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{{Redirect|Radhakrishnan|other people with this name|Radhakrishnan (name)}}
{{Family name hatnote|Sarvepalli|lang=Telugu}}
{{Use Indian English|date=
{{Use dmy dates|date=
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
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| image = Photograph of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan presented to First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in 1962.jpg
| caption = Official Portrait, 1962
| predecessor = [[Dr. Rajendra Prasad]]
| primeminister = {{ubl|[[Jawaharlal Nehru]]|[[Gulzarilal Nanda]] (Acting)|[[Lal Bahadur Shastri]]|[[Indira Gandhi]]}}
| successor = [[Zakir Husain]]
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| primeminister2 = [[Jawaharlal Nehru]]
| party = [[Independent (politician)|Independent]]
| predecessor2 = ''(Position established)''
| successor2 = [[Zakir Husain]]
| term_start2 = 13 May 1952
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| occupation = {{hlist|[[Politician]]|[[professor]]|[[vice-chancellor]]}}
| profession = {{hlist|[[Philosopher]]|[[academic]]}}
| awards = {{ubl|[[Bharat Ratna]] (1954)|[[Templeton Prize]] (1975)}}
| module2 = {{Infobox scholar|child=yes
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{{Advaita}}
{{Hindu philosophy}}
'''Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan''' ({{pronunciation|Svpr.ogg}}; 5 September 1888{{Snd}}17 April 1975; natively '''
Radhakrishnan's philosophy was grounded in [[Advaita Vedanta]], reinterpreting this tradition for a contemporary understanding.<ref group=web name="IEP" /> He defended [[Hinduism]] against what he called "uninformed [[Literary criticism|Western criticism]]",<ref name=brown153/> contributing to the formation of [[Hindu nationalism|contemporary Hindu identity]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Flood, Gavin D. |title=An Introduction to Hinduism|url=https://archive.org/details/introductiontohi0000floo|url-access=registration |date=13 July 1996|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-43878-0|page=[https://archive.org/details/introductiontohi0000floo/page/249 249]}}</ref> He has been influential in shaping the understanding of Hinduism, in both India and the west, and earned a reputation as a bridge-builder between India and the West.<ref name="Hawley">Hawley, Michael. [http://www.iep.utm.edu/radhakri/ "Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888—1975)"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190712171420/https://www.iep.utm.edu/radhakri/ |date=12 July 2019 }}. ''[[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]''.</ref>
Radhakrishnan was awarded several high awards during his life, including a [[knighthood]] in 1931, the [[Bharat Ratna]], the highest civilian award in India, in 1954, and honorary membership of the British Royal [[Order of Merit]] in 1963. He was also one of the founders of Helpage India, a [[Nonprofit Organization|non profit organisation]] for elderly [[Poverty in India|underprivileged in India]]. Radhakrishnan believed that "teachers should be the best minds in the country".<ref group="web" name="BharatRatna">{{cite web|title=Padma Awards Directory (1954–2007)|url=http://www.mha.nic.in/pdfs/PadmaAwards1954-2007.pdf|publisher=Ministry of Home Affairs|access-date=26 November 2010|archive-date=4 March 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090304070427/http://mha.nic.in/pdfs/PadmaAwards1954-2007.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>
==Early life and education ==
Radhakrishnan was born as Sarvepalli Radhakrishnayya<ref>{{Cite web |title=March 21, 2010 |url=https://www.koumudi.net/gollapudi/sakshi/march_21_10.html |access-date=5 September 2021
===Education===
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Radhakrishnan studied philosophy by chance rather than choice. He had wished to study mathematics. Being a financially constrained student, when a cousin who graduated from the same college passed on his philosophy textbooks to Radhakrishnan, it automatically decided his academics course.<ref>{{Cite book | last =Schillp | first =Paul Arthur | year =1992 | title =The Philosophy of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan | publisher =Motilall Banarsidass | isbn=9788120807921|page=6}}</ref>{{sfn|Gopal|1989|p=14}}
