Christology of the spirit: VengalChakkarai

Life of VengalChakkarai(1880-1958)

VengalChakkarai’s full name was Vengal Chakkarai Chettiar, he was born in 17 th january 1880, in
a well to do family of the Chetty caste, the highest non-Brahman caste in Tamilnad. He was
greatly influenced by his mother, who was devotee of the Vaisnava bhakti tradition. He
received his early education in a Scottish Mission School and then he went on to the Madras
Christian College where he was deeply influenced by William Millare. Through his friendship
with Millar and his study of the Bible he gradually came to a personal experience of Christ that
became a turning point of his life. He tells how the cry of Jesus on the cross affect him and lead
him to think of Jesus as a mysterious being and ultimately to accept him as his Lord and savior.
He publically confuses his faith and took baptism in 1903. He qualified as a lawyer but later
work with the Danish Missionary in Madras helping with evangelistic work among education
Hindu. He was best known Christian public figures of his time and being elected Mayor of
Madras in 1941 and in 1951 serving as chairman of all India Trade Union Congress. Along with
Chenchiah he was the founder of the christosamajinMadras. In 1917 he acquired the ownership
and a weekly paper The Christian Patriot which he edited and publish until its closure in 1926 it
write these articles which later printed in book form as Jesus the Avatar (1927) and The Cross
and Indian Thought(1932)he was also known as the chief contributors to Re-thinking
Christianity in India. He died in 1958.1

Theological contribution:
Jesus the Avatara

For C hakkarai the starting point of thetheology is Christology. He was convinced that real and
valid acknowledged God must begin with the personal experience of Christ. He saya that we
can see God with the face of Jesus it is Jesus who gives color, light and rupa to God. God is the
unmanifested and Jesus is the manifested. Go is the sat, or being, and Jesus is the cit or
intelligence, wisdom and love which indicates the nature of the being of God and such
knowledge of God is not the result of jnanamarga but of the way of bhakti. Chakkarai links the
idea of God’s self-revelation in Christ with the concept of immanence which is so popular in
Hindu bhakti.For him it is a human immanence when God in Christ comes into the time-order
for redemption of men. Then the study of God begins with the study of Christ and knowledge of
Christ must have its start in personal experience, in direct contact with this humanly immanent
God that indwelling in Christ.Chakkarai said that in Jesus we can see the true humanity and He
is the True Man (sat purusa) who lives in complete communion with the Father, He is also the

1
Robin Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology (Delhi: ISPCK, 1987). Pp. 165-166
mulapurusaor original man. Chakkarai interpret Jesus’ spinelessness as complete true
humanity, where as we are in the dominated by maya which taints our personality, but in the
Jesus maya is cast off and therefore His full gloryin the world. It is through knowledge of this
Jesus that we come to know God. Jesus of history is to us the Avatar of God. This represents an
important point in Chakkarau’s theology, perhaps the central theme of his book Jesus is Avatar.
The incarnation of Jesus is not like the Avatar of Hindu but it is permanent and dynamic. 2

The difference between Hindu avatar and Jesus Avatar:

The classical Hindu theory of Avtaras come into human history when need arise and after that
the avatar disappear and absorbed into god. But Jesus is no mere theophany, but Avatra occurs
once and for all. And this avatar is dynamic and is still at work today through the power of the
spirit, God in Christ Jesus still continues to be and living, and working. In order to understand
how this permanent, dynamic and advancing avatara is at work in the world today we must to
Chakkarai’s treatment of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.3

Christ and the Spirit:

In Hindu religion the relation of the atman to paramatman, understand as human spirit to the
supreme spirit which we mightexpect to receive new life. Chakkarai sees the work of the Holy
Spirit as a continuing part of the Incarnation or Avatara, and in effect identifies the spirit with
the risen, living Christ at work in the world today.Chakkarai is convinced that western theology
has done much to confuse this truth, whereas Indian Christians, whose mind have not been lye
astray by western theories but who have had a personal experience of Christ and have
submitted themselves to the New Testament. Spirit is in fact simply Christ at work within us as
the antaryamin. It is through this inner experience of the Spirit of Christ in us that we are led to
understand the meaning of hi person Chakkkarai’s Christology is a Christology of the Spirit. 4

Atman and Paramatman:

Advaita Hinduism often speaks of Brahman as paramatman or Supreme Spirit, while the human
spirit is the Atman or Jivatman and it is a fundamental Vedantic belief that when the mists of
maya are rolled away the atman and parmatman are seen to be one. In Advaita salvation
means the soul’s discovery that it is one with Brahman. God as spirit constantly and in a variety
of ways works on the human spirit/atman. Chakkarai like Appasamy, refuses to make a
metaphysical identity between the atman and the paramatman rather it is bhakti in the life of
faith union with the Christ.5

2
Robin Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology (Delhi: ISPCK, 1987). Pp. 167-172
3
Robin Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology (Delhi: ISPCK, 1987). Pp.171-172
4
Robin Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology (Delhi: ISPCK, 1987). Pp. 172-174
5
Robin Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology (Delhi: ISPCK, 1987). Pp. 174-175
The bhakti of the cross:

