The Rozabal Line is the first Ashwin Sanghi book that I have read….. and it has been a little overwhelming !! Just reading the bibliography of this book was exhausting so the author has clearly spent hours on research.
The Rozabal Line – Summary
The book is a heady mix of religious facts and fiction. While there is a lot of speculation about Jesus having lived in India for many decades after his crucifixion, no one has been able to confirm the facts. The story starts in the year 2012 with the Rozabal Shrine, Kashmir where Jesus is supposedly buried. The fact is that there is a Muslim saint and a Jewish prophet named Yoz Asaf buried here.
The main set of characters, Vincent Sinclair, Terry Acton, Ghalib, the Sheikh, Swakilki and the fictional group Crux Decussata Permuta are all introduced in the first few pages. The story weaves in and out of the present and the past. It actually takes effort to keep track of all the characters as there are regression sessions as well.
One has to remember each character’s present life in 2012 and what they were in several lives through Vincent’s regression sessions ! A tough ask and that’s probably one of the reasons why it took me longer to finish reading the book.
Basically the plot is to solve the ancient riddle hidden inside the Rozabal shrine and Vincent Sinclair’s disturbed visions where he sees several people from this lifetime but also from another older lifetime. Vincent and his aunt Martha piece together the story across several cities and three continents. There is also armageddon brought upon the Earth by Ghalib and his 12 trusted mercenaries. The Opus Dei and the Illuminati are also involved 🙄.
Your imagination will get stretched … really stretched because there are strange connections like Mary Magadalene’s name being derived from “Maghada” empire 😳. Then there is the fact that Emperor Ashoka sent several monks to South East Asia and Europe, trying to convert them to Buddhism. But the three wise men who visited Jerusalem when Jesus was born being Ashoka’s Buddhist monks is a huge stretch of imagination.
There is certainly an attempt to show how all religions are similar, well, there again, its not backed by facts :(.
Finding the severed head of Prof Terry Acton in the place of an ancient copy of the Mahabharata in a London library gets you hooked but then with too many characters and the myriad twists and turns in the plot you get disoriented.
You go from Central Park in New York, to London, to Waziristan in Pakistan to Srinagar in Kashmir, Katra in Jammu, Mumbai, Delhi, Goa, Frederick County back in the US, Jerusalem, Egypt….. oh dear, have missed at least 15 more cities 😔. Jesus !!!
Rating – 3/5
Recommendation – Do read it if you want to verify several historical incidents surrounding Jesus. Some of them are facts and some are pure unadulterated fiction. I like Ashwin Sanghi’s style of writing and the topics he has chosen, so I will certainly read more of his books.
Suggestions to the Author – provide the background info as a summary and keep the plot clean. The constant shifting between the past, present and the future doesn’t help the readers.
Suggested reading – Jesus Lived in India by Holger Kersten
I am starting to read The Mustard Seed which is a series of discourses by Osho on the Dead Sea scrolls, just to clear my head. 🙂