2026 Buddhist Film Festival (6/16-30)

A 15-day film festival co-presented by Tricycle Magazine and the Pure Land Foundation runs from June 16–30, 2026. All are invited to join for Tricycle’s third annual Buddhist Film Festival, offering five feature-length films and five short films from across the Buddhist world that can be watched all festival long. Tricycle is pleased to co-present this year’s festival with the Pure Land Foundation. Tickets are $40 for general admission and $30 for subscribers. — Get tickets below. Please note that the festival is only available in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. TICKETS

(Asangoham) What are the ancient teachings of Pure Land Buddhism?

• Tricycle's Buddhist Film Festival
• Tricycle.org; Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Dhr. Seven, Jen Bradshaw (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

We've been LIED to about Christianity

Young Jesus (known in Buddhism as Issa) in India and Tibet

Does curel, bloody black magic animal sacrifice really undergird all of modern Christianity?

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The Church knew, buried truth

In 1887, Russian Christian war correspondent Nicolas Notovitch claimed that while traveling through the Himalayas with other Russian, he was thrown from a horse and broke his leg.

The others left him to recover over the winter at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery known as Hemis Gompa in Ladakh (now part of India), he was shown written documentation called the "Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men" (Isa being the Arabic name of Jesus in Islam) by the Buddhist abbot [30][31][32].

Christian Nicolas Notovitch

Notovitch's story, with a translated text of the "Life of Saint Issa," was published upon his return to the West in French in 1894 as La vie inconnue de Jesus Christ (Unknown Life of Jesus Christ) [5][32].

 

According to the Buddhist scrolls, Jesus (Issa) abandoned Jerusalem, Palestine/Israel, at the age of 13 and set out towards India, "intending to improve and perfect himself in the divine understanding and to studying the laws [the Dharma or Doctrine] of the great Buddha."

The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ

He crossed Punjab and reached Puri Jagannath, where he studied the Brahmin priests' Vedas (sacred text, lit. "Knowledge Books").

He spent six years in Puri and Rajgir (the famous Buddhist city Rajagriha, site of Vultures' Peak and Venuvana/Veluvana Vihara), near Nalanda (site of the world's first university, a Buddhist monastic learning center in India), an ancient seat of Brahminical/Vedic learning.

Then Issa/Jesus/Yeshua went up into the Himalayas and spent time in Tibetan lamaseries, studying Buddhism [30], and continued on through Persia (the Aryan Land of Iran), and returned to Jerusalem at the age of 29.

Christendom shaken

Jesus Lived in India: Unknown Life (H. Kersten)

Notovitch's writings were immediately controversial, and German scholar Max Müller stated that either the Buddhist lamas at the lamasery had deceived Notovitch (or played a joke on him), or he had fabricated the evidence [30][33][34].

Müller then wrote to the Buddhist monastery at Hemis, and the [replacement] head lama replied that there had been no Western visitor at the monastery in the past 15 years and there were no documents related to Notovitch's story [35].

J. Archibald Douglas then visited Hemis Gompa and interviewed the [new] head lama, who stated that Notovitch had never been there [35].

Indologist Leopold von Schroeder called Notovitch's story a "big fat lie" [36]. Wilhelm Schneemelcher states that Notovich's accounts were soon exposed as fabrications and that to date no one has even had a glimpse at the manuscripts Notovitch claims to have had [5] [which is untrue since Swami Abhedananda traveled to Hemis and was allowed to see, touch, and confirm their existence].

The Jesus Conspiracy: Turin

Notovich defended himself by responding to these attacks and claims [37]. However, once his story was reexamined by historians – some even questioning his existence – they claimed Notovitch confessed to having fabricated the evidence [36].

American scholar Bart D. Ehrman states that, "Today there is not a single recognized scholar on the planet who has any doubts about the matter [other than German scholar Holger Kersten and his colleague German Indologist Gunter Gronbold, author of Jesus in Indien]. The entire story was invented by Notovitch, who earned a good deal of money and a substantial amount of notoriety for his hoax" [38].

• Jesus Lived in India: His Unknown Life Before and After the Crucifixion (Holger Kersten)

However, others deny this. Notovich never accepted any accusations against him – that his account was a forgery or any such thing.

Although not impressed with his story, Sir Francis Younghusband recalls meeting Nicolas Notovitch near Skardu not long before Notovitch visited Hemis monastery [39].

