Book Title: Unknown Life of Jesus Christ New Edition 2009 Publication
Author(s): Nicholas Notovitch, Virchand R Gandhi, Kumarpal Desai
Publisher: World Jain Confederation

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Page 144
________________ Summary learning that Moses infringed upon his commands; so-he ordered his soldiers to pursue the fugitives. It seems, from the geographical situation of this region, that Moses must have skirted the mountain in his route and entered Arabia by the Isthmus now cut by the Suez Canal. Pharaoh, on the contrary, led his troops in a direct line towards the Red Sea, and in order to overtake the Israelites, who had already reached the opposite shore, he wanted to take advantage of the ebb of the sea into the gulf, formed by the shores and the isthmus and make his soldiers ford it. But the distance across the arm of the sea at this point was greater than he anticipated, for the tide closed in on the Egyptian army when they were half way across and none of them could possibly escape death. This fact, so simple in itself, was transformed after centuries into a religious legend among the Israelites, who saw in it a divine intervention as a punishment inflicted by their God upon their enemies. We think that Moses himself entertained this belief. But that is a thesis which I will undertake to develop in a future work. The Buddhist chronicle then describes briefly the greatness and the downfall of the kingdom of Israel and its conquest by strangers, who reduced its people to a state of servitude. The misfortunes which befell the Israelites and their bitter afflictions henceforth were, according to the chronicler, reasons more than sufficient for God to take pity on His people, and desiring to come to their rescue, He resolved to descend upon earth in the form of a prophet, that He might lead them back into the path of safety. The condition of things at this time justified the belief that the arrival of Jesus was signalized, imminent and necessary. This explains why the Buddhist traditions affirm that the Eternal Spirit separated itself from the Eternal Being and - 139

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