__NOTOC__ Roza Bal is the name of a shrine located in the Khanyar district of Srinagar, in Kashmir, India, venerated by some Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. Some people identify the sage buried there with one Yuz Asaf, that is Jesus of Nazareth, whom they allege to have arrived in Kashmir after surviving his crucifixion. The tomb has gained increasing popularity as the potential tomb of Jesus. Historically, however, the Holy Sepulchre is considered by Christians as the tomb of Christ.

The tomb itself consists of a low rectangular building on a raised platform, surrounded by railings at the front. It has three arches at the front, where entry can be had, and four arches at the side. Inside is a rock carving that is said to show feet bearing crucifixion wounds. The body is buried according to the Jewish tradition of directions and not according to the Islamic tradition.

In 2003, The BBC first televised a documentary that included a section on the story of Yuz Asaf titled "Did Jesus Die?"

In 2010, the Govt. of India's Film Division has produced a comprehensive documentary film on the subject, titiled 'The Rozabal Shrine of Srinagar'. It has been written & directed by Yashendra.

See also

Jesus in India (book)

References

Notes

Roza Bal, The Tomb of Jesus by Fida Hassnain and Suzanne Olsson, Booksurge in USA, Gulshan Pub. in India (2008) 978-1-4196-9758-6 Examines the tomb history and its links with Jesus as Yuz Asaf.

Jesus in Kashmir, The Lost Tomb by Suzanne Olsson, Booksurge USA, (2005) Gulshan Publishing, India

A search for the Historical Jesus by Prof. Fida Hassnain. Gill & Macmillian, Ireland

The Fifth Gospel by Fida Hassnain. Bluedolphin Publishing.USA

External links

The Tomb of Jesus Website (site examines theory of Jesus in India. Includes videos and photos of Roza Bal)

History of Roza Bal (explains the identification of tomb with Jesus)

Category:Christianity in India Category:Buildings and structures in Jammu and Kashmir Category:Alleged tombs of Jesus

Name	Ashwin Sanghi
Birthdate	January 25, 1969
Birthplace	Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Occupation	Novelist, Entrepreneur
Genre	Thriller, Mystery fiction
Alma mater	Yale University
Website	http://www.shawnhaigins.com/

Ashwin Sanghi (born January 25, 1969) is an Indian author of thriller fiction, best known for his 2007 novel, The Rozabal Line. Sanghi is interested in the lost years of Jesus, the primary theme theme of his first novel which hypothesizes that Jesus survived the crucifixion and traveled to India. The Rozabal Line was originally published in 2007 under his pseudonym Shawn Haigins. The revised edition of The Rozabal Line was published by Westland Ltd. & Tranquebar Press in 2008 under his own name.

Biographical Sketch

Ashwin Sanghi was born and raised in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, the youngest of three children. His schooling was at the Cathedral and John Connon School (Class of 1985). After graduating from Cathedral in 1985 Sanghi attended St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. He went on to attend the Yale School of Management from where he received an M.B.A. in 1993. After graduating from Yale, Sanghi joined his family's business enterprise while continuing to write thriller fiction part-time.

