Sarvepalli Radhakrlshnan

Background

Radhakrlshnan, Sarvepalli was born on September 5, 1888 in Tiruttani, near Madras.

Education

Madras Christian College.

Career

19316, Vice-Chancellor, Andhra University. 1936-1952, Professor of Eastern Religious and Ethics, University of Oxford. 1939 48, Vice Chancellor, Benaras Hindu University.

1946-1952, Head Indian delegation. UNESCO; 1949-1952, Indian Ambassador to Russia. 1952-1962, Vice-President of India.

1962-1967, President of India.

Views

Radhakrishnan's philosophy is mainly founded on Shankara’s Advaita Vedanta, although he has modified it to some extent. The influence of Shankara is at its most explicit in his metaphysics. According to Radhakrishnan, the sciences are unable to provide an adequate account of reality since they cannot account for values and religious karma—the doctrine that the present life is based on the deeds of the past and the future life is based on the deeds of the present. This doctrine not only provides a convenient justification for the current status of an individual within society but allows for mobility in that an individual could be born in a better caste in the future by monitoring his actions closely. However, in a later work Radhakrishnan seems to have modified his views on the Hindu caste system due to its negative effects on society. In Religion and Society he states: ‘Caste divisions have prevented the development of homogeneity among the Hindus. To develop a degree of organic wholeness and a sense of common obligation, the caste spirit must go. We have to get rid of the innumerable castes and outcasts, with their spirit of exclusiveness, jealousy, greed and fear.' Although Radhakrishnan’s Philosophy owes much to Shankara’s Advaita Vedanta, he has reinterpreted it in a manner to make it more relevant to contemporary life as affected by science and social progress.

Interests

• Metaphysics; epistemology. Eastern religions; Western philosophy.

• Philosophers & Thinkers

  Advaita Vedanta.