For Chakkarai it is bhakti which centered on the cross of Christ, and draws its meaning and
content from His death and resurrection.Chakkarai suggests various ways in which the cross of
Christ carries out the work of forgiveness of sins and bestowing of new life. They are all
connected with the release of power, that spiritual sakti which is given to those who come into
contact with Christ through the Spirit.The divine sakti flows in a mighty stream into the history
of humanity. Christ deals with the sin as a disease and Christ is the Great Physician, the
paramavadiya of the soul. For him Christ’s sufferings are transformed into the radiant sakti if
His redemptive sacrifice and so become the active energy or kriyasaktiof a new world
order.Chakkkarai speaks of Christ’s death as a sacrifice/yajana, it an idea which has parallels in
Indian religion, especially the early religion of the Vedas. He describes how Christ’s death as a
sacrifice/sakti which is given to those who eats and drinks His blood and flesh in the symbols of
bread and wine.The question is how men achieve salvation through the sacrifice of Christ?He
gives the answer in the terms drawn from Indian bhakti that has the effect of Pauline doctrine
of justification by faith. In Hinduism salvation through karamamargaand jnanamarga, but these
both seems to fail to provide the salvation/moksha. The answer of this problem Chakkarai
found in the Bhagavadgita. In it with the Christian implication that is bhakti marga. Chakkarai’s
finds the fulfillment and transcendence of both the Jewish and Greek traditions in bhakti
marga. He connects Christ’s death and sufferingwith the Gita’s teaching on niskamya karma
which means action done with no thought of personal gain. Therefore for Chakkarai Christ’s
death and suffering is the niskamya karma and the bhakt who is devoted to Christ will justified
by his faith in Christ and looks the world with the eyes of Christ , feels with His heart, and thinks
with His mind, this is the transformation in Christ through the power of Christ. 6

Jesus of history and Christ of experience:

Chakkarai’s interpretation of the avatara conception, of his understanding of the Holy Spirit as
Christ at work in the world, in this way he made cross center in Christian bhaki. He criticizes
western theology for the ‘Jesus of History’ which lose the eternal. Chakkarai rejected the idea
of personality in God. The whole idea of personality in the western sense is a development
from the Latin term persona and is found neither in the Bible, nor in Greek theology, where the
meaning of hypotatis is quite different, nor in Hindu idea where Brahman is essentially
impersonal .Chakkarai mentions where approval the well-known Hindu thought that the
humane ego/aham is limitation and he criticizes the assumption of western theistic thought
that personality or even individuality is the supreme excellence of man which must be retained
to all eternity. Jesus was who completely eliminating the aham, has become on with the God,
6
Robin Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology (Delhi: ISPCK, 1987). Pp. 176-179
because he is totally emptied man and at the same time risen Christ, we can enter into
communication. Chakkarai sees Christ Jesus as the most egoless man in the history and
therefore most universal of all. The ego was not totally absent in the Historical Jesus but it
became so thin that only a different kind of experience was required that was cross his kenosis
was achieved through a real process of learning the obedience through suffering that we found
in the Hebrews and Philippians. And in mysterious way a change took place between the man
Jesus who walked the via dolorosa and the Christ whom we now worship and who lives in our
hearts, who is outside the realm of mere human personality. His meaning is that this was the
final phase of the kenosis, the self-emptying in Philippians, and after this it was that the
glorification of Jesus took place and then, he became the divine human indwelling Christ. Ti is
out of this nothingness that remained of the Jesus of history that the Christ arose. Else, He
could not dwell in every soul that has united with Him in faith and obedience and love. The
Jesus plus Christ combination is a new thing in the relations between God and man, not an ego-
centric relation but indwelling in God and man, an emergence into a more positive being than
even the historical. And Jesus we know in bhakti is Jesus who is the Avatara and by the spirit we
know as immanent, as the antaratman or antaryamin. Chakkarai rejects the idea of personality
in God but insists that the only true God is the God who suffers. And he also rejects the idea of
Chenchiah that the Christ we know is the human Christ, but stresses the fact that the living
Christ, whom as the spirit at world. 7

The hindu idea of Avatara: thesises

The term Avatara comes from two sanskrit words: Ava which means to descend ,or come
down;and Tr which signifies to save, or to carry across. Avatara as to descend only conveys a
partial meaning of the term. It actually means to come down with an intent to save. This act of
descending is called Avataranam; the one who descends is called Avatarin, or Avatar. Avatar is
an apperance of god an earth ,or descent frome heaven with the intent to save the people. Its is
important to notics that although Avatars of different gods are mentioned, the central god in
the docrtine of Avatara is vishnu.

He dose not censeder the creeds as important with in Bible he considere the N.T. as having
more authority for christian. Bible for him is the revelation of God in human mankind history.

7
Robin Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology (Delhi: ISPCK, 1987). Pp. 179-183
Bibliography:

Boyd, Robin. An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology. 2nd ed. Delhi: ISPCK, 1987.