Role: Second President of India, first Vice President of India, Indian Philosopher and Teacher
Birth
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was born on 5th September 1888 to Sarvepalli Veeraswami and Sitamma in Thiruttani in TamilNadu. His father Veeraswami was a subordinate revenue official to a local Zamindar.
Personal Life
Radhakrishnan married Sivakamu. He had five daughters and a son, Gopal.
Education
Radhakrishnan completed his primary education in the K.V High School at Thiruttani. Later he went to the Hermansburg Evangelin Lutheran Mission School in Tirupati 1896 and then in the Government High Secondary School.
He got the admission in the Voorhees College in Vellore, but then he went to the Madras Christian College at his 17th age. In 1906, he got a Master’s degree in Philosophy. After completing his degree, he became the Professor.
Life Career
Radhakrishnan got the appointment at the Department of Philosophy at the Presidency College in Madras in April 1909. In 1918, the University of Mysore chose him as the Professor of Philosophy, where he taught at the Maharaja’s College in Mysore. He joined as a Professor in Philosophy in 1921, to take up the King George V Chair of Mental and Moral Science at the Calcutta University.
He became the representative from the University of Calcutta at the Congress of Universities of the British Empire which held in June 1926. He also represented the Calcutta University at the International Congress of Philosophy at the Harvard University in September 1926. In 1929, Radhakrishnan got an offer to become the Principal at the Manchester College after the former Principal J.Estlin
In 1931, the King George V knighted Radhakrishnan for the services made by him in the field of education. In the same year, he got the nomination for the League of Nations Committee for Intellectual Cooperation. For a period of 1931 to 1936, he was the Vice-Chancellor of the Andhra University. At the University of Oxford, he got the name as the Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics in 1936.He got an invitation from the Pt.Madan Mohan Malaviya to be the Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University in 1939. He was working as the Vice-Chancellor in that University till 1948.
In 1946, Radhakrishnan was the representative from India at the UNESCO. Later he became the Ambassador of India to the Soviet Union for a period of 1949 to 1952. Then he was elected to the Indian Constituent Assembly.
In 1952, Radhakrishnan became the first Vice-President of India. Later in 1962, he became the second President of India. He was President till 1967. Radhakrishnan not had any affairs, nor did he take part in the protest against the British rules.
Significant book works
Radhakrishnan had written the book “The Quest, Journal of Philosophy and the International Journal of Ethics”. Then his second book was the “genuine Manifestation of the Indian spirit. He wrote the “Indian Philosophy” in 1923 and “The Hindu View of Life” in 1926. His other books were “An idealistic View of Life” in 1929, “Eastern Religions and Western Thought” in 1939, “Religion and Society” in 1947, “The Bhagavadgita: with an introductory essay, Sanskrit text, English translation and notes” in 1948, “Dhammapada” in 1950, “The Principal Upanishads” in 1953, “Recovery of Faith” in 1956, “A Source in Indian Philosophy” in 1957 and “Religion, Science & Culture” in 1968. His some other books were “Religion in a Changing World”, “A Source book in Indian Philosophy”, “concept of man” and “living with a purpose”.
Radhakrishnan thoughts through his books
Radhakrishnan was motivationally driven by the writings of the leaders Rabindranath Tagore and Swami Vivekananda. He had a belief that there is a congruity among the religious and philosophical traditions of various cultures. Also he thought that there is a divine unity from the prophets of the Upanishads till modern Hindus like Gandhi and Tagore. According to him, the social-constructionists set a different approach to the religious activities which are unbiasly judged by the cultural judges.
In his book Advainta Vedanta, he had written about the Neo-Vedanta for modern understanding. According to him, Maya is the misunderstanding of the world as ultimately true. In the view of Richard King, the rise of Vedanta is the content of Hinduism and the neo-Vedantins accounts for the Hindu nationalists, who familiarize the Advaita Vedanta principles as the summit of Indian religions.
He had written about the effects of the “colonialist ways of Knowledge” in his work. He wrote this as the colonial effects on the development and implementation of Hinduism were the debate topics between the Hindu scholars.
Fame of Radhakrishnan
When Radhakrishnan was the President, he took only an amount of Rs.2500 from his salary. Then he gave the remaining salary amount of Rs.7500 to the National relief fund of Prime Minister each month. For a period of 1962 to 1967, he was the second President of India. He was one of the greatest thinkers in the 20th century, as he was responsible to introduce the western philosophies to the Indian natives.
Records
On the birth Anniversary of Radhakrishnan that is on 5th September every year the Teacher’s day of India is celebrated to honor him.
He got the nominations for 11 times for the Nobel Peace Prize and the other 16 times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. For developing the idea of “a Universal reality of God to promote love and knowledge for all the people”, he won the Templeton Prize in 1975. He gave the Prize money as a donation to the Oxford University, which he got along with this Prize.
Awards
Radhakrishnan won the Bharat Ratna award in 1952, which is the highest civilian award of India. Later in 1954, he won the German “Order pour le Merite for Arts and Science”. From the German Book Trade, he won the Peace Prize in 1961. In 1963, he won the Order of Merit of British. In 1968, he got the Sahitya Akademi fellowship, which is the highest honor for the writer. .
Death
Radhakrishnan died on 17th April 1975 in a Nursing Home in Chennai in Tamil Nadu.