The Kashmir Adventures of Prince Meghaváhana Son of Shiva! 

6^th Lecture in the “Tolerant God” Series

(As Researched and Experienced by Dr. Bob Holt, MD)

      The proposition that there was a king in the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Kashmir in the first century AD named Meghaváhana will raise no eyebrows and create no controversy in either modern Kashmir or India, because this is written in Kings of Kashmira.  This book is the most respected history of this area and this time, and it’s author, Kahlana Pandita, is as respected a historical researcher as was Flavius Josephus to Romans and Jews of the first and second centuries of the Christian Era.   “Pandita” is a term of respect and honor in Indian society, roughly equivalent to “pundit”, or “wise man”.  Until Suzanne Olsson sent me a copy of Kahlana’s book, I had no idea that Jesus Christ reigned first in Kashmir starting his reign in 25 AD under the name Prince Meghaváhana than anyone else in the Western World.   But after researching this subject for six years, putting up several websites with this as the major proposition, and writing a number of books for sale on the Internet as either downloads or hard copy printed books I am here prepared to defend this position.  

       The idea that a little known king in an obscure little nation now contested territory on the border between India, Pakistan, and Tibet was known as the beloved and protected “Son” of the great Indian God Shiva is no surprise.   Most or perhaps all of the early kings of Kashmir made this claim.

       Lord Shiva, the chief Hindu god of Kashmir, is thought to have spent his earliest years in the ice cave in the Himalaya mountains of Kashmir.    His earliest sweetheart was Parvati.   Known as the “Lady of the Mountain”, in one of many stories, she wooed him by being as dedicated to meditation and fasting as he was on one of his aesthetic “binges”.   Once he got over this religious “binge” they had a number of children, also gods.   Thousands of Indians go on pilgrimages to Shiva’s ice cave in Kashmir every year.

        The idea that this obscure Kashmiri king named Meghaváhana was also Jesus Christ is a novel one.   One that I am here prepared to defend not only from the history book of Kashmir named Kings of Kashmira, but also by a recent archeological find in Phalgam, a suburb of Srinigar, capital of Kashmir.   And a well-known stone sculpture found at Taxila, in Pakistan.   And by Buddhist paintings found on the walls of the famed Ajunta caves near Auringabad in India.   To me, as an expert in “Gospel Pesher” and other Bible Codes, it is very interesting that this information is also encoded in a hidden form in the Bible, mostly in the Gospel of Matthew, and in Revelation chapter 19.  I’ll begin by quoting from my book Karmic Christ, starting on page //.   I’m doing this first, and resorting to the actual text found in Kings of Kashmira last because I have become proficient in “Bible Codes” since 1992, and more of my audience here in the United States may be willing to admit that Jesus Christ was an Essene, and that there are indeed hidden “Codes”, and puzzles to be solved in the Gospels, than to believe that Jesus lived in India.

       “This is deeply encoded information and is only available to those of us in the Western World at the ‘End of Days’ who already know that the Hebrew kings David and Solomon had a lucrative trade with Pakistan and India in collaboration with King Hiram of Tyre beginning about 1000 BC and extending into  and after the first century AD.    Matthew knew about this trade, as did many or most of his readers or listeners who read and listened to his gospel, the Gospel of Matthew, published at the Qumran scriptorium, the major Hebrew book-publishing establishment of the mid-first-century  AD.    As High Priest at Herod’s Temple from 42-43 AD Matthew the Publican [Hebrew High Priest] had the money and the power to publish such a book, and Dr. Barbara Thiering PhD, the world renowned Gospel Pesherist who herself wrote and published Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1992 was able to pinpoint the years of Matthew’s reign as High Priest to 42-43 AD by using Josephus’ histories of the Jews, and contemporary information derived from “Gospel Pesher”.

