As to the Mudra, there is the theory that the gap in Jesus's life (from child to adulthood) was spent travelling around the near and far east, much of it within India. There has been at least one such documentary on Discovery (at times a bit far fetched, but still very interesting).
The power of Ancient places is interesting, many of the Christian churches were built on non-christian sites of worship (or like Delphi they were simply destroyed), for the control of that power. By building on top of an old place of worship you were showing the locals just whose God was bigger, better and more powerful (and of course to controlling the locals and their beliefs at the same time).
The Celts and Nordic-Germanic religious sites were always built on places of great power, like lay lines, concentrations of great earth energy, near water and other powerful natural features. In some of these places you can often 'feel' this energy. (IMG:
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