THE AHAM SPHURANA HOAX

In this biography of Christ, Nicholas Notovitch claims that Jesus spent many of his missing years traversing India.

A Crimean Jewish adventurer and explorer of India, Notovitch traveled widely across the East in the late nineteenth century. He claimed to have discovered a biographical document in Hemis Monestary, Ladakh, India - from which he created this book. The bold and fantastical claims about Christ attracted attention from scholars of Christianity and the popular media of the time.

After Notovitch was confronted with the inconsistencies in this book, he apparently confessed to having fabricated the entire biography of Jesus Christ. For years the entire matter was considered a hoax; until the Indian mystic Swami Abhedananda visited the Hemis Monastery. A resident monk confirmed that Notovitch had stayed some six weeks there, convalescing with a broken leg, whereupon he read the disputed documents concerning Christ.

Today, although Notovitch's alternate account of Jesus' life and existence during his lost years is discredited, it remains an interesting and notable episode in Christian biography. For his part, Notovitch continued to write for the remainder of his life - albeit on topics surrounding politics and national leaders, rather than religion.

This reprint of The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ contains the classic translation to English by Jain scholar Virchand R. Gandhi.