The problem, of course, was that even if one considered the sixteen generations after Jesus that were specifically mentioned in the book, and putting a forty-year lifespan to each generation, the book only had information for around 640 years after Jesus. Where was the lineage after Khaleel?
Martha was now pretty sure that some sort of cover-up was going on. She needed to see the original Urdu work and not the translated version. The library had the original Urdu version—it was a third edition, published in 1862.
The lucky break was that having lived in India for many years, Martha understood Urdu perfectly.
She started reading the work in Urdu. She began by reading each line, first in Urdu, and then translating it into English:
Issa and Mary had a child by the name of Sara, who was born to them in India, but was later sent to Gaul with her mother. Issa remained in India, where he married a woman from the Sakya clan on the persistence of King Gopadatta, and had a son, Benissa. Benissa had a son, Yushua, who fathered Akkub. Akkub’s son was Jashub. Abihud was the son of Jashub. Jashub’s grandson was Elnaam. Elnaam sired Harsha, who sired Jabal, who sired Shalman. Shalman’s son Zabbud embraced Islam.
Zabbud’s son was Abdul, and Abdul’s son was Haaroon. Haaroon’s son was Hamza and Hamza’s son was Omar. Rashid’s father was Omar and Khaleel’s father was Rashid. Rashid had two more children, a son and a daughter. The boy’s name was Muhammad and the girl was named Sultana. Muhammad died before his marriage, but Sultana produced a son. The name of her son was Salim. Salim had a son called Ikram. Ikram got married to Raziya and they had a daughter called Bano. Bano produced a son called Ali. Ali had a son, Ghulam, and Ghulam also had a son, Mustafa. Mustafa’s son’s name was Humayun. Humayun’s son’s name was Abbas. Abbas had a son called Faiz. Faiz had a son called Javed. Javed had a son, Gulzar. Gulzar had a daughter. The daughter’s name was Nasreen. Nasreen had a son called Akbar. Akbar produced a son called Yusuf. Yusuf’s son’s name was Mansoor. Mansoor’s son’s name was Zain. Zain had a son, Faisal. Faisal produced a daughter called Sharmeen. Sharmeen had a son called Ibrahim. Ibrahim’s son’s name was Alam. Alam’s son’s name was Mehdi. Mehdi had a son called Bismillah. Bismillah had a son called Hassan. Hassan had a son called Shabbir.
Martha was stunned. Here was a passage that took the lineage almost twenty-five generations further! How could this have been mistakenly omitted from the English translation?
She thought to herself, ‘Max Müller is admired all over the world for his translation of many historic Sanskrit works. Unfortunately, his motives are rarely discussed. It was Max Müller who wrote that, “India has been conquered once, but India must be conquered again . . . the ancient religion is doomed and if Christianity does not step in, whose fault will it be?”’
Martha was clear. English scholars had been reluctant to expose any historical Indian works that seemed to portray Indian culture or religions as being older or more advanced than Western Christian thought. Any work that showed Jesus or Christianity as having learned from India, from Buddhism or from Hinduism, would have made the work of Christian missionaries extremely difficult. Indians would have questioned why they needed to convert to Christianity if Christian thought in itself had been derived from ancient Buddhist or Hindu wisdom.
‘So the omissions in the English translations were deliberate?’ thought Martha to herself. ‘There is only one way to tell,’ she replied to herself equally quickly. ‘We must take up the challenge posed by the Bom Jesus document that Terry gave Vincent.’
Time to visit Goa. Had Vincent arrived in Mumbai yet? Martha pondered over her research and considered the implications of what it meant for her personally.
There were many ways of getting from Mumbai to Goa. The boring way was to take a forty-five-minute flight. The exhausting way was to board an overnight bus. The economical way was by the super-fast Konkan Railways express train that got there in seven hours. The dignified way was called the Deccan Odyssey.
