In the Lost Tribes link we saw that the Apostle Thomas had been assigned to go to India to preach the message of Jesus Christ. The Acta Thomae, though, also records an account showing that Jesus Christ was in Taxila at a marriage ceremony, along with Thomas, in the year 49 CE, a good number of years after the crucifixion. This account verifies St. Irenaeus’s observations (see Irenaeus link), recorded in his Against Heresies, that Jesus was seen alive in Asia long after the event of the cross. The Acta Thomae is a Christian work, though it was declared heretical in the year 495 C.E. by a decree of Gelasius.

In the following account, the bridegroom saw whom he thought was Thomas talking to his new bride, but it was not Thomas. Both Thomas and Jesus attended this wedding, and one of them was often mistaken for the other:

“Thomas after the ceremonies left the palace. The bridegroom (Abdagases) lifted the curtain that separated him from his bride. He saw Thomas, as he supposed, conversing with her. Then he asked in surprise: ‘How Canst though be found here? Did I not see thee go out before all?’ And the Lord answered: ‘I am not Thomas, but his brother.’”

Here is another translation of this account:

“11 And the king desired the groomsmen to depart out of the bride-chamber; and when all were gone out and the doors were shut, the bridegroom lifted up the curtain of the bride-chamber to fetch the bride unto him. And he saw the Lord Jesus bearing the likeness of Judas Thomas and speaking with the bride; even of him that but now had blessed them and gone out from them, the apostle; and he saith unto him: ‘Wentest thou not out in the sight of all? How then art thou found here?’ But the Lord said to him: ‘I am not Judas which is also called Thomas but I am his brother.’”

It is not difficult to understand why the Acta Thomae would have been declared heretical: Any mention of the appearance of Jesus Christ after the crucifixion certainly ran counter to the already-formulated Christian.

But it is fair to point out that the words of advice later given by Jesus to the young newlywed couple regarding marriage and conjugal relations are so absurd and outrageous that it would seem to call into question the above account (assuming that what is recorded is what he actually said).

Also, all throughout the Acta Thomae, Thomas refers to Jesus as the “Lord, God.” Certainly if Jesus was traveling with Thomas as a human being, he would not refer to him as God. But we include this account from the Acta Thomae because despite the standard Christology that flows throughout the Acta Thomae, and the absurd advice supposedly given by Jesus to the newlyweds, it is extremely difficult to ignore the fact that the Acta Thomae records an appearance of Jesus in India.

Was the appearance mystical? It does not at all read as if this was the case. Is the Acta Thomae a total and complete fraud? We cannot answer that question. But for one reason or another, the Acta Thomae made a point to mention that a living and walking and talking Jesus was in India with Thomas at a wedding ceremony.

18. THE AIN-UL-HAYAT

The author of the Ain-ul-Hayat was Ibn-i-Muhammad Hadi Muhammad Ismail. In Volume 2, Chapter 2, pages 177 to 178, he states the following regarding Yuz Asaf:

“He went to many cities and preached to those cities. At last he reached the city of Kashmir. He invited its inhabitants to righteousness and resided there till death approached him, and his holy spirit departed from his earthly body and went to rest with God. But before his death he called his companion Ba’bad and made a will…and directed him to construct a tomb for him. He laid himself with his head towards the East and stretched his legs towards the West, and went to the place of Eternity.”

19. MENTION OF JESUS ON THE TAKHAT SULAIMAN (THRONE OF SOLOMON) MONUMENT IN SRINAGAR

The Takhat Sulaiman (Throne of Solomon) is a large temple situated on the top of a hillock near the Dal Lake in Srinagar, Kashmir. It was renamed Sankarachariya by the Hindu Maharaja in 1848. There are four inscriptions on this monument, two of which are still legible. The inscriptions are recorded in Khwaja Hassan Malik’s book, Tarikh-i-Kashmir. They read:

The mason of this pillar is Bihishti Zargar, Year fifty and four.
Khwaja Rukun son of Murjan erected this pillar.
At this time Yuz Asaf proclaimed his prophethood. Year fifty and four.
He is Jesus, Prophet of the Children of Israel.

Concerning the year 54, Hassnain notes the following:

“Note that since Islam did not exist during the reign of Gopadatta (79-109 AD), connecting the year 54 with the Muslim Hijra Era is absurd. During that period, the Laukika Era was exclusively used in Kashmir. As this era started in 3076 BC, the 54th year mentioned in the inscription would come to either 22 BC or 78 AD (since Laukika Year 1 is 3076 BC, 3054 would be 22 BC, and 3154 would be 78 AD.) As it was not possible for Jesus Christ to have traveled to Kashmir in 22 BC, I take the year 78 AD to be the correct date of his arrival.”

20. JESUS GETS MARRIED AND HAS CHILDREN

While there are many who regard the idea of Jesus having been married as a blasphemous notion, we see this as perhaps a most wonderful and beautiful “ending” to the story of Jesus Christ. Jesus had suffered the scorn and mockery of his own people, whose scribes and priests had conspired to have him executed. He was nailed to the cross—a torture that no one wishes to imagine. Then throughout his travels he continued to preach and teach, sometimes being driven away by the priests (such as the Zoroastrian priests of Persia). He traveled on, and at the risk of losing his very life he defended the rights of the Sudras in India and attacked the priestly class of the Brahmans, just as he had attacked the scribes and Pharisees in his homeland.

Then a wise king, King Shalivahan, who had met him and experienced Jesus’ teachings, implored Jesus to get married so that he would have a companion. What is surprising is not the fact that Jesus Christ would have united with a female companion. What is surprising is that a man who had so much to teach and so much to share, would not desire to have, and eventually form a union with, a loving female companion with whom he could share all that he had to offer. That mate’s name was Marjan, according to Kashmir tradition.

We have not yet attained a copy of an old, Persian work entitled the Negaris-Tan-i-Kashmir, in which an account of Jesus’ marriage is contained. We will continue trying to get hold of it, and the reader can check from time to time at the website to see if that document has been obtained. You can check the Ancient Documents page at that site, which you can access from the homepage by clicking the hyperlink that reads, “Ancient Documents.”

We have contacted various people, attempting to get hold of this work, including the English translation of the relevant portions. This might be a difficult task, but we are determined to put every effort into securing it. In the meantime, we reproduce below an excerpt from Andreas Faber Kaiser’s, Jesus Died in Kashmir, in which Kaiser relates a conversation he had with Mr. Basharat Saleem, a man who claims to be a living descendant of Jesus Christ:

“He told me that to his knowledge the only written source on this subject [of Jesus’ marriage] was the Negaris-Tan-i-Kashmir, an old Persian book that had been translated into Urdu, and that relates that King Shalewahin (the same king as met and conversed with Jesus in the mountains) told Jesus that he needed a woman to take care of him, and offered him his choice of fifty. Jesus replied that he did not need any and that no one was obliged to work for him, but the king persisted until Jesus agreed to employ a woman to cook for him, look after his house and do his washing. Professor Hassnain told me that the woman’s name was Maryan, and that the same book says that she bore Jesus children.”

dedication