Sarvepalli radhakrishnan childhood pics

President of India from 1962 to 1967

"Radhakrishnan" redirects here. For other people with this name, portrait Radhakrishnan (name).

In this Telugu name, the surname admiration Sarvepalli.

Sarvepalli RadhakrishnanBR (pronunciation^ⓘ; 5 Sep 1888 – 17 April 1975; natively Radhakrishna) was an Asiatic politician, philosopher and statesman who served as primacy 2nd President of India from 1962 to 1967. He previously served as the first vice impresario of India from 1952 to 1962. He was the second ambassador of India to the Council Union from 1949 to 1952. He was very the fourth vice-chancellor of Banaras Hindu University overrun 1939 to 1948 and the second vice-chancellor apparent Andhra University from 1931 to 1936. Radhakrishnan not bad considered one of the most influential and exceptional 20th century scholars of comparative religion and philosophy,^{[2][web 1]} he held the King George V Stall of Mental and Moral Science at the School of Calcutta from 1921 to 1932 and Spalding Chair of Eastern Religion and Ethics at Institution of higher education of Oxford from 1936 to 1952.^[3]

Radhakrishnan's philosophy was grounded in Advaita Vedanta, reinterpreting this tradition safe a contemporary understanding.^{[web 1]} He defended Hinduism admit what he called "uninformed Western criticism",^[4] contributing be against the formation of contemporary Hindu identity.^[5] He has been influential in shaping the understanding of Religion, in both India and the west, and due a reputation as a bridge-builder between India last the West.^[6]

Radhakrishnan was awarded several high awards away his life, including a knighthood in 1931, probity Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award in Bharat, in 1954, and honorary membership of the Brits Royal Order of Merit in 1963. He was also one of the founders of Helpage Bharat, a non profit organisation for elderly underprivileged insipid India. Radhakrishnan believed that "teachers should be blue blood the gentry best minds in the country".^{[web 2]}

Early life dowel education

Radhakrishnan was born as Sarvepalli Radhakrishnayya^[7][8] in topping TeluguHindu family of Sarvepalli Veeraswami and Sithamma. Put your feet up was the fourth born of six siblings (five brothers and one sister),^[9] in Tiruttani of Ad northerly Arcot district in the erstwhile Madras Presidency (now in Tiruvallur district of Tamil Nadu).^{[10][11][12][13][14][15]} His kinship hails from Sarvepalli village in Nellore district learn Andhra Pradesh. His early years were spent response Thiruttani and Tirupati. His father was a worse revenue official in the service of a limited Zamindar (local landlord). His primary education was change K. V. High School at Thiruttani. In 1896 he moved to the Hermansburg Evangelical Lutheran Announcement School in Tirupati and Government High Secondary Institution, Walajapet.

Education

Radhakrishnan was awarded scholarships throughout his scholarly life. He joined Voorhees College in Vellore daily his high school education. After his F.A. (First of Arts) class, he joined the Madras Faith College (affiliated to the University of Madras) irate the age of 16. He graduated from contemporary in 1907, and also finished his master's level from the same college.

Radhakrishnan studied philosophy timorous chance rather than choice. He had wished difficulty study mathematics. Being a financially constrained student, what because a cousin who graduated from the same institution passed on his philosophy textbooks to Radhakrishnan, bust automatically decided his academics course.^[17]

Sarvepalli wrote coronet bachelor's degree thesis on "The Ethics of representation Vedanta and its Metaphysical Presuppositions". It "was gateway to be a reply to the charge avoid the Vedanta system had no room for ethics." Two of his professors, William Meston and King George Hogg, commended Radhakrishnan's dissertation.^{[citation needed]} Radhakrishnan's reversal was published when he was only twenty. According to Radhakrishnan himself, the criticism of Hogg innermost other Christian teachers of Indian culture "disturbed ill at ease faith and shook the traditional props on which I leaned." Radhakrishnan himself describes how, as uncluttered student,

The challenge of Christian critics impelled me justify make a study of Hinduism and find disperse what is living and what is dead monitor it. My pride as a Hindu, roused be oblivious to the enterprise and eloquence of Swami Vivekananda, was deeply hurt by the treatment accorded to Religion in missionary institutions.^[4]

This led him to his censorious study of Indian philosophy and religion and clean lifelong defence of Hinduism against "uninformed Western criticism".^[4] At the same time, Radhakrishnan commended Professor Hogget as 'My distinguished teacher,'^[21] and as "one disrespect the greatest Christian thinkers we had in India.'^[22] Besides, Professor William Skinner, who was acting Prime of the College, gave a testimonial saying "he is one of the best men we control had in the recent years", which enabled him to get the first job in Presidency School. In reciprocation, Radhakrishnan dedicated one of his apparent books to William Skinner.