Aboard India’s answer to Europe’s Orient Express and South Africa’s Blue Train were Vincent and Martha. During his visit to Cochin, Vincent had befriended a senior superintendent of India’s Western Railways. The two tickets on this super-luxury train were a heavily discounted gift from him.
The Deccan Odyssey was a dark blue train trimmed with gilded stripes. The decadent coaches were named after well-known forts, palaces and monuments of India, names that would become familiar on the leisurely journey from Mumbai to Goa. The journey would also give the duo some time to review all their research.
The Deccan Odyssey travelled at a leisurely sixty miles an hour as it snaked its way through the western peninsula of India, stopping along the way at small towns and beaches.
It was delightful to be awakened in the morning by hot coffee and toast brought by a personal valet, to be served whisky-and-soda by white-gloved bearers in the evenings and to be offered cocoa and biscuits before falling asleep each night.
On the third day they arrived at Sindhudurg, which was famous for its Hindu temples. It was also famous for the Fort of Sindhudurg, which had taken 6,000 workers three years of round-the-clock work to complete. The massive structure sat on forty-eight acres of land, a breathtaking goliath sitting in the water and surrounded by a pristine rocky coastline.
As aunt and nephew drank in the beauty of their surroundings, Vincent spoke. During the train journey, he had been reading a novel called Guardian of the Dawn by Richard Zimler,128 which Martha had managed to procure from the library.
‘Nana, do you know that the author of this book was recently interviewed in India? Do you know what he said?’129
‘What?’ asked Martha.
‘He said that the Portuguese exported the Inquisition to Goa in the sixteenth century, and that many Indian Hindus were tortured and burnt at the stake for continuing to practise their religion. Muslim Indians were generally murdered right away or made to flee Goan territory.’
Vincent continued, ‘Historians consider the Goa Inquisition to have been the most merciless and cruel ever. It was a machinery of death. A large number of Hindus were first made to convert and then persecuted from 1560 all the way to 1812! Over that period of 252 years, any man, woman or child living in Goa could be arrested and tortured for simply whispering a prayer or keeping a small idol at home. Many Hindus, Muslims and some former Jews as well, languished in special inquisitional prisons, some for four, five, or six years at a time.’
Vincent looked at Martha for reactions. None.
He continued, ‘The author was horrified to learn about this, of course. He was quite shocked that his friends in Portugal knew nothing about it. The Portuguese tended to think of Goa as the glorious capital of the spice trade, and they believed, erroneously, that people of different ethnic backgrounds lived there in tolerance and tranquillity, but they knew nothing about the terror that the Portuguese had wrought in India. They knew nothing of how their fundamentalist religious leaders made so many suffer.’
‘But Islam also spread itself by the sword, Vincent. Why only point the finger at Christianity?’ asked Martha.
‘Yes. My point exactly. Both Christianity and Islam are religions of peace; however, their mass following today is partly due to blood that was shed over many years of history. On the other hand, we do not see Buddhism or Hinduism having gone to war to spread their faith even though modern-day Hindu nationalists have been responsible for anti-minority riots, and Buddhist monks have taken to the streets in Myanmar.’
‘So where exactly are we going with this conversation?’ enquired Martha.
‘Well, the aggressive competition between Islam and Christianity for converts could possibly have been handled better if they had cooperated rather than fought with each other.’
‘It now seems entirely probable to me that Jesus, having survived the crucifixion as seen by me in my past-life regressions, could have decided to come here to India to rediscover the ancient knowledge that he had been educated in,’ commented
Vincent as he put away his clothes in the suitcase in preparation for their arrival in Goa.
‘Well, he might have come to India also because of the fact that the Lost Tribes had actually settled down in the Kashmir Valley. Various places in Kashmir have Israeli names, such as Har Nevo, Beit Peor, Pisga, Heshubon. These were all names in the land of the Ten Tribes of Israel. The same is true of the names of people. People in Kashmir perform a feast called Pasca in spring, when they adjust the difference of days between the lunar calendar and solar calendar, and the method of this adjustment is the same as the Jewish one. Hoon in Kashmiri means a dog, and a wife is called an aashen, the same as in Hebrew. Half-roasted fish called phar in Kashmir is a favourite dish of both the Israelis and the people of Kashmir. So Jesus may have come here because of this older connection. Right?’
