INTRODUCTION

Indian Christian Theology is an outcome of a major awakening in socio-political and religious

systems in India. The 19th century was a crucial period in India’s cultural history with the emergence
of Neo-Hindu movements in dialogue with western culture and Christianity. Thus, renascent
Hinduism and Hindu leaders of the Indian renaissance began grappling with Christ, Christianity
and western culture. All of which have been sources of the self-awakening of Hinduism as well as
of the Indian people. Keshab Chandra Sen is one among them. His contributions to Indian Christian
Theology are quite substantial. They not only challenged Christian thinking both western and
Indian, to make Christian Theology indigenous; but they also produced some of the seminal Indian
categories in which such theologisation could be pursued. This research is attempt to bring about
his background, the ideology, his early activities, missionary activities sketch, his thought on
Christology, the doctrine of Trinity, the church and his new dispensation with conclusion.
1. The Brief Background of Keshab Chandra Sen
1. 1. His Early Life
Keshab Chandra Sen is regarded as the third great leader of the Brahmo movement. He
transformed the Brahmo Theism into a universal and cosmopolitan religion and brought out a
series of far-reaching social reforms.
Sen was born on November 19, 1838 at Colutolah in Calcutta. He was the grandson of Dewan
Ram Kama! Sen and was brought up in a strict religious atmosphere. His father, Pyarimohan Sen
was a devout follower of Vaishnava cult and died at the early age of the thirty four when Keshab
was only ten years of age. It was his mother a devotional and excellent woman was responsible
for making the character of his son.
Keshab Chandra Sen received his earliest education first at home and then went to Hindu College.
He was a mediocre student and did not like mathematics but his intelligence was great and he was
marked out strict morals. From a very early age, he showed considerable dislike for ceremonies.
He did not finish his college education and devoted himself mainly to the study of philosophy and
Unitarian theology which helped him immensely in his career as an orator and religious leader. He
came in contact with some Christian missionaries and studied the Bible with the Rev. T. H. Burne
and the works of Reid, Hamilton, Theo done, Parker, Milton, Emerson and others and imbibed
ideas and feelings which made a lasting impression on his mind. At the age of seventeen, he had
established Colutola Evening School” for young men of Neighbourhoods. In 1856, at the age of
eighteen, he got married to a nine years old girl. Then about at the age of nineteen, he started the
“Goodwill Fraternity”, a purely religious society where he gave discourses on religious matter.
During one of his discourse, came Debendranath Tagore. The attraction between Keshab and
Debendranath, which appears to have been instantaneous, was impart that of a son in search of
a father. Keshab who was twenty at that time, while Debendranath was forty, had lost his own
father when he was ten. There was also Debendranath’s attraction to the young man, who had a
brilliant oratorial gift, was an effective organizer, had Unitarian theological convictions, and perhaps
most important was a confirmed theist like himself.
1.2. His Contributions
1. In his early years, he was involved in the activities of the British Indian Association. He joined
the Brahmo Samaj in 1857 and was regarded as the movement's most youthful member.
2. In1860, the Sangat Sabha was founded a society of fellow believers formed to promote mutual
spiritual intercourse among its members.
3. The Sangat Sabha (public meeting, assembly or organization group) sowed the seeds of new
Brahmoism in syncretism with Christian tenets to create a truly universal religion. As a result, he
significantly expanded and broadened Brahmoism.
4. He, along with the Brahmo Samaj of India, worked tirelessly for the upliftment and education of
girls.

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5. Keshab Chandra Sen was instrumental in the establishment of the Albert College in 1862, as
well as the Bethune College for Ladies and several other schools.
6. He also spread the goodwill of their philosophy by extensively traveling throughout India,
particularly in the south, as well as through the daily Dharma Tattwa and the weekly Indian Mirror.
7. He also developed a syncretic religious philosophy known as the New Dispensation, which
promoted fraternity and love while condemning the evils that persisted and enunciating the
ideology God is Conscience.
8. He also founded the Indian Reform Association. While many Brahmo Samaj members opposed
it, many others praised it.