Sarvepalli wrote his bachelor's degree thesis on "The Ethics of the Vedanta and its Metaphysical Presuppositions".{{sfn|Gopal|1989|p=16}} It "was intended to be a reply to the charge that the [[Vedanta]] system had no room for ethics."{{sfn|Murty|Vohra|1990|p=112}} Two of his professors,
This led him to his critical study of [[Indian philosophy]] and [[Indian religions|religion]]{{sfn|Murty|Vohra|1990|p=112}} and a lifelong defence of Hinduism against "uninformed Western criticism".<ref name=brown153/> At the same time, Radhakrishnan commended Professor Hogg as 'My distinguished teacher,'<ref>{{cite book |last1=Radhakrishna |first1=Sarvepalli |title=My Search for Truth|page=19}}</ref> and as "one of the greatest Christian thinkers we had in India.'<ref>{{cite book |last1=Radhakrishnan |first1=Sarvepalli |editor-last=Schilpp |editor-first=P.A. |title=Reply to Critics, in, The Philosophy of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan|page=806}}</ref> Besides, Professor William Skinner, who was acting Principal of the College, gave a testimonial saying "he is one of the best men we have had in the recent years", which enabled him to get the first job in Presidency College. In reciprocation, Radhakrishnan dedicated one of his early books to William Skinner.{{sfn|Gopal|1989|p=15}}
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== Personal life ==
Radhakrishnan was married to [[Sivakamu Radhakrishnan|Sivakamu]]<ref group=note name=skspell>Radhakrishnan's wife's name is spelled differently in different sources, perhaps because a common Telugu spelling is Sivamma. It is spelled ''Sivakamu'' by Sarvepalli Gopal (1989); ''Sivakamuamma'' by Mamta Anand (2006); and still differently by others.{{citation needed|date=December 2011}}</ref> (1893–1956) in May 1903, a distant cousin, at the age of
==Academic career==
[[File:Radhakrishnan telugu signature.jpg|thumb|upright|Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan drawn by Bujjai and signed by Sarvepalli in [[Telugu language|Telugu]] as "Radhakrishnayya".|alt=hand made portrait of Mr. President.]]
In April 1909, Radhakrishnan was appointed to the Department of Philosophy at the [[Madras Presidency College]]. Thereafter, in 1918, he was selected as Professor of Philosophy by the [[University of Mysore]], where he taught at its [[Maharaja's College, Mysore]]. <ref group=web name="times10">{{cite news | title = Maharaja's royal gift to Mysore | url =
In 1921 he was appointed as a professor in philosophy to occupy the King George V Chair of Mental and Moral Science at the [[University of Calcutta]]. He represented the University of Calcutta at the Congress of the Universities of the British Empire in June 1926 and the [[International Congress of Philosophy]] at [[Harvard University]] in September 1926. Another important academic event during this period was the invitation to deliver the [[Hibbert Lecture]] on the ideals of life which he delivered at [[Harris Manchester College, Oxford|Manchester College, Oxford]] in 1929 and which was subsequently published in book form as ''An Idealist View of Life''.
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He was the [[vice-chancellor]] of [[Andhra University]] from 1931 to 1936. During his first convocation address, he spoke about his native [[Andhra Pradesh|Andhra]] as,
{{blockquote|We, the Andhras, are fortunately situated in some respects. I firmly believe that if any part of India is capable of developing an effective sense of unity it is in Andhra. The hold of conservatism is not strong. Our generosity of spirit and openness of mind are well -known. Our social instinct and suggestibility are still active. Our moral sense and sympathetic imagination are not much warped by dogma. Our women are relatively more free. Love of the mother-tongue binds us all.}}
[[File:Portrait DR. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan.jpg|thumb|Portrait of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan by [[Serge Ivanoff
In 1936 Radhakrishnan was named [[Spalding Professor of Eastern Religion and Ethics]] at the [[University of Oxford]], and was elected a Fellow of [[All Souls College, Oxford|All Souls College]]. That same year, and again in 1937, he was nominated for the [[Nobel Prize]] in Literature, although this nomination process, as for all laureates, was not public at the time. Further nominations for the
==Political career==