       In those days, it  as the business of the High Priest to know about all the financial dealings in Samaria, Galilee, and Judea, because the income of Herod’s temple depended on this knowledge, and the taxes to be paid were adjusted accordingly.   And the bribes to be paid to Pontius Pilate and the other Roman governors also calculated from this income.   None of the shiploads of gold, spices, especially pepper, and silk fabric, and exotic items like ivory, jewels, monkeys and peacocks beginning their Mediterranean voyage at Joppa to go from there to Tyre, Sidon, and eventually Rome and beyond escaped Matthew Annas’ attention, and all this business showed up on the financial ledgers that his scribes kept in some well-guarded room in or near Herod’s great temple.

       All this information is implied as a third layer of information in the text of Matthew 15:21 “Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.”  The second layer of information was that discovered by Dr. Barbara Thiering PhD or one of her pupils or fellow researchers.   And published in her book Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls.  This second layer is about certain Essenes, and what they did in connection with the real first-century AD Tyre and Sidon.   The third layer takes us to a completely different location, connected with Tyre and Sidon only by the knowledge of the relationship between Kings David and Solomon and King Hiram of Tyre and the trade with India, Pakistan, and Kashmir still going on as these words were being written by Matthew.    That’s what makes it hidden “coded” information.   This connection is not obvious.   It requires some thought and investigation.  

        When Jesus “went thence” he left his former location, Galilee or Judea, and we are supposed to envision him in far-away India, Pakistan, and Kashmir.    Identified by the symbolic connection with the India trade brought to mind by the mention of “Tyre and Sidon”, the country of King Hiram of 10 centuries earlier.

      Matthew 15:22 “And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.”   This is also a three-layered verse, as was the verse before it, and this is our warning to look more closely at its various meanings.  The first layer that everyone sees, even ministers and policemen, is that Jesus is being asked to cast out one more devil.   Something he does frequently throughout all the gospels.   But in this case it’s a devil-possessed daughter of a seemingly foreign woman, not a Jewish woman.   That she was a woman of Canaan suggests she was a Samaritan, considered to be almost foreigners by the Judeans, and more likely to be “possessed by devils” than they, the Judeans, were.    We are allowed to believe that this was really the woman’s daughter, which is not true in the second layer of meaning, as we shall see.

       The second layer of meaning, as revealed by Thiering in her book, relies on the knowledge of the identity of certain Essene characters around whose real lives these stories are constructed.    Time, dates, and locations are revealed by certain Greek words used atypically, by sequence, and by relationships between certain Jewish and Essene feasts, which almost always were on different dates in any given year.   Often the identity must be deduced by descriptive terms for a person or persons.   In this case, we must realize that “Canaan” = Samaria, and that this woman is connected in some way with the major Samaritan at Qumran, Simon Magus, the celebrated Gnostic teacher.   His “woman” was Helena, a prostitute from Tyre, who he had reformed, and who now lived with him at Ain Feshkha, only three kilometers from the Qumran monastery.   This bit of information allows us to move from Tyre and Sidon on the coast of the Mediterranean to Ain Feshkha on the coast of the Dead Sea, and Jesus in this story is really having a discussion with “Martha” the sister of Mary and Lazarus.   Lazarus was just another name for Simon Magus in the gospels of John and Luke.   But not in Matthew, where he is called Zebedee, Simon the Leper, and other names we need not get into here.

        “Possessed by a devil” brings to mind Mary Magdalene, the major woman in the gospels with a reputation for devil possession.   Indeed seven devils is the usual number of devils attributed to her.    So now we have, in this second level, identified the woman making the request of Jesus as Martha.   And she is making the request for her sister Mary, also known as Mary Magdalene, which should not be a surprise, since everyone knows that Mary Magdalene was devil-possessed at one time.    The point to be noticed here is that Martha is claiming Mary as her daughter, not her sister.   But daughter can be used as a disciple, student, or follower, so the implied relationship is that Martha is the teacher, a person of authority, and Mary was her student.   Factor in Simon Magus, as the greatest Gnostic of those days, and Lazarus the “brother” of these two women, and we can be assured they were all three Gnostic Essenes.   To more orthodox Essenes and the later Christians, all Gnostics are devil-possessed, another layer of meaning in all this.