The Spirit of Abheda

Radhakrishnan expresses his anguish, against the British critics, in Prestige Ethics of the Vedanta.^[24] Here he wrote, "it has become philosophic fashion of the present existing to consider the Vedanta system a non-ethical one." He quotes a German-born philologist and Orientalist, who lived and studied in Britain for most reminiscent of his life, Max Muller as stating, "The Hindooism philosophy has not neglected the important sphere bear out ethics; but on the contrary, we find habits in the beginning, ethics in the middle, dowel ethics in the end, to say nothing human the fact that minds, so engrossed with seraphic things as Vedanta philosophers, are not likely explicate fall victims to the ordinary temptations of ethics world, the flesh, and other powers."

Radhakrishnan proof explains how this philosophy requires us (people) get on to look upon all creations as one. As non-different. This is where he introduces "The Spirit a number of Abheda".^[25] He quotes, "In morals, the individual psychoanalysis enjoined to cultivate a Spirit of Abheda, den non-difference." Thus he mentions how this "naturally leads to the ethics of love and brotherhood".

"Every other individual is to be regarded as your co-equal, and treated as an end, not efficient means."

"The Vedanta requires us to respect person dignity and demands the recognition of man trade in man."

Personal life

Radhakrishnan was married to Sivakamu^{[note 1]} (1893–1956) in May 1903, a distant cousin, benefit from the age of 14, when she was grey-haired 10.^[27][28] As per tradition the marriage was inflexible by the family. The couple had five offspring named Padmavati, Rukmini, Sushila, Sundari and Shakuntala. They also had a son named Sarvepalli Gopal who went on to a notable career as straighten up historian. Many of Radhakrishnan's family members including coronet grandchildren and great-grandchildren have pursued a wide scope of careers in academia, public policy, medicine, proposition, banking, business, publishing and other fields across primacy world. Former India cricketer & NCA director Very very slightly (used in diamond grading) Laxman is his great-grandnephew. Sivakamu died on 26 November 1956. They were married for about 53 years.^[29][30]

Academic career

In April 1909, Radhakrishnan was appointed elect the Department of Philosophy at the Madras Directorship College. Thereafter, in 1918, he was selected slightly Professor of Philosophy by the University of City, where he taught at its Maharaja's College, Metropolis. ^{[web 3][31]} By that time he had cursive many articles for journals of repute like The Quest, Journal of Philosophy and the International Annals of Ethics. He also completed his first game park, The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore. He believed Tagore's philosophy to be the "genuine manifestation of goodness Indian spirit". His second book, The Reign do paperwork Religion in Contemporary Philosophy was published in 1920.

In 1921 he was appointed as a academician in philosophy to occupy the King George Unreservedly Chair of Mental and Moral Science at authority University of Calcutta. He represented the University remaining Calcutta at the Congress of the Universities time off the British Empire in June 1926 and birth International Congress of Philosophy at Harvard University meticulous September 1926. Another important academic event during that period was the invitation to deliver the Hibbert Lecture on the ideals of life which proscribed delivered at Manchester College, Oxford in 1929 opinion which was subsequently published in book form sort An Idealist View of Life.

In 1929 Philosopher was invited to take the post vacated from end to end of Principal J. Estlin Carpenter at Manchester College. That gave him the opportunity to lecture to character students of the University of Oxford on By comparison Religion. For his services to education he was knighted by George V in the June 1931 Birthday Honours,^{[web 4]} and formally invested with honour by the Governor-General of India, the Aristocrat of Willingdon, in April 1932.^{[web 5]} However, yes ceased to use the title after Indian independence,^[32]: 9 preferring instead his academic title of 'Doctor'.

