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Dr. S. Radhakrishnan

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                                                                                                                                                   Kollam







One of India’s most distinguished twentieth century scholars of comparative religion and Philosophy, his academic appointments included professor of Philosophy at the University of Mysore (1918-1921), the King George V Chai of Mental and Moral Science at the University of Calcutta (1921-1932) and Spalding Professor of Eastern Religion and Ethics at University of Oxford (1936-195).
His Philosophy was grounded in Advaita Vedanta, reinterpreting this tradition for a contemporary understanding. He defended Hinduism against “Uniformed Western criticism”, contributing to the formation of contemporary Hindu identity. He has been influential in shaping the understanding of Hinduism, in India and the West. Radhakrishnan was awarded several high awards during his life, including a knighthood in 1931,the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award in India, in 1954,and honorary membership of the British royal order of Merit in 1963. Radhakrishnan believed that “teachers should be the best minds in the country”. Since 1962, his birthday is being celebrated in India as Teacher’s Day on 5 September.
EARLY LIFE
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was born in Telugu Brahmin family, in a village near Thiruttani in the erstwhile Chittoor district of Madras Presidency near the boarder of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu states. Dr. Radhakrishnan’s surname was Sarvepalli, for his fore fathers were from Sarvepalli, a village fifteen miles from Nellore town. His grandfather migrated to Tiruttani in erstwhile Chittoor district of Madras Presidency. His father’s name was Sarvepalli Veerswami and his mother’s name was Sitamma. His early years were spent in Thiruttani and tirupati. His father was a subordinate revenue official in the service of a local zamindar (local landlord).His primary education was at K.V. High school at Thiruttani. In 1896 he moved to Hermansburg Evangelical Lutheran Mission School in, Waljapet.
EDUCATION
Radhakrishnan was awarded scholarship throughout his academic life. He joined Voorhees College in Vellore but switched to the Madras Christian College at the age of 17. He graduated from there in 1906 with a master’s degree in Philosophy, being one of its most distinguished alumni.
Radhakrishnan studied Philosophy by chance rather than choice. Being a financially constrained student, when a cousin who graduated from the same collage passed on his Philosophy textbooks in to Radhakrishnan, it automatically decided his academic course.
Radhakrishnan wrote his thesis for M.A degree on “The Ethics of the Vedanta and its Metaphysical Presuppositions”. It was intended to be a replay to the charge that the Vedanta system had no room for ethics. He was afraid that this M.A thesis would offend his Philosophy professor, Dr. Alfred George Hogg. Instead, Hogg commented Radhakrishnan on having done most excellent work. Radhakrishnan’s thesis was published when he was only twenty. According to Radhakrishnan himself, the criticism of Hogg and other Christian Teachers of Indian culture disturbed my faith and shook the traditional props on which I learned. Radhakrishnan himself describes how as a student The challenge of Christian critics impelled me to make a study of Hinduism and find out what is living and what is dead in it. My pride as a Hindu, roused by the enterprise and eloquence of Swami Vivekananda, was deeply hurt by the treatment accorded to Hinduism in missionary institutions.
This led him to his critical study of Indian Philosophy and religion and a lifelong defence of Hinduism against “Uniformed Western Criticism”.
MARRIAGE AND FAMILY
Radhakrishnan was married to sivakammu, a distant cousin at the age of 16. As per tradition the marriage was arranged by the family. The couple had five daughters and a son, sarvepalli Gopal. Sarvepalli Gopal went onto a notable career as a Historian. Sivakammu died in 1956. They were married for live 51 years.
ACADEMIC CAREER
In April 1909,Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was appointed to the department of Philosophy at the Madras Presidency College. Thereafter, in 1918, he was selected as a professor of Philosophy by the University of Mysore, where he taught at its Maharaja’s College, Mysore. But that time he had written many articles for journals and repute like The Quest, Journals of Philosophy and the International Journals of Ethics. He also completed his first book, The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore. He believed Tagore’s Philosophy to be the “genuine manifestation of the Indian spirit”. His second book, The Reign of religion in contemporary Philosophy was published in 1920.
      In 1921 he was appointed as a professor in Philosophy to occupy the Kind George V chair of Mental and Moral Science at the University of Calcutta. He represented the University of Calcutta at the congress of the Universities of the British Empire in June 1926. Another important academic event during this period was the invitation to deliver the Hibbert Lecture on the ideas of life which he delivered at Harris Manchester College, Oxford in 1929 and which was subsequently published in book form as an idealistic view of life. In 1929 Radhakrishnan was invited to take the post vacated by Principal J.Estlin Carpenter at Harris Manchester College. This gave him the opportunity to lecture to the students of the University of Oxford on comparative Religion. For his service to Education he was knighted by George V in June1931 Birthday Honours, and formally invested with his honor by the Governor-General of India, the Earl of Willingdon in April 1932. However, he ceased to use the title after Indian Independence, preferring instead his academic title of “Doctor”.
He was the Vice-Chancellor of Andhra University from 1931to 1936. In 1936 Radhakrishnan was named Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at the University of Oxford, and was elected a Fellow of All souls College. That same year, and again in 1937, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, although his nomination process, as for all laureates, was not public at the time. Further nomination for the award would continue steadly into the 1961’s. In 1939 Pt.Madam Mohan Malaviya invited him to succeed him as the vice chancellor till January 1948.


POLITICAL CAREER


Radhakrishnan started his political career “rather late in life”, after his successful academic career. His international authority preceded his political career. In 1931 he was nominate to the League of Nations Committee for Intellectual co-operation where after “in Western eyes he was the recognized Hindu authority on Indian ideas and persuasive interpreter of the role of Eastern institutions in Contemporary Society. When India became independent in 1947, Radhakrishnan represented India at UNESCO (1946-1952) and was later ambassador of India to the Saviet Union, from 1949 to 1952. He was also elected to the constituent assembly of India. Radhakrishnan was elected as the first vice- President of India in 1952,and elected as the second president of India (1962-67).Radhakrishnan did not have a background in the congress party, nor was he active in struggle against British rules. He was the politician in shadow. His motivation lay in his pride of Hindu Culture, and the defence of Hinduism against “uniformed Western criticism”.
TEACHER’S DAY
When he became the president of India, some of his students and friends requested him to allow them to celebrate his birthday on 5 September, He replied,
     “Instead of celebrating my birthday, it would be my proud privilege if September fifth is observed as Teachers day”.
His birthday has since been celebrated as Teacher’s day in India.
PHILOSOPHY
           Radhakrishnan tried to bridge eastern and western thought, defending Hinduism against “Uniformed Western criticism”, but also incorporating western philosophical and religious thought.
        Radhakrishnan’s philosophy is idealistic. It is an attempt to reinterpret and reconstruct the Advaita Vedanta of Sankara in the light of scientific Knowledge and techniques of modern time. He accepts the monistic and theistic stands of the Upanishads and does not subordinate the one to the other. The following are the important Philosophical views of Dr. Radhakrishnan.
 Life is meaningful and has a purpose, and ideals and values are the dynamic forces that give direction to life and help it to achieve its goal.
 The proper end of life, and therefore of education, is to discover, recognize and accept the supremacy of ultimate values and to regulate one’s behavior accordingly.
 The ultimate reality is the undivided, unitary, wholly transcendent absolute that is, Brahman or the God. The Absolute is identical to the Atman or self.
 The spirit is a dynamic energy, not immobility. It manifests in matter, life, mind and self.  It is the presence of the spirit that is responsible for the development of matter into life, of life into consciousness to self-consciousness.
 God is the absolute viewed in the cosmic context. He is the absolute in the empiric dress. He is organic with the world and he endures as long as the world lasts.
 Man is essentially divine. Man’s unborn feeling in God, his quest for truth, his striving for perfection, his longing for goodness, his craving for beauty, all his hopes, ideals and aspiration aboundantly prove man’s essential divine nature.
 Maya is not strictly an illusion; rather it indicates a subjective misperception of the world as ultimately real.
 He believes that one’s Philosophy of life should guide the individual’s life and action. Philosophy does not isolate one from life and reality, but should make us understand life and to face its realities.
 Institution is the ultimate form of experience. It is ultimate in the sense that intuition constitutes the fullest and therefor the most authentic realization of the Real (Brahman)
 Suffering and misery of worldly existence are aspects of the process of spiritual growth. Again, death is not a denial of life. It is not only a condition. Death is only a change from one life to another.