      We will not here pursue level two further but now consider level three.  In level three, which I called in my book “Beyond Gospel Pesher”, we are transported to some place in India, Pakistan, or Kashmir by Matthew 15:21 by the reference to Tyre and Sidon, the home of King Hiram of 1000 years previously.   And the place Hiram’s sailors left with Jewish sailors in the days of Kings David and Solomon to go first to Elat on the Gulf of Aquaba, from thence across the Arabian Sea to India to pick up rich cargoes.   Then when the winds shifted to the opposite direction, back to Elat.   These cargoes were transported across Israel to Joppa or Tyre, loaded on other boats owned by Hiram and Solomon.   And finally to Greece and Rome.

      So in Matthew 15:21, on the third level, we are dealing with completely different characters, except for Jesus.    Now confronted by a mother and daughter somewhere in India, Pakistan, or Kashmir.   And in this level Jesus is indeed being confronted by a mother requesting help in the problem of her biological daughter.    Not her disciple or follower or student, but her real daughter.   Whose name we can discover by comparing a major story in one of the books attributed to the Apostle Thomas, the missionary to India, and the major ancient history book of Kashmir, titled The Kings of Kashmira, by a respected Kashmiri author and historian named Kahlana.    

The Taxila Wedding Attended by Thomas 

        In both these stories a wedding is the setting for the stories.  And Jesus is somehow involved.   Thomas attends this wedding in his version, and jokes about the “bridal chamber”.   And in Kahlana’s version, a young prince, the descendent of “Yudisthira the Blind” is invited to attend a wedding.  The name of this young prince is Meghaváhana, and with the assistance of a fellow researcher named Suzanne Olsson, I have demonstrated in other books and websites that Meghaváhana is none other than Jesus Christ of the Christian Gospels.  

       What really ties these two stories together besides the wedding is the city the wedding is located, Taxila [in Pakistan], and King Gudaphor or Gundaphorus.   However, in Kings of Kashmira, the King’s name is Godpaditya..   And although it takes a little more effort to find out the name of the “devil possessed daughter”, the king’s daughter in the wedding is a Vishnuvite.   To the Jews, a Hindu princess who worshipped Lord Vishnu would indeed be called “devil possessed”.   Indeed, to the Jews, all Hindu gods are really devils.   And the major Devil is Lord Shiva, whose symbolic penis is worshipped by the majority of Indian women.   A little more detective work, and we have the daughter’s name, Amritaprabha.

       Amritaprabha’s problem was not that she was a Vishnuvite [devil-possessed], but that she was unmarried.   And King Gundaphor’s problem was that he wanted to control Kashmir as well as his own country.   And Sandhimati, the current king of Kashmir’s problem was that his countrymen were forcing him to retire. And Jesus fit into this entire, rather complicated picture as Sandhimati’s secret son.   So Jesus [Meghaváhana] was invited to a wedding  as the intended bridegroom for Amritaprabha.

       This seems improbable, and not much more than guesswork on my part, except for one very important fact available on the second level meaning of this whole episode available since Doctor Barbara Thiering  published her book in 1992.   The real meaning of this whole episode is that Jesus was responding to Martha’s request for him to resume his marriage with Mary Magdalene [the devil-lady].    So the third-level meaning is totally consistent with this second-level meaning.   Only now it is the Queen of Taxila that is requesting Jesus [Meghaváhana] to marry her daughter, Amritaprabha.     On all three levels, the usual surface reading, the “Gospel Pesher” meaning, and the “Beyond Gospel Pesher” meaning, Jesus said yes!   But not right away.

       Matthew 15: 23 “But he answered her not a word.   And his disciples came and besought him, Send her away; for she crieth after us.   24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

      Here is where the major confirmation of the third level [Beyond Gospel Pesher] becomes certain.    For the people of Kashmir have known for centuries that they are the descendants of the Ten Tribes who were dragged off by the Assyrians and resettled in Persia in the seventh to ninth year of the reign of King Hoshea son of Elah of Israel.   [around 720 BC] [II Kings chapter 18] 

      II Kings 18: 11 “And the king of Assyria did carry away Israel unto Assyria, and put them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.”