9. His detractors claimed that Keshab Chandra Sen had strayed from the Samaj's core ideologies,
whereas his supporters claimed that he was realizing Raja Ram Mohan Roy's philosophy of a
universal religion.
10. He was also considered close to Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (Hindu spiritual leader “Supreme
Swan”) and adopted many of his ideas.
2. The Ideologies
1. Throughout his life, Keshab Chandra Sen's ideology evolved, and he emphasized different
issues at different times.
2. He placed more emphasis on religious issues at times, and less emphasis on social changes at
other times.
3. Keshab Chandra took on the role of a religious Guru in the latter half of his life, preaching his
vision of religion.
4. He had a charismatic personality, and the religious path he chose is known as new-Vaishnavism
(“The Pervader” the worshiper and acceptance of Vishnu).
5. Even though he was responsible for many splits in the Brahmo Samaj, including the first schism,
he was unquestionably one of the most discussed and popular social reformers in Bengal during
the British period.
6. He a emerged as a pivotal figure in the history of socio-religious movements in India.
3. The Early Activities
Keshab Chandra Sen joined the Brahmo Samaj and became a full time missionary for the Samaj
in 1861 and was appointed to the position of Acharya or chief minister in 1862 belonged to this
group of men. Having establish the Sangat Sabha he was able to breath new life into the Samraj.
Celebrating inter-caste marriage and a variety of other unconventional custom demonstrated a
commitment to social improvement in a proactive manner. The Brahmo Samaj grew in power and
numbers primarily as a result of the charismatic leadership of Keshab Chandra Sen and his
followers. Only six Brahma existed in 1829, 100 in 1839, 500 in 1849 and 2,000 in 1864, according
to census data. However, the advanced concepts of active social reform, such as inter-caste
marriage widow remarriage, elimination of the Purdah for women and so on, were not well received
by the older segment of the population. All of this resulted in an open conflict between the older
and younger parts, which was brought to a climax by the younger sections complaint against the
habit of permitting Brahmans to take the pulpit while wearing sacred thread.
4. The Missionary Activities
One of the most marked and healthy features of Brahmas is its Missionary zeal. This arose, as we
have seen, in the Adi Samaj, but it was left for Chandra Sen to introduce a regular Mission Agency.
Earnest and self-denying men, many of whom left comfortable positions, were trained and sent
forth, on the barest maintenance, to propagate the faith, and several branch Samajes were
established in Northern India.
In 1863, a Samaj was established in Lahore, mainly through the zeal and ability of Navina Chandra
Eai. In 1865, Mr. Sen visited East Bengal, and the Brahmist Eastern Church has ever since been
an important branch of the Society. In 1864 and 1867, theistic churches were organized in Madras
and Bombay, the former was called the Veda Samaj, and the latter the Pradhan or Prayer Samaj.

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It is worthy of notice that meetings for Prayer invariably form the nucleus of a new Samaj. The
more devout and earnest of the people agree to "offer their prayers together" and this ( small
beginning may continue for some time before the little band feels strong and bold enough to
organize By the year 1850, Provincial Samajes were commencing at Midnapur, Krishnagar, and
Dacca, a distinctly theistic Society. When developed, a Brahmist church devotes itself to religion,
education, and philanthropy in general. Where the Samajes are strong, they have a Sangat Sabhd
or class for devotional culture, something between a Sunday School and an Experience Meeting.
The Madras Veda Samaj. In February, 1864, Chandra Sen visited Madras, and awakened
considerable interest by the delivery of several lectures. In April, 1864, the Veda Samaj was
established, which held weekly meetings for prayer, and started a monthly journal. But a strange
fatality seems to have attended the beginnings of Brahmism in South India; and, one after another,
its leading members died, thereby seriously affecting the fortunes of the Samaj but in 1868, both
of them was removed by death. Another leader, and author of some Tamil books, and popular
satires on Hindu superstitions, one of which, Ddmbachdri Vildsdm, is very popular, was Kasi
Visvanatha Madelia, a retired judge, of good family; but he lapsed into pantheism, and died in
1871.
