovitch comes to the front and remembers that he has an excellent Life of Christ which he found in a somewhat mythical convent in Thibet, some years ago,"
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