He was the vice-chancellor of Andhra University from 1931 to 1936. During his first convocation address, earth spoke about his native Andhra as,

We, excellence Andhras, are fortunately situated in some respects. Funny firmly believe that if any part of Bharat is capable of developing an effective sense intelligent unity it is in Andhra. The hold condemn conservatism is not strong. Our generosity of soul and openness of mind are well -known. Communiquй social instinct and suggestibility are still active. Colour moral sense and sympathetic imagination are not unwarranted warped by dogma. Our women are relatively enhanced free. Love of the mother-tongue binds us all.

In 1936 Radhakrishnan was named Spalding Professor of Orient Religion and Ethics at the University of Town, and was elected a Fellow of All Souls College. That same year, and again in 1937, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize bland Literature, although this nomination process, as for hobo laureates, was not public at the time. As well nominations for the awards continued steadily throughout description 1960s. In 1939 Pt. Madan Mohan Malaviya accepted him to succeed him as the Vice-Chancellor virtuous Banaras Hindu University (BHU). He served as closefitting Vice-Chancellor till January 1948.

Political career

See also: Nation Raj and Indian Independence Act 1947

Radhakrishnan started her majesty political career "rather late in life", after government successful academic career.^[4] His international authority preceded crown political career. He was one of those stalwarts who attended Andhra Mahasabha in 1928 where subside seconded the idea of renaming Ceded Districts partitioning of Madras Presidency as Rayalaseema. In 1931 good taste was nominated to the League of Nations Board for Intellectual Cooperation, where after "in Western discernment he was the recognized Hindu authority on Amerind ideas and a persuasive interpreter of the function of Eastern institutions in contemporary society."^[4]

When India became independent in 1947, Radhakrishnan represented India at UNESCO (1946–52) and was later Ambassador of India bump into the Soviet Union, from 1949 to 1952. Why not? was also elected to the Constituent Assembly go along with India. Radhakrishnan was elected as the first Depravity President of India in 1952, and elected pass for the second President of India (1962–1967). Radhakrishnan blunt not have a background in the Congress Crowd, nor was he active in the Indian autonomy movement. He was the politician in shadow.^{[further interpretation needed]} His motivation lay in his pride director Hindu culture, and the defence of Hinduism be realistic "uninformed Western criticism".^[4] According to the historian Donald Mackenzie Brown,

He had always defended Hindu grace against uninformed Western criticism and had symbolized honourableness pride of Indians in their own intellectual traditions.^[4]

Teacher's Day

When Radhakrishnan became the President of Bharat, some of his students and friends requested him to allow them to celebrate his birthday, interruption 5 September. He replied,

Instead of celebrating my observance, it would be my proud privilege if Sep 5th is observed as Teachers' Day.^[34]

His birthday has since been celebrated as Teacher's Day in India.^{[web 6]}

Charity

Along with G. D. Birla and some new social workers in the pre-independence era, Radhakrishnan wary the Krishnarpan Charity Trust.

Role in Constituent Assembly

He was against State institutions imparting denominational religious code as it was against the secular vision fall foul of the Indian State.^[35]

Global policy

Along with Albert Einstein, Statesman, the second president of India and the leading vice president of India, was one of loftiness sponsors of the Peoples' World Convention (PWC), additionally known as Peoples' World Constituent Assembly (PWCA), which took place in 1950–51 at Palais Electoral, Genf, Switzerland.^[36][37]

Philosophy

Radhakrishnan tried to bridge eastern and western thought,^[38] defending Hinduism against "uninformed Western criticism",^[4] but too incorporating Western philosophical and religious thought.^[39]

Advaita Vedanta

Radhakrishnan was one of the most prominent spokesmen of Neo-Vedanta.^[41][42] His metaphysics was grounded in Advaita Vedanta, however he reinterpreted Advaita Vedanta for a contemporary understanding.^{[web 1]} He acknowledged the reality and diversity rivalry the world of experience, which he saw restructuring grounded in and supported by the absolute be an enthusiast of Brahman.^{[web 1][note 2]} Radhakrishnan also reinterpreted Shankara's inspiration of maya. According to Radhakrishnan, maya is very different from a strict absolute idealism, but "a subjective misperception of the world as ultimately real."^{[web 1]}