In the meantime, Providence was preparing a more worthy guide in the person of K. Sridharalu
Nayadu, a native of Cuddlier, a young man of great promise, possessing an enthusiastic piety and
great practical sagacity. Even before Chandra Sen's visit to the South, he appears to have been
deeply interested in the accounts that reached him of the Brahma Samaj in Bengal: and he
resolved to go thither and study the movement for himself. He had no friends in the North, neither
did he understand its languages; and being very poor, he had to dispose of some of his property
in order to pay his passage. But he spent eight months in Calcutta, endearing himself to the
Brahmos; and having learned what their faith was, he returned to his home to devote himself to
the same cause among his countrymen. In 1869, or thereabouts, he was appointed secretary to
the Madras Samaj. Being dissatisfied with the constitution and covenant of the Veda Samaj, whose
name seemed to imply that the Vedas alone were regarded as an infallible guide to salvation, it
was converted, through his instrumentality, on June 18th, 1871, into "The Brahma Samaj of
Southern India". The old rules were revised, and new, bolder, and more spiritual confession of faith
took the place of the former of covenant, which was much trammelled by concessions to prevailing
customs and superstitions. Both of these documents appear to have been based on Debendra
Nith Tagore's Brahmic covenant.
His successor did not long survive him; and a few years later, a split took place in the Samaj,
resulting from differences of opinion respecting the Tiews advanced by Chandra Sen's
Missionaries, on the one hand, and those of the Sadaran Samaj, on the other; which led to the
formation of a new branch of the latter party on June 17th, 1882. A monthly English paper, the
Brahma Frakdsika, is now issued; and a large house has been purchased in Madras, which is
shortly to be set apart as a Mandir, towards which nearly Es. 5,000 have been subscribed. Besides
Mr. Sen himself, Babus P. C. Mozumdar and Amrita Lai Bose, and Pandit Sivanath Sastri, M.A.,
have been actively engaged at different times in missionary work in the South of India, and have
revived the spirit of Brahmism.
Samajes exist in ten other towns in the Madras Presidency, including the Province of Mysore; the
oldest and most vigorous being those at Bangalore, and Mangalore. The Bombay Prdrthand
Samaj. Mr. Sen visited Bombay for the first-time 1864, and again in 1868. The Prathama (Prayer)
Samaj was organized in March, 1867, mainly through the exertions of a physician of the city, Dr.
Atmaram Pandurang. Several other Samajes exist in the Presidency, the most important of which
is probably at Poon&. The theism of Western India does not appear to have been of so progressive
a type as that which has characterized the North and the South; and the Prarthana Samaj has
adhered more to the old Hindu elements of social and religious life; but both in Bombay and in

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Madras, and elsewhere in the South and West, the Samajes have had an independent
organisation, and hold no official relation to the parent Societies in Calcutta.
5. The Social Reforms
A comprehensive programme of social reforms was initiated by the Brahmo Samaj under the
leadership of Keshab Chandra Sen, who served as an inspiration and a driving force behind the
Indian Renaissance. Keshab return from England in 1870 resulted in the formation of the Indian
Reform Association which may have provided some inspiration for these ideas. The Association
programme was carried out through five parts each of which was overseen by a different Secretary,
they were:
1. Female Improvement
2. Education of the working classes
3. Cheap Literature
4. Temperance
5. Charity
The item of cheap literature including the population of the Sulabha Samachar at a weekly paper
priced at one piece each issue. It was a new venture and soon become very popular.
6. The Theology in the Light of the Biblical Teaching
Keshab Chandra had influence by the Christian doctrine he tries to connect with Christian doctrine
to Hinduism same of the points that I have find out that Keshab Chandra Sen had adopt the
Christian teaching are as bellow:
6.1. The Influence on Biblical Teaching
1. Sen was inspired by Christian teachings and sought to fuse Christian teachings into the Hindu
framework. He thought that only the Christian doctrine would help in still new life into Hindu society.
He was also impressed with the discipline of Christian missionary work and started following it
himself.
2. In 1865, this lean towards Christianity caused a rift between him and Tagore and he broke away
from the Samaj and formed the Bharat Barshiya Brahmo Samaj (Brahmo Samaj of India). The Old
Brahmo Samaj was now called the Adi Brahmo Samaj.
3. Sen preached against child marriage and advocated widow remarriage and inter-caste
marriages. He was also instrumental in getting native marriages legalised.
4. In 1870, he met the British monarch Queen Victoria and expressed acceptance of the British
rule which angered people at home. His acceptance of the British rule was from a theological
perspective, nevertheless, he was criticised severely in India.
6.2. The Jaya Doctrine
The Sanskrit word Jaya means wife, and is derived from jan- the person in whom the father is born
as the Son. The scriptural text in which this idea is clearly set forth is to be found in Manu, and
runs thus:
Patirbharyyam samprabisya garhho bhutveha jayate
Jayayastaddhi jayatvam yadasyam jayate punah
The husband entering into the wife becomes an embryo and is born in this world. The jaya is jaya
for this reason that in her man is born again. This idea of the father being born in the child may be
easily elaborated into the popular theory of Christian incarnation. The Son is not a different being
altogether, not a mere creation of the father’s will; but is the very substance of the father. The Son
may be a different person, but he is identical with father in substance. He is the father begotten
again. The Son of God is the heavenly father born on earth. He is the father manifest in the Son,
the father dwelling in the Son.
7. His Thought About God’s
Keshab wrote and lectured on a wide range of subjects. But here an attempt is made only to point
out his understanding of God, Christology, Trinity and the Church in the Indian context.
7.1. God

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Keshab Chandra Sen believe that God also became the Lord who dwelt within us. God is a living
God, a living reality in spirit and love, on whom we have living faith. The existence of God “there
is a latent Being a God hidden in man. The small muscular chest and every drop of blood reveal
God. We do not want a God of antiquity. We want a present, a modern God who live in us. Keshab
said continue God, as per Sivanath Sastri, is God in Conscience”. If my soul is infidel. I can see
Him nowhere. God stays everywhere. Faith beholds Him in every grain of corn or every blade of
grass… there is God in every flash of lightning, as well as in a vast conflagration. When the sun
rises it bring to us the gladdening message of God’s radiance.
7.2. Christology
The main expression of his Christology is the series of lectures he delivered in Calcutta. In his
lecture on Jesus Christ: Europe and Asia he dealt with the moral excellence of Jesus. According
to Keshab, the two fundamental doctrines of gospels ethics were the doctrines of forgiveness and
self-sacrifice. He thought that it was in those doctrines that one could find the moral greatness of
Christ.
In his lecture, “India asks, who is Christ?” delivered in 1879 Keshab dealt with the stumbling blocks
to the Hindus. He pointed out that if Indians refused to accept Christ was not because of his ethics,
nor of his humanity, but because of his divinity. He had no doubt that Jesus considered himself
and his father as one. He understood Christ as the gradual manifestation of his father. He
developed the concept of divine humanity. He affirmed the pre-existent Christ as Son and his
incarnation in Jesus.
In his lecture on God-Vision in the 19th century, Keshab dealt with his idea of the resurrection of
Jesus Christ and his ascension to the right hand of God. In this lecture, he affirmed the resurrection
of the spirit of Jesus. Christ dead and decayed is a deception. Christ risen is Christ indeed. The
spirit of Christ has risen and returned to the Father. As M.M. Thomas had pointed out, in a later
lecture he saw meaning in the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
7.2.1. The Hidden Christ
While Sen was highly critical of many aspects of Hinduism, and especially of polytheism, he had
a deep affection for the faith in which he had grown up and constantly sought to relate Christianity
and Hinduism. He was not unaware of the lofty ethical monotheism of Judaism and the activist
tradition of Islam. Christ, he was sure, had come to fulfil all that was best in all of these faiths, to
fulfil the Hindu dispensation as well as the Mosaic. Sen writes: Behold Christ cometh to us as an
Asiatic in race, as a Hindu in faith, as a kinsman and a brother, and he demands your heart’s
affection… and so he asks his Hindu friends to turn to the Christ who is already with them, the
Christ who is hidden in their Hindu faith. He sees Christ in all that is good in every philosophy and
religion. Christ is present in all hearts of men of all religion.
