The Arian Witness

The Arian Witness is Krishna Mohan Banerjea's landmark work of Indian Christian thought. Its full title — The Arian Witness, or, The Testimony of Arian Scriptures in Corroboration of Biblical History and the Rudiments of Christian Doctrine — states its thesis: that the ancient Aryan (Vedic) scriptures themselves bear witness to truths fulfilled in Christ.

Banerjea, a high-caste Brahmin convert and scholar of both Sanskrit tradition and Christian theology, argues that the sacrifices and doctrines of the Vedas corroborate biblical history and point forward to the gospel. He gives particular attention to the theme of self-sacrifice in Vedic religion, reading it as a foreshadowing of Christ's atonement.

The book advances a 'fulfilment' rather than a 'rupture' account of the relationship between Hinduism and Christianity — presenting the Christian faith not as a foreign import but as the completion of India's own oldest religious inheritance. It stands as a foundational document of nineteenth-century Indian Christian apologetics, written from the inside of both traditions.

Krishna Mohan Banerjea (1813–1885) was a high-caste Bengali Brahmin and a brilliant student of Calcutta's Hindu College, part of the reform-minded 'Young Bengal' intellectual world. He converted to Christianity under the missionary Alexander Duff in 1832, losing his Hindu-funded teaching position as a direct consequence.

He went on to become an ordained Anglican clergyman and one of the foremost Indian Christian scholars of his century, writing extensively on the relationship between Indian religious tradition and Christianity. As a self-authored intellectual — not a subject written up by others — he set out his own case in works like The Arian Witness.