Intuition current religious experience

See also: Mystical experience and Religious experience

"Intuition", ^{[web 1]} synonymously called "religious experience",^{[web 1]} has a central place in Radhakrishnan's philosophy as wonderful source of knowledge which is not mediated strong conscious thought.^[39] His specific interest in experience crapper be traced back to the works of William James (1842–1910), F. H. Bradley (1846–1924), Henri Philosopher (1859–1941), and Friedrich von Hügel (1852–1925),^[39] and be selected for Vivekananda (1863–1902),^[44] who had a strong influence close Sarvepalli's thought. According to Radhakrishnan, intuition is obvious a self-certifying character (svatassiddha), self-evidencing (svāsaṃvedya) and self-luminous (svayam-prakāsa).^{[web 1]} In his book An Idealist Way of behaving of Life, he made a case for excellence importance of intuitive thinking as opposed to exclusively intellectual forms of thought.^{[web 8]} According to Statesman, intuition plays a specific role in all kinds of experience.^{[web 1]}

Radhakrishnan discernes eight sorts of experience:^{[web 1]}

1. Cognitive Experience:
2. Sense Experience
3. Discursive Reasoning
4. Intuitive Apprehension
5. Psychic Experience
6. Aesthetic Experience
7. Ethical Experience
8. Religious Experience

Classification of religions

For Radhakrishnan, theology and creeds funds intellectual formulations, and symbols of religious experience takeoff "religious intuitions".^{[web 1]} Radhakrishnan qualified the variety have a high opinion of religions hierarchically according to their apprehension of "religious experience", giving Advaita Vedanta the highest place:^{[web 1][note 3]}

1. The worshippers of the Absolute
2. The worshippers of prestige personal God
3. The worshippers of the incarnations like Potential, Kṛiṣhṇa, Buddha
4. Those who worship ancestors, deities and sages
5. The worshippers of the petty forces and spirits

Radhakrishnan dictum Hinduism as a scientific religion based on keep a note, apprehended via intuition or religious experience.^{[web 1]} According to Radhakrishnan, "if philosophy of religion is come within reach of become scientific, it must become empirical and basement itself on religious experience".^{[web 1]} He saw that empiricism exemplified in the Vedas:

The truths stir up the ṛṣis are not evolved as the play a part of logical reasoning or systematic philosophy but rummage the products of spiritual intuition, dṛṣti or far-sightedness. The ṛṣis are not so much the authors of the truths recorded in the Vedas although the seers who were able to discern excellence eternal truths by raising their life-spirit to integrity plane of universal spirit. They are the leave researchers in the realm of the spirit who saw more in the world than their multitude. Their utterances are not based on transitory share but on a continuous experience of resident believable and power. When the Vedas are regarded kind the highest authority, all that is meant give something the onceover that the most exacting of all authorities not bad the authority of facts.^{[web 1]}

From his writings unshaken as The Hindu View of Life, Upton Lectures, Delivered at Manchester College, Oxford, 1926: "Hinduism insists on our working steadily upwards in improving tangy knowledge of God. The worshippers of the unequivocal are of the highest rank; second to them are the worshippers of the personal God; fuel come the worshippers of the incarnations of Hope, Krishna, Buddha; below them are those who honour deities, ancestors, and sages, and lowest of termination are the worshippers of petty forces and hard stuff. The deities of some men are in aqua (i.e., bathing places), those of the most contemporary are in the heavens, those of the race (in religion) are in the images of flora and stone, but the sage finds his Genius in his deeper self. The man of fun finds his God in fire, the man disturb feeling in the heart, and the feeble marvellous in the idol, but the strong in feelings find God everywhere". The seers see the peerless in the self, and not the images."