Swami Abhedananda

In 1922, the President of the Vedanta Society of New York between 1897 and 1921 and the author of several books Swami Abhedananda went to the Himalayas on foot and reached Tibet, where he studied Buddhist philosophy and Tibetan Buddhism.

He traveled to Hemis Gompa and allegedly found the manuscript Notovitch claimed and translated, which was a Tibetan translation of the original scrolls written in the exclusively Buddhist language Pali.

One of the lamas said that it was a copy and that the original was in a monastery at Marbour near the Tibetan capital of Lhasa.

• The unknown years of Jesus

After Abhedananda's death in 1939, one of his disciples inquired about the documents at the Hemis Gompa but was told that they had disappeared [40][41] [which is to say moved for safety so that Westerners would not come kill everyone and steal them to hide the truth in accord with their sectarian religious views]. More

Jew-Buddhists, Essenes, orig. Christians

Were the Essenes the original Christians? Dr. Richard Carrier

(MythVision Podcast) This video was edited by Mark Casale (vimeo.com/showcase/4922525). The Essenes (Modern Hebrew אִסִּיִים‎, Isiyim, Greek Ἐσσηνοί, Ἐσσαῖοι, or Ὀσσαῖοι, Essenoi, Essaioi, Ossaioi) were a mystic Jewish sect during the Second Temple period that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE. #MythVision #RichardCarrier #Essenes

The ancient JewBu Therapeutae

The Therapeutae: The ancient mystics that inspired Christian

monasticism (who were maybe Buddhists called Theras or "Elders")

Were they the original Jewish-Buddhist (JuBu) syncretists?

The Therapeutae: The Ancient Mystics that Inspired Christian Monasticism (Buddhists?)

Coptic cenobitic monasticism: St Pakhom (wiki)

(ESOTERICA) Philo of Alexandria held that the Essenes were the exemplar of the Active Philosophical Life among ancient Jews. And with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls we now know much more about that ancient sect.  However, Philo held there was a mystical group superior to even them in their piety and rigor. The Egyptian Therapeutae were held up as paragons of the Contemplative Life, even giving mystical teachings while dreaming.  What do we know about the Therapeutae? Let's explore how these ancient Jewish mystics not only led lives of exceptional purity and mystical contemplation but also inspired the rise of Monasticism in early Christianity. Also....they might have been Buddhists.

Consider supporting Esoterica on Patreon (esotericachannel), Paypal (paypal.me/esotericachannel), merch (@theesotericachannel).

Recommended readings

• The Contemplative Life, Giants and Selections - 978-0809123339
• Daniélou  - Philo of Alexandria - 978-1625644299
• Kleinhempel - Traces of Buddhist Presence in Alexandria: Philo and the "Therapeutae" - academia.edu/39841429/Tra...
• On the Contemplative Life - earlychristianwritings.co...
• The Testament of Job - wesley.nnu.edu/sermons-essays-...
• Eusebius on the Therapeutae - newadvent.org/fathers/250...

The Jewish historian Josephus [possibly a Pharisee] records that Essenes existed in large numbers, and thousands lived throughout Roman Judaea, but they were fewer in number than the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the other two major sects at the time.

The Essenes lived in various cities but congregated in communal life dedicated to voluntary poverty, daily [baptismal] immersion, and asceticism (with their priestly class practicing celibacy). Most scholars claim they seceded from the Zadokite priests.

Dr. Richard Carrier's work: richardcarrier.info. This has links to follow his Twitter, Facebook, Patreon, and so on. He survives on patronage by his blogging at Patreon and welcomes all the help there he can get at drrichardcarrier. His books are available in print, digital, and audio at richardcarrier.info/Books.... He also teaches affordable online courses in history and philosophy at secularactivism.org. Other ways to help and support his work are listed at richardcarrier.info/support. Also, check out his publicity page: richardcarrier.info/publi...

• MythVision website: 🔥 mythvisionpodcast.com, Patreon 👉 mythvision, PayPal. 👉paypal.me/dereklambert7 CashApp: 👉$rewiredaddiction Venmo:👉@Derek-Lambert-9 Recommeded books 👉 amzn.to/35FqNYf
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• #RichardCarrier #Essenes #MythVision

• Derek Lambert, MythVision, Oct. 15, 2021; Esoterica, Jan. 19, 2024; Sheldon S., CC Liu, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly