Radhakrishnan Sarvepalli

Background

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was born on September 5, 1888, at Tiruttani in Tamil Nadu. His father and mother were Sarvepalli Veeraswami and Sitamma.

Education

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan had his early education at Gowdie School, Tiruvallur and then went to the Lutheran Mission School in Tirupati for his high school. He joined the Voorhee's College in Vellore and later switched to the Madras Christian College. He chose Philosophy as his major subject and did his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in it.

Career

After completing his Master of Arts, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, accepted an Assistant Lectureship at the Madras Presidency College in 1909. In college, he mastered the classics of Hindu philosophy, namely the Upanishads, Bhagvad Gita, Brahmasutra, and commentaries of Sankara, Ramunuja and Madhava. He also acquainted himself with Buddhist and Jain philosophy and philosophies of Western thinkers such as Plato, Plotinus, Kant, Bradley, and Bergson.

In 1918, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was selected as Professor of Philosophy by the University of Mysore. In 1921, Radhakrishnan was nominated as Professor of Philosophy at the Calcutta University. In 1923, Radhakrishnan's book "Indian Philosophy" was published. The book was hailed as a "philosophical classic and a literary masterpiece."

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was called to Oxford University, to deliver lectures on Hindu philosophy. He used his lectures as a platform to further India's cause for freedom. He also argued that Western philosophers, despite all claims to objectivity, were biased by theological influences from their wider culture. He showed that Indian philosophy, once translated into standard academic jargon, is worthy of being called philosophy by Western standards. He thus placed Indian Philosophy on the world map.

In 1931, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was elected Vice-Chancellor of Andhra University. In 1939, Radhakrishnan became the Vice-Chancellor of the Benaras Hindu University. In 1946, he was appointed as Ambassador to UNESCO. After Independence Radhakrishnan was requested to Chair the University Education Commission in 1948. The Radhakrishnan Committee's suggestions helped mold the education system for India's needs.

In 1949, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was appointed ambassador to the Soviet Union. He helped lay the foundation for a strong relationship with the Soviet Union. Radhakrishnan was elected first Vice-President of India in 1952. He was honored with the Bharat Ratna in 1954. After serving two terms as Vice-President, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was elected President of India in 1962. During his tenure as President India fought wars with China and Pakistan. As President, he helped see India through those trying years safely. He retired as President in 1967 and settled in Madras.

In 1975, towards the end of his life, Radhakrishnan was felicitated with a Templeton Prize by the well-known Templeton Foundation. However, the generous scholar donated the entire amount earned through the Templeton Prize to Oxford University.

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan died on April 17, 1975.

Achievements

• His contribution towards the field of education earned Radhakrishnan several awards, including the Bharat Ratna. He even received the Knighthood from the British emperor King George V in 1931 for his excellence in teaching. Three decades later, Radhakrishnan was even honored with an Order of Merit by the royal folks of Britain.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Philosophy of Hinduism

    (In The Philosophy of Hinduism, Radhakrishnan has explaine...)

    2016
  • The Hindu View Of Life

    (A timeless treatise on what constitutes the Hindu way of ...)

    1926
  • The Philosophy Of Rabindranath Tagore

    (In interpreting the philosophy and message of Rabindranat...)

    1918
  • The Principal Upanishads

    (The Upanisads are ancient philosophical texts that form t...)

    1953
  • Mahatma Gandhi: Essays and Reflections 1939

Religion

For Radhakrishnan, the creeds and theological formulations of religion are but intellectual representations and symbols of experience. "The idea of God," Radhakrishnan affirms, "is an interpretation of experience." It follows here that religious experiences are, for Radhakrishnan, context relative and therefore imperfect. They are informed by and experienced through specific cultural, historical, linguistic and religious lenses. Because of their contextuality and subsequent intellectualization, experiences in the religious sphere are limited. It is in this sense that we may refer to experiences which occur under the auspices of one or other of the religions as "religious experiences." Radhakrishnan spends little time dealing with "religious experiences" as they occur in specific religious traditions. And what little he does say is used to demonstrate the theological preconditioning and "religious" relativity of such experiences. However, "religious experiences" have value for Radhakrishnan insofar as they offer the possibility of heightening one's religious consciousness and bringing one into ever-closer proximity to "religious intuition."

Much to the confusion and chagrin of readers of Radhakrishnan, Radhakrishnan uses "religious experience" to refer to such "sectarian" religious experiences as well as to refer to "religious intuitions" which transcend narrow sectarian and religious boundaries and are identical to intuition itself.

Radhakrishnan is explicit and emphatic in his view that religious intuition is a unique form of experience. Religious intuition is more than simply the confluence of the cognitive, aesthetic, and ethical sides of life. However vital and significant these sides of life may be, they are but partial and fragmented constituents of a greater whole, a whole which is experienced in its fullness and immediacy in religious intuition.

To Radhakrishnan's mind, religious intuition is not only an autonomous form of experience but a form of experience which informs and validates all spheres of life and experience. Philosophical, artistic, and ethical values of truth, beauty, and goodness are not known through the senses or by reason. Rather, "they are apprehended by intuition or faith..." For Radhakrishnan, religious intuition informs, conjoins, and transcends an otherwise fragmentary consciousness.

Informing Radhakrishnan's interpretation of religious intuition is his affirmation of the identity of the self and ultimate reality. Throughout his life, Radhakrishnan interpreted the Upaniṣadic mahavakya, tat tvam asi, as a declaration of the non-duality (advaita) of Atman and Brahman. His advaitic interpretation allows him to affirm the ineffability of the truth behind the formula. Radhakrishnan readily appropriates his acceptance of the non-dual experience to his interpretation of religious intuition. Radhakrishnan not only claimed to find support for his views in the Upaniṣads, but believed that, correctly understood, the ancient sages expounded his interpretation of religious intuition. Any attempt at interpretation of the intuition could only approximate the truth of the experience itself. As the ultimate realization, religious intuition must not only account for and bring together all other forms of experience, but must overcome the distinctions between them. Radhakrishnan goes so far as to claim that intuition of this sort is the essence of religion. All religions are informed by it, though all fail to varying degrees to interpret it. "Here we find the essence of religion, which is a synthetic realization of life. The religious man has the knowledge that everything is significant, the feeling that there is harmony underneath the conflicts and the power to realize the significance and the harmony."

With this, the present discussion of intuition and the varieties of experience has come full circle. Radhakrishnan identifies intuition - in all its contextual varieties - with integral experience. The two expressions are, for Radhakrishnan, synonymous. Integral experience coordinates and synthesizes the range of life's experiences. It furnishes the individual with an ever-deepening awareness of and appreciation for the unity of Reality. As an intuition, integral experience is not only the basis of all experience but the source of all creative ingenuity, whether such innovation be philosophical, scientific, moral, artistic, or religious. Moreover, not only does integral experience find expression in these various spheres of life, but such expression, Radhakrishnan believes, quickens the intuitive and creative impulse among those it touches.

Politics

In 1947, due to his knowledge and talent, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was made a member of the Constituent Assembly. He was made the chairman of several universities.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was about to declare independence at midnight on August 14-15, but only Radhakrishnan knew about it. He was a non-traditional diplomat. The meeting which went on till late night, he used to attend Radhakrishnan till 10 o'clock because it was time for his sleep.

After the formation of the Soviet Union in 1952, Radhakrishnan was made Vice President under the Constitution by creating a new post of Vice President. Pandit Nehru surprised everyone by giving him this position. Everyone thought that a leader of the Congress Party would become the Vice President.

Everyone was skeptical about his work, but Radhakrishnan did his job efficiently. All Members of Parliament appreciated his work. Due to his humorous nature, people still remember Radhakrishnan.

From 1962 to 1967, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan took over as the second President of India.

No person could meet him two days a week without an appointment. After becoming the second President of India, Radhakrishnan reached the White House in America by helicopter. No one had gone to the White House by helicopter before.

Views

Radhakrishnan's writings are characterized by the intimate relationship between religious experience (particularly the Hindu mystical tradition) and philosophy (particularly modern Western idealism). With the publication of his major works, Indian Philosophy, The Hindu View of Life (1926), and An Idealist View of Life (1932), Radhakrishnan established his case for the positive relationship between idealist philosophy and a universalist religious attitude that he later termed "religion of the spirit."

In various ways, all of Radhakrishnan's mature writings focus on three closely related concerns: his presentation and positive interpretation of classical Indian religious thought, or Vedanta, especially as found in its three fundamental scriptures, the Upaniṣads, the Bhagavadgītā, and the Brahma Sūtra; his defense of philosophical idealism, both in its Indian expression and as found in Western philosophers from Plato to Hegel and F. H. Bradley; and his critique of contemporary (and especially Western) materialist and scientific thinking insofar as it excludes religious and spiritual values. On behalf of each of these three concerns, Radhakrishnan sought to show that although brahman (the Absolute) is the ultimate self-sufficient reality, the world is nevertheless valuable and worthy of humanity's deepest commitment and dedication.

It is believed that during a dinner in London, a British citizen remarked that all Indians are black skinned. Radhakrishnan gently replied to this comment by saying that "God once baked a piece of bread more than what was needed and it was known as the so-called 'negro.' God's next experiment at baking was undercooked, which was known 'European'. The almighty tried a final experiment where he baked the bread to the ideal extent and it was termed 'Indian.'"

Personality

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan had a humorous nature.

Quotes from others about the person

• Former Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru: "Dr. Radhakrishnan made the parliament sessions seem more like family gatherings."

Interests

• Reading

• Politicians

  Gandhi

Connections

In those days there were marriages at an early age. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was married to Sivakamu in 1903 at the young age of 16. At that time, his wife was only ten years old. In 1908, a daughter was born to the Radhakrishnan couple.

Father:

Sarvepalli Veeraswami

Mother:

Sitamma

Spouse:

Sivakamu

colleague:

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru

References

• Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan: A Biography Of His Vision And Ideas by Verinder Grover
  1998