       Even many Jewish historians and researchers now are willing to admit this is true, since so many family names and place names in Kashmir match those in that part of Israel vacated by the lost 10 tribes.   The “Lost Sheep of the House of Israel”.     Jesus on the third level is telling his disciples that he is from Kashmir,   And why he was living in Kashmir.   Because that’s where the “Lost Sheep” lived.   To whom he was “sent” by his Heavenly Father.

      Matthew 15:25 “Then came she [the Queen of Taxila] and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me [by marrying my daughter, Amritaprabha]. 26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread [Jewish and Essene theology], and cast it to the dogs. [“dogs” were Goyim, non-Jews, pagans, idol-worshippers].  27 And she [the Queen] said, Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”   Meaning: You can teach my people and those “lost tribes” in Kashmir anything you feel it is important for them to know, so long as you marry my daughter.

      Matthew 15:28 “Then Jesus answered and said unto her.  O woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt.   And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.”   “Pesher Meaning”: Jesus married Amritaprabha, Hindu Princess of Taxila!

       On the first level of meaning, one more devil-possessed person was healed, this time one from Tyre or Sidon.  On the second level of meaning, Jesus accepted Martha’s message that Mary Magdalene [devil-woman] was willing to go back with him to Kherbit Mazin, where the married Essenes lived together.   But on the third and most important level, Jesus married Amritaprabha, a Pakistani princess, and thereby became, after a few days or weeks, the King of Kashmir.  And thereby gained complete access to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel”.

       The “Beyond Gospel Pesher” meaning of Matthew 15:29-31 depends entirely upon the third layer meaning of Matthew 15:21-28.    Here we have no clue to location as we did before by the mention of Tyre and Sidon.    Nor do we have anyone called “dogs”. Nor anyone called “devil-possessed”.    The only thing we have going for us is sequence.   If we were in Taxila before, and if Jesus went to Kashmir immediately after his marriage to Amritaprahbha, then we can safely assume that these next three verses refer to what Jesus did in Kashmir after he became this country’s king.

       Matthew 15:29 “Then Jesus departed from thence, ---“ According to the book Kings of Kashmira, Jesus [as Prince Meghaváhana] left Taxila soon after his marriage to the King’s daughter, and traveled to Kashmir at the invitation of the government of that country.   “---and came nigh unto the sea of Galilee, --“.  Here we must look at the map of Kashmir and discover that the only lake that would qualify to be the local equivalent of the sea of Galilee is Lake Dal, and we can place Jesus now in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir both then and now.   And incredibly, the local tradition is that Jesus Christ actually lived there in Srinagar under the name Yuzu Asaph, known also by the Muslims both there and throughout the world as Hazrat Issa [Saint Issa].

       Matthew 15:29b “—and went up into a mountain, and sat down there.”  Kashmir is in the Himalaya mountains, and speaking generally, “a mountain” can be generalized as the Himalaya mountains, the location of Kashmir.    However, a more likely meaning is one specific mountain on the shore of Lake Dal is referred to here.   The mountain on which the so-called Temple of Solomon is located.   It would be strange indeed if Jesus did not, soon after his arrival in Kashmir, climb the stairs to the temple attributed to his supposed ancestor Solomon, and hold some type of ceremony.   In the words of this text, he “sat down there”.

        Matthew 15:30 “And great multitudes came unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus’ feet; and he healed them.” 

     Here we have a description not so much of the people of Kashmir, who were in general more healthy, as mountaineers and farmers, than the people beyond the borders of Kashmir in India.  India has always been over-populated, and it is safe to say was over-populated in Jesus’ time.   India is well-known for its lame, blind, dumb and maimed people.   Many of them out there on the streets of every Indian city with cups and hands outstretched for a few coins or some rice from passers-by.

      How did Jesus address this wave of sickness?    The book Kings of Kashmira tells us how.   First he saw to it that a law was passed forbidding using flesh foods in Kashmir, and paying butchers and hunters a small stipend so they could live without slaughtering animals.   Until, perhaps, they could be trained to be useful at some other occupation.