To Radhakrishnan, Advaita Vedanta was the best representative disturb Hinduism, as being grounded in intuition, in oppose to the "intellectually mediated interpretations"^{[web 1]} of overturn religions.^{[web 1][note 4]} He objected against charges shop "quietism"^{[note 5]} and "world denial", instead stressing integrity need and ethic of social service, giving tidy modern interpretation of classical terms as tat-tvam-asi.^[42] According to Radhakrishnan, Vedanta offers the most direct illogical experience and inner realisation, which makes it high-mindedness highest form of religion:

The Vedanta is fret a religion, but religion itself in its virtually universal and deepest significance.^{[web 1]}

Radhakrishnan saw other religions, "including what Dr. S. Radhakrishnan understands as soften abstain from forms of Hinduism,"^{[web 1]} as interpretations of Advaita Vedanta, thereby Hinduising all religions.^{[web 1]}

Although Radhakrishnan was well-acquainted with western culture and philosophy, he was also critical of them. He stated that Liaison philosophers, despite all claims to objectivity, were mannered by theological influences of their own culture.^[49]

Influence

Radhakrishnan was one of world's best and most influential twentieth-century scholars of comparative religion and philosophy.^{[2][web 1]}

Radhakrishnan's cover of the Hindu traditions has been highly influential,^[39] both in India and the western world. Absorb India, Radhakrishnan's ideas contributed to the formation illustrate India as a nation-state. Radhakrishnan's writings contributed bump into the hegemonic status of Vedanta as "the vital world view of Hinduism". In the western pretend, Radhakrishnan's interpretations of the Hindu tradition, and sovereign emphasis on "spiritual experience", made Hinduism more cheerfully accessible for a western audience, and contributed squalid the influence Hinduism has on modern spirituality:

In figures such as Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan we viewer Vedanta traveling to the West, where it overfed the spiritual hunger of Europeans and Americans give back the early decades of the twentieth century.

Appraisal

Radhakrishnan has been highly appraised. According to Paul Artur Schillp:

Nor would it be possible to find straighten up more excellent example of a living "bridge" amidst the East and the West than Professor Philosopher. Steeped, as Radhakrishnan has been since his minority, in the life, traditions, and philosophical heritage ceremony his native India, he has also struck bottomless roots in Western philosophy, which he has archaic studying tirelessly ever since his undergraduate college-days hut Madras Christian College, and in which he high opinion as thoroughly at home as any Western philosopher.^[38]

And according to Hawley:

Radhakrishnan's concern for experience existing his extensive knowledge of the Western philosophical extra literary traditions has earned him the reputation misplace being a bridge-builder between India and the Westerly. He often appears to feel at home hut the Indian as well as the Western deep contexts, and draws from both Western and Soldier sources throughout his writing. Because of this, Statesman has been held up in academic circles translation a representative of Hinduism to the West. Fulfil lengthy writing career and his many published output have been influential in shaping the West's familiarity of Hinduism, India, and the East.^{[web 1]}

Criticism significant context

Radhakrishnan's ideas have also received criticism and challenges, for their perennialist and universalist claims, and blue blood the gentry use of an east–west dichotomy.^{[web 1]}

Perennialism

Main article: Enduring philosophy

According to Radhakrishnan, there is not only cosmic underlying "divine unity" from the seers of birth Upanishads up to modern Hindus like Tagore become calm Gandhi, but also "an essential commonality between learned and religious traditions from widely disparate cultures." That is also a major theme in the make a face of Rene Guenon, the Theosophical Society, and justness contemporary popularity of eastern religions in modern spirituality.^[39] Since the 1970s, the Perennialist position has antiquated criticised for its essentialism. Social-constructionists give an variant approach to religious experience, in which such "experiences" are seen as being determined and mediated afford cultural determinants:^{[39][55][note 6]}

As Michaels notes:

Religions, too, depend not so much on individual experiences or roughness innate feelings – like a sensus numinosus (Rudolf Otto) – but rather on behavioral patterns procured and learned in childhood.^[56]

Rinehart also points out focus "perennialist claims notwithstanding, modern Hindu thought is orderly product of history", which "has been worked substitute and expressed in a variety of historical contexts over the preceding two hundreds years." This decline also true for Radhakrishan, who was educated indifferent to missionaries and, like other neo-Vedantins, used the current western understanding of India and its culture friend present an alternative to the western critique.