Sen’s idea of a world religion is not merely a syncretistic one like Radhakrishnan’s. Certainly, he
wishes to draw on the riches of all traditions and longs for the unity of all men. But always at the
centre of his visions of evolution and union there stands the figure of Christ. A unification of all men
in Christ was Sen’s aim in all his writings.
7.2.2. Incarnation of Christ
The doctrine of incarnation is common to Hindus and Christians. yet their ideas and conceptions
of incarnation differ materially. The Hindu, however, recognises many incarnation of God. In
Hinduism God himself appears on earth as man. The Avatar is identical creator of universe. In
Christianity it is the Son of God we see in history. The Christian distinguished the one from the
other as the Father from the Son. In Hindu theology the Krishna is the very God of the universe.
According to Keshab, Krishna is nothing if not the Almighty God. Christ is nothing if not the Son of
God. It is heresy to talk of Krishna as the Son. It is heresy to accept or preach Christ as father.
Keshab says, Jesus never said that he is God. He was simply the Logos, an emanation from the
Creator; he was born and begotten. But there is divinity in Christ. Christ is an incarnation in
Christian sense, but not in Hindu sense. Christ may be regarded as a filial incarnation of the father.

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We are quite familiar with the idea of the father being born again as the Son. The Son is the father
reproduced. The Son is really made in the image of the father. In the Son is the father incarnate.
The father lives in himself; he lives again in the Son. Being his Son, Jesus partakes of the Father’s
nature. And all who are in Christ are also Sons and co-heirs of the Father’s kingdom.
7.3. Understanding of Trinity
Sen’s understanding is different from the Christian tradition. However, the Unitarians influenced
him. His final position is expressed with great power in a lecture, which he gave in 1882 entitled
That Marvellous Mystery- the Trinity Sen seems to have been the first thinker to expound the
meaning of the Trinity in relation to the famous definition of Brahman as Saccidanada (Sat, Cit,
Ananda), and in so doing he began a tradition. He expounds his understanding of the conception
under the figure of an equilateral triangle. He writes, the apex is the very God Jehovah, the
supreme Brahma of the Vedas. From him comes down the Son in a direct line, an emanation from
Divinity. Thus God descends and touches one end of the base of humanity, then running all along
the base permeates the world, and by the power of the Holy Spirit drags up regenerated humanity
to himself. Divinity coming down to humanity is the Son. He gives a sort of table of equivalents,
the Christian Trinity and ending with Saccidanada:
Father: The Creator, The Still God, I am, Force, Truce, and Sat (Truth).
Son: The Exemplar, The Journeying God, I Love, Wisdom, Good, and Cit (Intelligence).
Holy Spirit: The Sanctifier, The Returning God, I Save, Holiness, Beautiful, and Ananda (Joy).
He says the Trinity of Christian theology corresponds strikingly with the sachidanada of Hinduism.
You have three conditions, three manifestations of divinity.1 He talks about the three dispensations
of father, Son and spirit. He does not ascribe equal status in the trinity. It is the threefold nature of
God; trinity understood as a treasury of wealth, that is found in all philosophies and theology. He
was always critical of trinity. He talks about a triangular figure of the trinity. The above is the God,
Jehova, who is the Brahman himself (father), Son is the emanation of the divinity, the power is the
influence of the Holy Spirit. In his lecture “That Marvellous mystery-Trinity (1882) he said Judaism
taught us about the Father (first dispensation), New Testament taught us about the Son (2nd
dispensation) and the third dispensation (navabidhan) teaches about Holy Spirit. Trinity is not three
persons but three functions of the same person, says Sen.
We can detect a tendency towards modalism here, in the words conditions and manifestations, as
well as a reluctance to accept the Chalcedonian conception of three persons in one God. But Sen
had all the Brahma Samaj’s antipathy to polytheism and the Christian formula must have appeared
to him as verging on tritheism. And it may be that the road here marked out by him will prove more
effective for the Christian mission in India than the concepts derived from Greek philosophy, the
Roman theatre or even from modern western personalism.