First Novel

The Rozabal Line deals with the subject of Jesus having survived the crucifixion and having settled down and died in India, eventually being buried in Roza Bal. The fictional element is much like Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code whereas the historical basis is derived from several other books on the subject including Jesus Lived in India by Holger Kersten and The Unknown Life of Jesus by Nicolas Notovich. According to Tehelka, an Indian left wing news magazines, The Rozabal Line is "a thriller that inquires into the controversial claim that Jesus Christ travelled to India and was buried in Kashmir’s Rozabal Tomb". The Hindu, one of India's National dailies, says that "The book deals in greater depth with the issue of Christ’s union with Mary Magdalene touched upon by The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown as well as incorporating postulates of several other books including Jesus Lived in India: Life Before and After the Crucifixion by Holger Kersten and Jesus Died In Kashmir: Jesus, Moses and The Ten Lost Tribes Of Israel by Andreas Kaiser". Since the time the novel was published, there has been a huge upsurge of visitors to the Rozabal shrine in Srinagar as reported by the Indian newspapers. The book's publishers, Westland Ltd. have had tremendous success with the novel and it has gone into repeat runs. The novel also succeeded in creating a historical/mythological thriller genre in India that Indian writers had not hitherto explored. Pradeep Sebastian, of The Hindu, wrote "And so The Lost Symbol comes two years too late. Conspiracy thrillers swamped the market, reaching even Indian shores with The Rozabal Line, and offered us so much meat, that we couldn’t relish chewing anymore.". At a talk delivered in Chennai, the author explained that "We assume the different faiths are distinctly different, but once you start tracing back the roots of their beliefs, you find their origins are much closer that you might imagine.". Irrespective of the controversial theme surrounding his book, the author has continuously maintained that his book is a work of fiction and should be read as a fiction conspiracy thriller. In an interview to a leading tabloid, the author was asked "Do you believe that Jesus lived in India?" and he replied "I don't think it's in any way relevant if he came here or not. But do I wish it was true? Yes, completely. Isn't that such a romantic notion?". MV Kamath, leading commentator has said that the book is "provocative, but certainly commanding attention.".

Real Life Similarities to the Novel

The Hindustan Times was the first to point out that, Sanghi's novel bore several similarities to the November 2008 Mumbai attacks. In particular, Sanghi's novel spoke of an attack by the Lashkar-e-Taiba an Islamist terror group based in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. It also spoke of the Lashkar spinning off an ultra-elite group of twelve commandos, similar to the Deccan Mujahideen. The plot of The Rozabal Line used a ship off the coast of Gujarat as well as a Thuraya satellite phone besides describing the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower as the residence of one of the main characters in the story. Sanghi also described the group as being controlled by the Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan without the knowledge of the Pakistani president. All these elements were purportedly present in the November 2008 Mumbai Terror Attacks.

Shawn Haigins

The first edition of The Rozabal Line was published in 2007 in the U.S. under Sanghi's pseudonym Shawn Haigins. Shawn Haigins is a perfect anagram of the name Ashwin Sanghi. Some commentators such as Humra Quraishi felt that the book should have been published under Sanghi's real name and consequently the substantially revised 2008 edition was published in India by Sanghi under his own name.

Notes

References

Blogcritics Magazine. Review by Friend Mouse', December 2, 2007.

Bookreporter.com. Review by J. Kaye Oldner.

ForeWord Clarion. Review by Todd Mercer.

J. Kaye's Book Blog. Review by Steve Oldner, December 18, 2007.

MBR Bookwatch. Dunford's Bookshelf, December 2008.

TCM Reviews. Review by Shannon Frost.

Tomb of Jesus. Interview on Tomb of Jesus.

External links

Ashwin Sanghi Official Website

Westland Ltd. & Tranquebar Press

Category:1969 births Category:Living people Category:Indian writers

Name	Stephen Knapp
Caption	Stephen Knapp assembling a lightpainting, 2006.
Birthname	Stephen Knapp
Birthdate	October 15, 1947
Birthplace	Worcester, Massachusetts
Nationality	American
Field	Architectural installation, mixed-media sculpture, photography, and ceramics
Training	Hamilton College
Movement	Lightpainting

Stephen Knapp (born 1947, Worcester, Massachusetts) is an American artist best known for his use of the medium of lightpainting He has gained an international reputation for large-scale works of art held in museums, public, corporate, and private collections, which are executed in media as diverse as light, kiln-formed glass, metal, stone, mosaic, and ceramic.

Knapp has written and lectured on architectural art glass, the collaborative process, and the integration of art and architecture. His work has appeared in many publications including Art and Antiques, Architectural Record, ARTnews, Ceramics Monthly, The Chicago Sun Times, Honoho Geijutsu, Identity, Interior Design, Interiors, The New York Times, Nikkei Architecture, Progressive Architecture, Sculpture (magazine), and 90+10.

Life and work

Stephen Knapp was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1947, graduated from Worcester Academy in 1965, and received his B.A. from Hamilton College in 1969. For nearly a decade after graduating from college, he worked as a fine art photographer, selling his work to corporate and private collectors in the United States and abroad. During this early stage in his career Knapp worked closely with Polaroid Corporation on their 20x24 camera, creating large scale instant photographs.