‘Right. So, what if his children continue to live here? Wouldn’t it be ironic if they were Muslim? After all, Islam came into India rather violently through Muslim invasions from the eighth century onwards.’
‘Be that as it may, what is your point, Vincent?’ asked an exasperated Martha.
‘Well, any such offspring having a bloodline of Jesus and following Islam as a faith today would be a problem for Christians and Muslims alike.’
‘Why?’
‘First of all, the Church would not want to acknowledge that there’s a bloodline at all . . . it destroys the fundamental belief that Jesus died on the cross in order to bear the burden of human sin. It means that there was no death, no resurrection, and no divine status. Also, to tell the world that Christ’s own bloodline renounced the faith founded by Christ, would be to acknowledge that Islam has won the battle with Christianity!’
‘Point taken. But why would such a descendant of Jesus be a problem for Islam?’ persisted Martha.
‘According to the Qur’an, there is only a single religion that is acceptable to God, and that is one in which there is complete submission to God’s will. To that extent, Muslims believe that Islam was also the religion of earlier prophets such as Abraham, Moses and Jesus, because they also submitted themselves completely to the will and obedience of God. Islam not only recognises officially the bona fides of all earlier prophets, including Jesus, but also of any future prophets that may come.’130
‘So?’
‘Wouldn’t such a prophet in the present day be a threat to the power structure of Islam? If such a person were indeed to claim prophethood, what would happen to all the present- day Imams?’
Goa, India, 2012
Goa, located along the Konkan coastline of India that runs along its western edge, is India’s party capital. Flights arrive in the state’s capital, Panjim, but its business and commerce are in a town called Vasco, named after the famous explorer Vasco da Gama. The Portuguese traders who had landed here in the sixteenth century had succeeded in colonising Goa, and it had remained a colony of Portugal till it was annexed by an independent India in 1961.
At every bend along the Goa coastline are picturesque coves and bays, each unique in its beauty. Along the sun-washed coast are delightful little sleepy villages with whitewashed churches and uniformly quaint houses with red-tiled roofs. The lush green and verdant miles of coconut and palm trees are breathtakingly beautiful, irrespective of the season. It is precisely because of this Hawaii-like experience, at a fraction of the cost, that many foreign tourists who visit Goa are reluctant to return home.
Towards the northern part of Goa, around eighteen kilometres away from Goa’s capital, Panaji, lies Anjuna Beach. Commonly called ‘the freak capital of the world’, Anjuna is quite notorious for its trance and rave parties as well as the abundance of hippies. Surrounded by dense coconut groves, it is the most happening place on Wednesdays when ‘flea market mania’ takes over. The market is always a wonderful cauldron of flavours, colours, smells and textures.
Rents in Goa vary from one area to the next, but Vincent’s railway friend had succeeded in getting them a very rustic yet functional cottage near Anjuna Beach for about two hundred dollars for the week. It had two small bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, a living room and a delightful sit-out for relaxing evenings. Luckily, their cottage was not in the heart of the trance circuit but nearer the sleepy hamlet. This location offered them best of both worlds—proximity to civilisation as well as the tranquillity of the quiet cove.
As their taxi, which had definitely seen better days, rattled towards their new home, it was overtaken by a fast motorbike. Under the jacket and helmet was a pretty young Japanese woman, who sped off very quickly.
She had stared at Martha.
Seated on the motorbike and surveying the lush green countryside around her, Swakilki realised that Goa reminded her a great deal of the little village that her mother, Aki, used to take her to on holidays when she was a little girl. The village was called Shingo and was located in the Sannohe district of Aomori in Japan. This had been her mother Aki’s birthplace.