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Radhakrishnan started his political career "rather late in life", after his successful academic career.<ref name=brown153/> His international authority preceded his political career. He was one of those stalwarts who attended [[Andhra Mahasabha]] in 1928 where he seconded the idea of renaming Ceded Districts division of [[Madras Presidency]] as [[Rayalaseema]]. In 1931 he was nominated to the League of Nations [[International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation|Committee for Intellectual Cooperation]], where after "in Western eyes he was the recognized Hindu authority on Indian ideas and a persuasive interpreter of the role of Eastern institutions in contemporary society."<ref name=brown153/>
When India became independent in 1947, Radhakrishnan represented India at [[UNESCO]] (1946–52) and was later [[Ambassador of India to the Soviet Union]], from 1949 to 1952. He was also elected to the [[Constituent Assembly of India]]. Radhakrishnan was elected as the first Vice
{{blockquote|He had always defended Hindu culture against uninformed Western criticism and had symbolized the pride of Indians in their own intellectual traditions.<ref name=brown153/>}}
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=== Global policy ===
Along with [[Albert Einstein]], Radhakrishnan, the second president of India and the first vice president of
==Philosophy==
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{{See also|Mysticism#Mystical experience|l1=Mystical experience|Religious experience}}
"Intuition", <ref group=web name="IEP" /> synonymously called "religious experience",<ref group=web name="IEP" /> has a central place in Radhakrishnan's philosophy as a source of knowledge which is not mediated by conscious thought.<ref name=sharf1998/> His specific interest in experience can be traced back to the works of [[William James]] (1842–1910), [[F. H. Bradley]] (1846–1924), [[Henri Bergson]] (1859–1941), and [[Friedrich von Hügel]] (1852–1925),<ref name=sharf1998/> and to [[Vivekananda]] (1863–1902),<ref name=Rambachan1994/> who had a strong influence on Sarvepalli's thought.{{sfn|Murty|Vohra|1990|p=179}} According to Radhakrishnan, intuition is of a self-certifying character (''svatassiddha''), self-evidencing (''svāsaṃvedya'') and [[self-luminous]] (''svayam-prakāsa'').<ref group=web name="IEP" /> In his book ''An Idealist View of Life'', he made a
Radhakrishnan discernes eight sorts of experience:<ref group="web" name="IEP" />
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{{blockquote|Religions, too, rely not so much on individual experiences or on innate feelings – like a ''sensus numinosus'' (Rudolf Otto) – but rather on behavioral patterns acquired and learned in childhood.<ref>{{cite book|author=Michaels, Axel|title=Hinduism: Past and Present|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iOU9DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA100|year=2004|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-08953-9|page=100|access-date=6 December 2018|archive-date=18 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210418170724/https://books.google.com/books?id=iOU9DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA100|url-status=live}}</ref>}}
Rinehart also points out that "perennialist claims notwithstanding, modern Hindu thought is a product of history",{{sfn|Rinehart|2004|p=180}} which "has been worked out and expressed in a variety of historical contexts over the preceding two hundreds years."{{sfn|Rinehart|2004|p=180}} This is also true for Radhakrishan, who was educated by missionaries{{sfn|Rinehart|2004|p=195}} and, like other neo-Vedantins, used the prevalent western understanding of India and its culture to present an alternative to the western critique.{{sfn|King|2001}}{{sfn|Rinehart|2004}}
====Universalism, communalism and Hindu nationalism====
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{{Main|Orientalism|Post-colonialism}}
Colonialism left deep traces in the hearts and minds of the Indian people, influencing the way they understood and represented themselves.{{sfn|King|2001}} The influences of "colonialist forms of knowledge"<ref group=web name="IEP" /> can also be found in the works of Radhakrishnan. According to Hawley, Radhakrishnan's division between East and West, the East being spiritual and mystical, and the West being rationalist and logical in its forms of knowledge, was constructed during the 18th and 19th centuries. Arguably, these
