off the fine layer of dust from the silk and then slowly unwrapped the book. The cover was heavy and sturdy, woodlike, and the book was as thick as it was wide—about four inches. Kinley opened the cover using the silk so that the oil from his hands would not touch the book itself.
“Well?” Grant said, craning over the table from the edge of his seat.
Kinley stared at the first page for a long minute, then turned to the second page. Grant noticed that the pages, a beige color, were much thicker than normal paper, not really flexible, and seemingly handmade. Each book contained twenty pages at the most.
“Aha,” Kinley said, when he turned to the third page. Grant saw some squiggly writing in faded black ink. He bolted out of his chair to stand over Kinley’s shoulder.
“It’s Pali!” Grant said.
“What’s Pali?” Kristin asked.
“An ancient language”—he squinted at the text—“somewhat similar to Sanskrit.”
“Can you read it?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Only rudimentarily. I took a year of Pali and Sanskrit, but I had three years of Tibetan: that’s the language of the texts I was expecting to find.” He turned to Kinley. “Do you have any idea how old these are?”
Kinley flipped a few of the thick pages. “First century, if I’m reading the words correctly.”
First century! Grant’s mind raced. Judging from the thick pages, it appeared possible, but he feared to hope too much.
“They do look pretty old,” Kristin said. Grant flinched when she reached a hand toward the open book.
Kinley gently guided her hand to the table. “I grew up reading the Buddhist canon in its original Pali.”
Grant knew that Pali was the language of the ancient Buddhist canon, and it was still in use in first-century India when Issa supposedly lived. The book that Notovitch had seen in the Himis monastery, however, was written in Tibetan, a language that developed centuries later. As part of his research, Grant had theorized that the Notovitch book, if it existed as he believed it did, was like the Gospels from the Bible. The oldest copies of the Gospels in existence were copies of copies of copies written more than two hundred years after the originals. More significant was the fact that the Gospels were written in Greek, although Jesus would have taught his apostles and his followers in Galilee in Aramaic. For decades after his death, stories of Jesus would have circulated first among his followers in Aramaic, and then later they would have been translated into Greek and then written down in various forms. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were not apostles of Jesus who had known the historical man, as was the common but mistaken belief. They were men who were part of the later Jesus community who compiled the stories that were in circulation about him and composed the Gospels.
Similarly, Notovitch’s discovery appeared to be a Tibetan translation and compilation of earlier sources, sources that would have been in the original Pali language that was in use during Issa’s travels in India. Grant had not imagined in his wildest dreams that he might uncover the original writings that Notovitch’s book was based upon. He’d assumed those would have been long destroyed or lost, just as the original sources for the Gospels had long ago disappeared. As he stared at the narrow books on the table, he felt his heart pounding in his ears.
“Will someone at least tell me what we’re looking at?” Kristin asked.
Kinley replied, “These books detail the journey of—”
“Issa,” Grant interrupted. “The Indian saint I told you about yesterday. According to legend he left his home as a teen to seek a secret wisdom from the sages in the Himalayas.”
“Secret wisdom. I’m game.”
She sat back in her chair but glanced between Kinley and Grant, as if she suspected they were holding back on her. Grant knew that she was smart, and he made a decision to tell her the truth if she asked directly. Part of the problem was that she’d shown up unexpectedly, and he had a carefully laid-out plan for the release of this discovery. She’s a journalist, he reminded himself.
“So these texts were written by ... ?” she asked.
Kinley answered, “The monks in India who taught Issa. They were impressed by an unusually bright and receptive student, a student who became well known years later. You see, controversy followed young Issa wherever he went, even after he was martyred.”
“Issa was killed?” Kristin asked.
“A story for another time,” Kinley said, glancing at Grant. A short time after Kinley had revealed the existence of the texts to him, Grant had realized that the monk knew the truth behind Issa’s identity. He’d mentioned to Kinley that until they were published, it might be safer for all of them if this fact remained secret.
“These silks, Kinley?” Grant asked, changing the topic.
“Only a hundred years old or so; they were added later to protect the books, and are changed by the librarian when they deteriorate.” Grant noted that many of the other books on the shelves around them were wrapped in similar silks.
“If Issa lived in India,” Kristin asked, “and these texts were written in a monastery there, what are they doing here in Bhutan?”
“For several hundred years after Issa’s death, the texts remained in the monasteries where they were written,” Kinley explained. “But then, as Hinduism began to reassert itself over Buddhism as the dominant religion in India, the books were collected and sent to a monastery in Tibet. During the nineteen fifty-nine revolt by the Tibetans against their Chinese occupiers, the monks boxed up the contents of their libraries and secretly sent them out of the country with the Dalai Lama, just before the Communists suppressed the dissenters. The various texts were divided and sent to monasteries throughout Nepal and Bhutan,”—Kinley gestured to the shelves of books surrounding them—“where they have sat to this day, largely forgotten.”
“What about the book that Nicholas Notovitch saw in the Himis monastery in eighteen ninety-four?” Grant asked.
Kinley shrugged. “In the days before the printing press or computers, it was the practice of the monks to copy by hand the ancient texts.”
“As was the case with Christianity.”
Kinley nodded. “My guess is that the monks at some point translated these books”—he pointed to the narrow books on the table—“into Tibetan, as they did with thousands of others, and then sent the manuscript out to Himis, where Notovitch saw it.”
“But that manuscript is no longer there.”
“Yes, a mystery indeed.”
Grant considered the treasure laid out on the table before him. While the disappearance of Notovitch’s discovery had always been the mystery Grant sought to solve, it was now irrelevant. Grant had evidence of much greater importance. He had the original texts documenting the existence of Issa.
“Does Lama Dorji know about this?” Kristin asked.
Kinley shook his head. “We have other interesting writings in here as well, but if they do not relate directly to the Buddhist canon, then he sees them as a distraction from our mission.” He gestured to the shelves