Unknown to little Swakilki, the little village of Shingo had been in the eye of a storm in 1935. A gentleman called Kiyomaro Takeuchi had discovered a 1,900-year-old document stored in the Ibaraki prefecture containing evidence that Jesus lay buried in Shingo. The document was considered so authentic and explosive that the Imperial Japanese government had banned the document from public view and had kept it locked in a museum in Tokyo. During the bombing raids of World War II, the museum with all its documents was allegedly destroyed. Rather convenient for the Japanese government.131
What was unknown to the villagers was the fact that Jesus had certainly not visited them. What was also unknown was the fact that his daughter had.
Chapter Eighteen
Vatican City, 2012
His Eminence was reading the verses from the Book of Revelation in the Holy Bible.132 His mind was focused on the seven angels mentioned in the book:
The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth.
One-third of the trees were burnt, and all green grass was burnt.
And the second angel sounded, and a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea.
One-third of the sea became blood. One-third of life in the sea died.
And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from the heavens, burning as if it were a lamp. It fell upon one-third of the rivers, which became undrinkable and killed many.
And a fourth angel sounded, and one-third of the sun, moon and stars was darkened so that one-third of the day became dark.
And the fifth angel sounded, and a star fell from heaven unto the earth and to him was given the key of a bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke like that of a great furnace and the atmosphere became black.
Out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth and unto them was given the power to hurt men that did not have the seal of God upon their foreheads.
And the sixth angel sounded, and was asked to let loose two hundred thousand horsemen to kill one-third of humanity.
And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever.’
Chamonix, French Alps, France, 2012
Chamonix, in Haute-Savoie, offered some of the most stunning views of Mont Blanc. Savoy became part of France in 1860, bordering Switzerland to the north and Italy to the east.133 The region boasted Mont Blanc, the roof of Europe, rising to a height of 4,807 metres.
No one took notice of Ataullah al-Liby boarding the cable car for the Aiguille du Midi. The first part of the journey, a nine-minute trip to the Plan des l’Aguille located at a height of 2,263 metres, was not too bad. The second part of the cable car trip to the Aiguille du Midi station at 3,781 metres was nerve-wracking; Ataullah feared heights.
Reaching his destination, Ataullah was around a hundred metres from the peak of Mont Blanc and had a commanding view of the Aiguilles of C
hamonix and Vallée Blanche, the largest glacier in Europe. It was here that he would conveniently slip away into the darkness. His ski jacket had been specially fitted with high-powered Semtex. He quickly took it off.
The delayed blast on 21 January 2012 sent a wall of hail and fire ripping through Chamonix, killing 332 people. Assignment completed, Attaullah headed for Chamonix airport to catch a flight to Geneva and thereon to his rendezvous in Frederick County in America.
And the first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth . . .
Riberalta, Bolivia, 2012
The epicentre of the blast was 25 kilometres from Riberalta, 850 kilometres northeast of Bolivia’s capital, La Paz.
No one could have spotted the crude IED, the Improvised Explosive Device, fashioned from potassium perchlorate, aluminium powder and sulphur that had been left under the dense cover of the Amazon forest by Boutros Ahmad. The intense heat applied by a welding torch was enough to set off the highly unstable mixture.134
The fire on 21 February 2012 would destroy over 4,48,000 acres of tropical forest besides killing 113 people.
Job done, Boutros drove to Gen Buech Airport to catch his Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano flight that took him to his meeting in Frederick County.
One-third of the trees, and all green grass was burnt.
Hubei Province, China, 2012
The Three Gorges Dam spanned the Yangtze River at Sandouping, Yichang and Hubei. Construction of the largest hydroelectric dam in the world, more than five times the size of the Hoover Dam, had begun in 1993. The dam had become fully operational in 2009. The reservoir now held 39.3 billion cubic metres of water. The twenty-six power generators had a combined generating capacity of 18.2 GW.135