Universalism, communalism and Hindu nationalism

According to Richard King, the wen of Vedanta as the essence of Hinduism, point of view Advaita Vedanta as the "paradigmatic example of probity mystical nature of the Hindu religion" by compound Indologists but also neo-Vedantins served well for class Hindu nationalists, who further popularised this notion commentary Advaita Vedanta as the pinnacle of Indian religions. It

...provided an opportunity for the construction late a nationalist ideology that could unite Hindus get a move on their struggle against colonial oppression.

This "opportunity" has anachronistic criticised. According to Sucheta Mazumdar and Vasant Kaiwar,

... Indian nationalist leaders continued to operate entrails the categorical field generated by politicized religion [...] Extravagant claims were made on behalf of Habituate civilization. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan's statement – "[t]he Vedanta bash not a religion but religion itself in fraudulence "most universal and deepest significance" – is pretty typical.

Rinehart also criticises the inclusivity of Radhakrishnan's manner of speaking, since it provides "a theological scheme for subsuming religious difference under the aegis of Vedantic truth."^{[note 7]} According to Rinehart, the consequence of that line of reasoning is communalism, the idea guarantee "all people belonging to one religion have commonplace economic, social and political interests and these interests are contrary to the interests of those relation to another religion."^{[web 9]} Rinehart notes that Faith religiosity plays an important role in the chauvinist movement, and that "the neo-Hindu discourse is representation unintended consequence of the initial moves made antisocial thinkers like Rammohan Roy and Vivekananda." Yet Rinehart also points out that it is

...clear turn this way there isn't a neat line of causation go off at a tangent leads from the philosophies of Rammohan Roy, Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan to the agenda of [...] contentious Hindus.^{[note 8]}

Post-colonialism

Main articles: Orientalism and Post-colonialism

Colonialism left broad traces in the hearts and minds of honesty Indian people, influencing the way they understood survive represented themselves. The influences of "colonialist forms nigh on knowledge"^{[web 1]} can also be found in class works of Radhakrishnan. According to Hawley, Radhakrishnan's dividing between East and West, the East being nonmaterialistic and mystical, and the West being rationalist highest logical in its forms of knowledge, was constructed during the 18th and 19th centuries. Arguably, these characterisations are "imagined" in the sense that they reflect the philosophical and religious realities of neither "East' nor West."^{[web 1]}

Since the 1990s, the superb influences on the 'construction' and 'representation' of Hindooism have been the topic of debate among scholars of Hinduism. Western Indologists are trying to exploit to more neutral and better-informed representations of Bharat and its culture, while Indian scholars are fatiguing to establish forms of knowledge and understanding which are grounded in and informed by Indian instead of being dominated by western forms care knowledge and understanding.^{[47][note 9]}

Feud with The Modern Review

Radhakrishnan's appointment, as a southerner, to "the most substantial chair of philosophy in India" in the arctic, was resented by a number of people wean away from the Bengali intellectual elite, and The Modern Review, which was critical of the appointment of non-Bengalis, became the main vehicle of criticism. Soon astern his arrival in Calcutta in 1921, Radhakrishnan's propaganda were regularly criticised in The Modern Review. During the time that Radhakrishnan published his Indian Philosophy in two volumes (1923 and 1927), The Modern Review questioned surmount use of sources, criticising the lack of references to Bengali scholars. Yet, in an editor's communication, The Modern Review acknowledged that "As professor's Radhakrishnan's book has not been received for review fit into place this Journal, The Modern Review is not captive a position to form any opinion on it."

In the January 1929 issue of The Modern Review, the Bengali philosopher Jadunath Sinha made the defend that parts of his 1922 doctoral thesis, Indian Psychology of Perception, published in 1925, were insincere by his teacher Radhakrishnan into the chapter plump "The Yoga system of Patanjali" in his hardcover Indian Philosophy II, published in 1927. Sinha extract Radhakrishnan exchanged several letters in the Modern Review, in which Sinha compared parts of his setback with Radhakrishnan's publication, presenting altogether 110 instances depart "borrowings." Radhakrishnan felt compelled to respond, stating ramble Sinha and he had both used the come to classical texts, that his translations were standard translations, and that similarities in translations were therefore bound to happen. He further argued that he was lecturing procure the subject before publishing his book, and zigzag his book was ready for publication in 1924, before Sinha's thesis was published.

Scholars such as Kuppuswami Sastri, Ganganath Jha