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Chakkarai: Bridging Faiths in India

Vengal Chakkarai was born in 1880 in Tamil Nadu, India. He studied at Madras Christian College and became influenced by Christianity. He accepted Jesus as his lord and savior after being baptized in 1903. He later became the mayor of Madras in 1941 and chairman of the All-India Trade Union Congress in 1951. As a Christian intellectual, he opposed imitating Western Christianity in India and tried to explain Christianity through Hinduism. Some of his views were that Jesus was truly human, the holy spirit continues Christ's work today, and that humans, not God, are responsible for their sins. He died in 1958.

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218 views1 page

Chakkarai: Bridging Faiths in India

Vengal Chakkarai was born in 1880 in Tamil Nadu, India. He studied at Madras Christian College and became influenced by Christianity. He accepted Jesus as his lord and savior after being baptized in 1903. He later became the mayor of Madras in 1941 and chairman of the All-India Trade Union Congress in 1951. As a Christian intellectual, he opposed imitating Western Christianity in India and tried to explain Christianity through Hinduism. Some of his views were that Jesus was truly human, the holy spirit continues Christ's work today, and that humans, not God, are responsible for their sins. He died in 1958.

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James Kirubakaran
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Vengal Chakkarai was born on 17 January 1880 between Kesava Chetty and Andal

Ammal, who belonged to the Chettiar caste in Tamil Nadu. His father passed away when
Chakkarai was 6. He studied at Madras Christian College and came under the influence of
Principal William Miller who believed that Hinduism would find its fulfillment in Christ. The
mystery of Jesus’ Cross led him to accept Jesus as Lord and Redeemer. He was baptized in the
year 1903 and was admitted to the Free Church of Scotland. He was the mayor of Madras for a
term in 1941 and was one of the pioneers of the trades‟ union movements in Madras and became
chairman of the All-India Trade Union Congress in 1951.

Chakkarai, along with Chenchiah, S. J. Appasamy and other belonged to the Rethinking
Christianity in Indian group of theologians in South India. He was a nationalist-minded Christian
intellectual and this led him to oppose the imitation of Western Christianity in India. He agrees
with K. T. Paul that “instead of becoming a communal political entity, the Christian community
should be like the salt which dissolves itself to serve”. He wrote two books, Jesus the Avatar
(1927) his magnum opus; The Cross and Indian Thought (1932), and many articles over the
years in The Christian Patriot. He died in 1958.

Chakkarai tried to explain the Christian faith through the Hinduism point of view. Some
of the Chakkarai's point of view about Christianity:

Jesus is truly human (sat purusa).


Holy Spirit is Christ himself who continues to exist and work until now.
God can not be seen as the creator of sin.
Humans themselves are responsible for the sins that they commit.
Knowledge of God is not something that is intellectual (jnana), but a personal experience
of God (anubhava).
Sin is seen as the handcuffs (pasa), which prevents the human soul (pasu) to reach God.
The essence of sin is the desire to find "the mystery of the forbidden".

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