Since the 1990s, the colonial influences on the 'construction' and 'representation' of Hinduism have been the topic of debate among scholars of Hinduism. Western Indologists are trying to come to more neutral and better-informed representations of India and its culture, while Indian scholars are trying to establish forms of knowledge and understanding which are grounded in and informed by Indian traditions, instead of being dominated by western forms of knowledge and understanding.<ref name=sweetman/>{{refn|group=note|Sweetman mentions:
* Wilhelm Halbfass (1988), ''India and Europe''
* IXth European Conference on Modern Asian Studies in Heidelberg (1989), ''Hinduism Reconsidered''
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Radhakrishnan's appointment, as a southerner, to "the most important chair of philosophy in India" in the north, was resented by a number of people from the Bengali intellectual elite, and ''The Modern Review'', which was critical of the appointment of non-Bengalis, became the main vehicle of criticism.{{sfn|Minor|1987|p=37}}{{sfn|Murty|Vohra|1990|p=30-31}}{{sfn|Gopal|1989|p=116}} Soon after his arrival in Calcutta in 1921, Radhakrishnan's writings were regularly criticised in ''The Modern Review''.{{sfn|Gopal|1989|p=116}} When Radhakrishnan published his ''Indian Philosophy'' in two volumes (1923 and 1927), ''The Modern Review'' questioned his use of sources, criticising the lack of references to Bengali scholars. Yet, in an editor's note, ''The Modern Review'' acknowledged that "As professor's Radhakrishnan's book has not been received for review in this Journal, ''The Modern Review'' is not in a position to form any opinion on it."{{sfn|Minor|1987|p=34}}
In the January 1929 issue of ''The Modern Review'', the [[Bengalis|Bengali]] philosopher [[Jadunath Sinha]] made the claim that parts of his 1922 doctoral thesis, ''Indian Psychology of Perception'', published in 1925, were copied by his teacher Radhakrishnan into the chapter on "The Yoga system of Patanjali" in his book ''Indian Philosophy II'', published in 1927.{{sfn|Minor|1987|p=34}}{{sfn|Murty|Vohra|1990|p=31}} Sinha and Radhakrishnan exchanged several letters in the ''Modern Review'', in which Sinha compared parts of his thesis with Radhakrishnan's publication, presenting altogether 110 instances of "borrowings."{{sfn|Minor|1987|p=35}}{{sfn|Murty|Vohra|1990|p=31}} Radhakrishnan felt compelled to respond, stating that Sinha and he had both used the same classical texts,{{sfn|Minor|1987|p=36}} that his
Scholars such as Kuppuswami Sastri, [[Ganganath Jha]], and Nalini Ganguli confirmed that Radhakrishnan was distributing the notes in question since 1922.{{sfn|Murty|Vohra|1990|p=32-33}}{{sfn|Gopal|1989|p=117-118}} Ramananda Chatterjee, the editor of ''The Modern Review'', refused to publish a letter by Nalini Ganguli confirming this fact, while continuing publishing Sinha's letters.{{sfn|Gopal|1989|p=117-118}} The General Editor of Radhakrishnan's publisher, professor Muirhead, further confirmed that the publication was delayed for three years, due to his stay in the United States.{{sfn|Murty|Vohra|1990|p=32-33}}{{sfn|Minor|1987|p=35-36}}
In Summer 1929, the dispute escalated into a juristic fight. Responding to
==Awards and honours==
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* "There is nothing wonderful in my saying that Jainism was in existence long before the Vedas were composed."<ref>{{cite book |last=Jain |first=Lala |year=2002 |title=Essays in Jaina Philosophy and Religion |publisher= Piotr Balcerowicz & Marek Mejor |isbn=978-8120819771 |page=114}}</ref>
* "A life of joy and happiness is possible only on the basis of knowledge.
* "If he does not fight, it is not because he rejects all fighting as futile, but because he has finished his fights. He has overcome all dissensions between himself and the world and is now at rest... We shall have wars and soldiers so long as the brute in us is untamed."<ref>Quoted on [[Wordsmith.org]] on
==Bibliography==
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* ''Recovery of Faith'' (1956), 205 pages
* ''A Source Book in Indian Philosophy'' (1957), 683 pages, Princeton University Press, with [[Charles A. Moore]] as co-editor.
* ''The Brahma Sutra: The Philosophy of Spiritual Life. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1959, 606 pages.'' <ref>Tucci, Giuseppe. East and West, vol. 11, no. 4, 1960, pp. 296–296. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/29754329. Accessed 22
* ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=vsuCDRLeou8C Religion, Science & Culture]'' (1968), 121 pages
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