India, July 18 -- Did Tibetan Gospel emerge from a fascination with belief and scepticism? Or was it simply the current world political situation that has caused you to pick a fight with several religions simultaneously?

Though I was brought up to be a good Zoroastrian I determined, at an early age, to abandon all belief in religions as wilful human delusions. I had a lifelong friend called Darius Cama, who did convert from Zoroastrianism to Catholicism and did indeed become a priest and go to Bolivia as a missionary. The idea of the novel came to me when I read that Osho had claimed in writing that Jesus was buried in Kashmir. The plot then suggested itself.

My late friend historian Charles Allen's research into the origins of the Hind...