7.4. View on Salvation
Keshab-Chandra Sen started his own Samaj (Society) called the Church of New Dispensation. He
tried to organize the conflicting creeds of all religions. The church harmonized reason, faith, yoga
and bhakti, asceticism and social duty in their highest forms to attain spiritual growth.
7.4.1. The Church
Keshab made distinction between Christ and Christianity. He adored Christ but rejected the
popular idea of the church. Christ for him was universal in whom Europe and Asia should find
harmony. As M.M. Thomas had pointed out, there were at least three strands in his thought about
the church. 1) a belief in the supremacy one Christ as the God-man centred in whom he saw the
harmony of all the established religions. 2), Keshab thought that all established religions were true.
3), he considered himself as the divinely appointed leader of the New Dispensation and his doctrine
of ades should be seen in his context. He always looked for a harmony of all established religions

1
Ibid., 35.

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with Christ as the centre. But he thought that he was living in a new dispensation of the Holy Spirit
and he himself as the God-appointed leader of this New Dispensation.
7.4.1.1. New Dispensation
One of the most important elements of Keshab's later thought was his idea, first developed in 1875,
of the navavidhana or New Dispensation. Many liberal Christians are troubled by this idea. Keshab
Chandra idea of the New Dispensation in two areas.
The first is tied to his concept of inspiration. As he wrestled with the question of why people who
are apparently Christians do not live as Christ commanded, he was not quite content with an
answer from the audience recorded in his first lecture that they are nominal Christians. He
developed rather a contrast between outer fact and inner experience. In the religious communities
of the world Keshab saw stagnation and lack of vitality. He looked for a revitalization of these old
dispensations in the inner experience of the New Dispensation.
The second focus of the idea of the New Dispensation is related to his concern about divisions
and polemics, quarrels and chaos that so often have characterized the religious life of humankind.
He set forth the New Dispensation as a place of harmonization of the old dispensations, the unity
concealed in the multiplicity. He saw the New Dispensation as enlivened by the Holy Spirit,
continually growing under the inspiration of God, and, as we shall see, there is certainly no final
word on the relation of various prophets to each other in his synthesis. And he saw the New
Dispensation uniting Christ and Moses and Socrates in God. There is another perspective on this
relationship, however. In a list of objectives of the New Dispensation are:
1. To preach Christ as the son of God, the Logos in all prophets before and after him.
2. To honour Socrates as the teacher of self-knowledge, Moses as the teacher of Old Testament
ethics, Buddha as the teacher of Nirvana, Mahomet as the teacher of the Unity of God, Chaitanya
as the teacher of loving devotion.
Here the other major prophets were portrayed essentially as teachers, while Jesus was shown as
that Logos of God who indwells other prophets. Another motif which Keshab used in order to
express the relationship between Christ and the other prophets was the image of light. He also
saw Christ as the light in which all lights (of other prophets) were harmonized.

CONCLUSION
Ram Mohan Roy and Keshab Chandra Sen were the first two Hindu reformers to meet and face
the challenge of Christianity. Certain parts of that challenge, in particular the teachings of Jesus,
they accepted with enthusiasm. But the interpretation provided by them was fundamentally
different from the Christian faith as handed down in the Bible, and received by the church. As for
a modern Indian theologian has written, these movements did not have their beginning in faith, but
in unbelief. From the point of view of the church in India, it is the story of a great rejection. He had
contacts with Swami Dayanand Saraswathi, founder of the Arya Samaj and Sri Ramakrishna
Paramahamsa. Keshab respected Dayanand, but could not maintain a warm relationship with him.
But he was very much attached to Ramakrishna and it was generally acknowledged that it was
Keshab who introduced Ramakrishna to Bengal. We should remember that Sen is not writing
Indian Christian Theology. He is speaking before a great concourse of people, most of whom are
Hindus. His point of view may be similar with a Christian doctrine of teaching and idea he had
taken out the teaching of Christian are very poisonous for Christian today we should aware on this
kind of teaching.