Indeed, there is a gap of 17 years in the life story of Jesus. We do not know where he was after his youth until the age of 30.
Oral evidence from Kashmir and Punjab suggests that Jesus may have come here, which is possible because of extensive trade between West Asia and India. He may have traveled in a caravan.
Jesus in Indian texts
There is no reference in the Hindu texts of Jesus having come here. In the Bhavishya Purana, it is only said that there will be a prophet by the name of Jesus, but it does not give any details of him having come to India. So, there is a blank area of about 17 years in the life story of Jesus which may have been in India. Now we can examine this question by looking at whether the philosophy of Jesus reflects those of the Hindus. So, let us begin with the Jesus’ background.
Personal Life of Jesus
Jesus was born a Jew and he was living in a Jewish-dominated area. The Jewish god YHWH is a jealous god. He does not like any other gods. He was a violent god. In contrast, Jesus’s god is one God and he loves everybody. The main message of Jesus was that of love. For example, when some people were about to stone a woman to death for some mistake Jesus said: “Let that person throw the first stone who has not sinned in his life.” This shows that irrespective of caste, color, and ethnicity, Jesus considered all human beings the same.
Ideological change
So how does this transformation take place? It is possible that Jesus came to India and transformed here. The Hindu system has a four-caste system but as Krishna says in Geeta the caste is determined by the quality of a person. So, it is more of a classification than a birth-based system—at least theoretically. A soldier or a tradesman belongs to their caste. According to Krishna – Caste is not something that is fixed by birth.
It is possible that when Jesus came to India, he learned of the idea that all human beings are theologically equal in the Hindu system and he adopted it. He started proclaiming that all human beings are equal and God loves all of them equally. He did not accept the four-caste system, however. In the thinking of Jesus, there is no discrimination by God.
The second aspect is social. The Jewish system–in which Jesus was born—held that the priest should only come from the blood descendants of the tribe of Levi. Jesus did not promote this birth-based system. He never says that one has to be born in a particular community to become a priest. For Jesus, all the people are at par and God loves all of them equally. So how did this transformation take place?
Jesus’s Contribution to Theology
It is possible that when Jesus came to India, he learned about the fourfold classification of people based on their quality. He went back with this idea and modified it even to remove the fourfold classification. The major advance made by Jesus was that of social equality even though the Jews had no sense of equality and the Hindus also had no sense of equality.
If one reads the entire book of Bhagavad Geeta there is no reference in my understanding to loving the poor. But Jesus says that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eyes of a needle than for a rich man to reach heaven. So this sense of lovingness, the sense of empathy towards the poorer people is something unique in Jesus that comes neither from the Jews nor from the Hindus.
Conclusion
Looking into all the aspects it can be said that Jesus may have come to India. He may have learned at the spiritual level from Indian gurus. Jesus lived about after 1500 years after Krishna. He would not have worshipped Krishna as a living person. It is possible that the teachings of Krishna in the Bhagavad Geeta were learned by Jesus who further modified them and created Christianity which is different from both the Jews and the Hindus.
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