Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was not only a renowned academic but also a distinguished statesman. He was India’s first Vice President (1952-1962) and second President (1962-1967). He was immensely dedicated to education that he initiated Teachers’ Day in India, which is celebrated on his birthday, September 5, every year. When students asked him to celebrate his birthday after he became the President, he requested that Sept. 5 instead be celebrated as Teachers Day to honour the services of educators. Since 1962, Teachers’ Day is celebrated on his birthday every year, to pay tribute to him. He was born on September 5, 1888 at Tiruttani in Tamil Nadu (then part of the Madras Presidency), into a Telugu-speaking Brahmin family. His family originated from Sarvepalli village in Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh. His father was Sarvepalli Veeraswami and mother Sitamma. His married his distant cousin, Sivakamu, at the young age of 14 and he was the father of five daughters and one son.
He passed away at the age of 86, on April 17, 1975. On his death anniversary, let us know a few more facts about the humble man.
He bridged the Eastern and Western philosophy – gave Indians a new sense of esteem by gracefully interpreting Indian thought in western terms. He was knighted in 1931 and was addressed as Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan till India attained Independence. From 1947, he came to be known as Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. In 1954, he was conferred the country’s highest civilian award Bharat Ratna, for his exceptional contributions to education, philosophy, and public service. He was among the first three recipients of the Bharat Ratna, with the former governor-general of the Union of India C. Rajagopalachari, and the Indian physicist C.V. Raman being the other two honoured after constituting the award.
Being an illustrious teacher, he served as the Vice-Chancellor of Andhra and Banaras Hindu Universities. From 1918 to 1921, Radhakrishnan served as a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Mysore. He taught at the Maharaja’s College, Mysore, and was known for his dedication to teaching and work in philosophy. He left the university to join the University of Calcutta, when the students of Mysore University took him to the station in a carriage bedecked with flowers.
From 1949 to 1952, Dr. Radhakrishnan was the ambassador of India to the Soviet Union and UNESCO. He held the Spalding Professorship of Eastern Religions and Ethics at the University of Oxford (1936-1052), becoming the first Indian to hold a chair at Oxford. He was also elected as the Fellow of the All Souls College. In the memory of Dr. Radhakrishnan, Oxford University started the Radhakrishnan Chevening Scholarships and the Radhakrishnan Memorial Award.
In 1961, he was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. After two years, in 1963, he also received the British Royal Order of Merit and in 1975, the John Templeton Foundation, in collaboration with the Templeton World Charity Foundation and the Templeton Religion Trust, awarded the Templeton prize for promoting the notion of “a universal reality of God” that embraced love and wisdom for all people. It is one of the world’s largest annual awards given to an individual, often exceeding £1 million and the amazing fact is that he donated the entire prize money to Oxford University.
He was nominated 27 times for Nobel Prizes — 16 times for Literature and 11 times for Peace. When he served as the President of India (1962-1967), he accepted only Rs 2,500 of his Rs 10,000 monthly salary, donating the remaining amount to the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund.
Being born into a Brahmin family, Radhakrishnan’s father wanted him to be a priest but he did his MA in Philosophy because one of his cousins, who graduated in philosophy, gave him the textbooks free. Dr Radhakrishnan originally wished to study mathematics but became a philosopher due to financial constraints. He pursued his entire academic career with the help of scholarship and was the first person to be awarded the Sahitya Akademi fellowship in 1968. The first book Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan wrote was regarding the philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore. His other works include Gautama the Buddha, Reign of Religion in Contemporary Philosophy, India and China among others.
Dr. Radhakrishnan was one of the founders of HelpAge India, a non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting underprivileged elderly people. Along with GD Birla and a few other social workers, Dr Radhakrishnan formed the Krishnarpan Charity Trust in the pre-Independence era. Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan emphasized the concept of Abheda (non-difference or non-dualism) as the fundamental aspect of Vedanta philosophy. As a proponent of neo-vedanta, Dr Sarvepalli argued that the absolute (Brahman) is the ultimate reality and that intuitive experience, rather than mere intellect, is the path to spiritual truth.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