      Then, after training all of Kashmir to eat a healthful diet, he did something very unusual.    He got together a group of “soldiers”, possible priestly evangelists, who traveled all over India, and even to Ceylon, promoting the same vegetarian diet.   We all know now, although people didn’t know it then, that such a program was bound to reduce the number of the “lame, blind, dumb, and maimed”.

       Here we must also go back to the first and second layer of meaning, and analyze what Matthew and his fellow Essenes have done to the literal meanings of these words.  The “dumb” were those afraid to speak their minds.   Or unable to speak “the truth” about any subject, scientific or ethical, because they had been brain-washed by their leaders.

       Matthew?   “In vain do ye worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men…”    Jesus on the first level is a miracle-worker, curing literally “dumb” people, and they were able to speak.   On the second level, the “Gospel Pesher” meaning, Jesus taught these supposedly “dumb” people new doctrines, and a more liberal treatment of Gentiles and women.

     On the first level, when Jesus the miracle-worker found a maimed person, he was able by the power of God to grow out a new hand or foot so the person could use it again.   On the second level, “Gospel Pesher”, Jesus’ more liberal ideas allowed his Essene friends to do things they could not do before.    On the third level in India and Kashmir, it is the animals that are being maimed by the hunters and butchers, and Jesus as King Meghaváhana, makes it illegal to do this to animals.

       In the text Jesus makes the lame to walk.   Literally on level one, symbolically on level two, and both literally and symbolically in India, Pakistan, and Kashmir on level three.   With an army of health evangelists, the story is that Meghaváhana’s army walked all over India promoting vegetarianism, and even “walked on the water” to reach Ceylon with the same message.

      Kings of Kashmira, page 36. “—the renowned Meghaváhana, whom they crowned king; and who afterwards proved to be a good and kind-hearted sovereign; and the expectations that were entertained of him were fully realized.  His tenderness for animal life was even greater than that of a Buddhist high priest.  He forbade the slaughter of animals in his kingdom, and as compensation to the hunters who lived by killing animals, he paid them money----This prince led an expedition to compel other kings to desist from killing animals; and carried his arms to the sea, and even to Ceylon, making the subdued kings promise not to kill animals.”

    Note that in this picture, done by a modern "New Age" artist, someone with Jesus' usual artistic appearance and dress has a lamb on his lap and is surrounded by other animals that we can assume he is protecting.   This is entirely consistent with Jesus the vegetarian Essene who spent part of his time at Qumran, where only vegetables, bread, and wine were consumed, and commuted to Kashmir in a flying "Vimana" where he is pictured on the carved stone mural exactly as he is  pictured above but with the addition of a mother sheep,  a wolf, and a lion, -- and is dressed as a king carrying a sword.  Add the Meghavahana story from Kings of Kashmira and the sword is explained -- Jesus as a militant supporter of Vegetarianism even outside of Kashmir!  (Not a story either Suzanna Olsson, who loves her steaks, nor the sausage and ham-loving Christians of the "Bible Belt" want to affirm !)

      Jesus, in Matthew 15:31, made the blind to see.   He’s still doing that, and this book is part of this on-going project.    I have not cured all of you of your “blindness”, but perhaps I have cured some of you, temporarily at least.

     However, partly on the second level, and more completely on the third level, it was another “God”, not Yahweh [Jehovah] the “God of Israel” that was being “glorified”, at least in Pakistan and Kashmir, by both Jesus, and Sandhimati before him.   A god who was thought of in India as the protector of the animals, and of the environment.   That “God” was Lord Shiva, and indeed Matthew had quite a little to say about him also.  Not particularly good things, but accurate enough to identify that it was Lord Shiva, not Yahweh – Jehovah that was being talked about.   Jews considered all Indian gods to be devils, but Shiva was that distinctive “Devil” with an extra eye, his “Third Eye” in the middle of his forehead.   The Essene name for such a “Devil” was Beelzebub.