Soon enough, though, photography was not enough. Knapp began to look more closely at permanent materials. Various types of ceramic, mosaic, metal, stone, and glass filled his studio as he developed the innovations for which he is known today—combining mediums and processing techniques and working craftsmen, fabricators, and manufacturers from around the world on an increasingly grand scale.

Research took Knapp to Japan in 1985 where he created some of the world’s largest glass-glaze ceramic murals. He had come upon a factory in Japan that made huge photo-ceramic murals, a technique used by Robert Rauschenberg in the early 1980s. Though the photo decal technique seemed tailor made for him, he became fascinated with a thick glass glaze—a crackle glaze—that had been developed for architecture. Changing surfaces to reflect the light was to become a major influence on later work.

The following year he used photo-transfer techniques to define the images to be etched and anodized in aluminum, creating one of the world’s largest etched-metal murals—a 14’ x 72’ piece for the Hamilton County Justice Complex in Cincinnati.

A pattern was now forming—Knapp used the research for one project to enhance the next. When it came time to create two large etched stainless-steel murals for McDonnell Douglas’s Douglas Center in California, he developed a new technique of mixing paints to change the look of the surface depending on the angle of light. The kinetic force of these murals lent a palpable energy to the work. A closer look at the murals reveals his interest in creating illusions of space, which he would later explore in his lightpaintings.

During the 1990s, his increasing fascination with light led Knapp to kiln-formed glass—the heating of glass to take on the shape of a form below, resulting over the decade in large installations across the United States. An acknowledged expert in his field, he frequently wrote and lectured on architectural art glass, the collaborative process, and the integration of art and architecture. In 1998 he authored The Art of Glass for Rockport Publishers.

Also during the 1990s he started spending more time on personal work, creating sculpture as well as furniture from kiln formed glass and steel and hanging pieces of dichroic glass and stainless steel.

In 2002, after nearly a decade of development, Knapp introduced his lightpaintings. No longer hanging glass and steel structures, in these new works the glass was attached to walls with a single light fixture illuminating the entire piece. The light that passed through the various pieces of glass was no longer an effect in space, as it was in the sculptural lightpaintings, but was now simultaneously collected and dispersed on the wall.

In a series of solo shows in 2004 and 2005 Knapp experimented with new coatings and laminating techniques that took him beyond dichroics and increased the range of his palette and gave him greater control in painting with light.

In 2005, he received his first museum commission from the Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, Michigan. Temporal Meditations, a 9’x 30’ installation, became the first lightpainting in a museum collection.

In 2006, Knapp’s first major exterior lightpainting, Luminous Affirmations, a permanent 60’x 100’ exterior installation, was installed on the north face of Tampa, Florida’s City Hall as part of their "Lights on Tampa” program. Large-scale commissions followed throughout 2006, including his Seven Muses, a 35’x 95’ commission for The Charles W. Eisemann Center, in Richardson, Texas, and First Symphony, for the Sursa Performance Hall at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.

In early 2007, "Stephen Knapp: Lightpaintings" opened at the Alden B. Dow Museum in Midland, Michigan, before traveling to the Butler Institute of American Art, in Youngstown, Ohio, followed in 2008 by the Dennos Museum Center, in Traverse City, Michigan, and the South Dakota Museum of Art, and in 2009, by the Dahl Arts Center in Rapid City, South Dakota. The exhibit firmly placed lightpaintings at the intersection between painting and sculpture. 2009 saw a commissioned installations and a solo lightpainting exhibit at the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia,

Throughout Knapp's career there have constants—a continuous research into materials, a commitment to the techniques and processes involved in enlarging his designs, and an exploration of the historical, cultural, and technical precedents which are the basis for both his personal and commissioned pieces, and, above all, light.

External links

Stephen Knapp website

Lightpaintings website

Exhibits Development Group website

Category:1947 births Category:Living people Category:American artists Category:People from Worcester, Massachusetts