i was walking down a street in Bagsu, India, near McLeod Ganj, one evening in late 2008, when i looked through the window of a temple and saw something that intrigued me:
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| The glimpse that got my attention. |
Through the decorously gated window it appeared to be a a statue of someone being crucified. This was a very Hindu part of India and i had never heard of anyone in Hinduism being crucified (only the Romans did that!) so i was very curious. i went inside and found that there among all of the other expected Hindu images and icons, there was in fact a crucifixion.
The priest of the temple soon came out and welcomed me, but he spoke very little English. i tried to ask him if the person being crucified was Jesus. He said no, it was not "Jesus," but someone with another name that i failed to understand well enough to record. He told me that this was someone from something called the "why wool" (spelled phonetically to what he was saying.) So i thanked him, left a donation, and went home to my hotel. That night as i was falling asleep, i shot up in bed and yelled, "The Bible!"
In his Hindi accent this priest was saying "wiwool" for "Bible." So i went back the next day and searched around the temple for the priest. i eventually found him down a small tunnel that you had to crawl through the mouth of a lion to enter. He was sitting at a shrine of three Hindu saints. i sat patiently while he told me about all three of these saints, in a story full of long names and complicated contexts. Then begged him to go back downstairs with me so i could look around more there. What i found there was shocking to me and amazes me still.
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| In the Vashnu Mata temple, Bagsu, India |
This Hindu temple, in addition to all of its normal Hindu parts, had a section reserved to the celebration of four different religions' major figures. He confirmed for that "wiwool" was actually Bible!! It was Jesus, and he was right there next to Muhammad!!:-)
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| Jesus Christ and Prophet Muhammad |
