MARGARET Mead, the great cultural anthropologist, when she was a little girl, asked her father who was a Professor, “Father, who is a Professor?” He replied, “The Professor is one who keeps on learning and teaches what he learnt.”
What an extraordinary and unusual reply! Dr. Radhakrishnan was a teacher, scholar, philosopher, statesman and humanitarian par excellence. Plato’s concept of Philosopher-King and the Indian idea of Raj Rishi have striking similarities. The idea was realised in Marcus Aurelius, Janaka, Emperor Ashoka and Akbar. In modern times. Dr. Radhakrishnan exemplifies the concept.
Dr. Radhakrishnan was born on September 5, 1888, in a small town near Andhra Pradesh-Tamil Nadu border in a Telugu-speaking family. During college days at Christian College in Madras, his senior cousin gave him a gift of his old books – Stout’s Psychology, Welton’s Logic and McKenzie’s Ethics. He chose philosophy as the main subject of his studies.
He later reflected: “The subject of Philosophy, I happen to take up by sheer accident. But when I look at the series of accidents that have shaped my life, I am persuaded that there is more in this life than meets the eye. Life is not a mere chain of physical causes and effects. Chance seems to form at the surface, but deep down, other forces are at work. If the universe is a living one, if it is spiritually alive, nothing in it is merely accidental.”
College professor
The Christian atmosphere in Madras Christian College had both positive and negative experiences on the mind of young Radhakrishnan. He acquainted himself with the teaching of the New Testament.
Govt. Arts College, Rajahmundry, is located on the banks of river Godavari in Andhra Pradesh. It was established as a high school in 1853, upgraded as a provincial school in 1868, and became a college affiliated to Andhra University in 1926. Dr. Radhakrishnan served as a Professor there from 1916 to 1918.
It is said that he used to give brilliant lectures unsurpassed in brevity and clarity. In 1912, his lectures at Presidency College were published as ‘Essentials of Psychology’ by Oxford University Press.
He was such a prolific writer that before he turned 27, he had already contributed a number of essays. His diversity of interests included such wide-ranging themes as ‘Karma and Free Will’, ‘Nature and Convention in Greek’, ‘Ethics of Bhagwad Gita and Kant’, ‘Bergson’s idea of God’, and ‘Morality and Religion in Education.’ These appeared in multiple journals of international repute. His essay on ‘View from India on the War I’ was not allowed to be published by the censors.
In 1916, Radhakrishnan was promoted as a Professor and placed in the provincial grade and was posted at Rajahmundry Government College. He stayed in Rajahmundry till 1918. It was during this period, he worked on the manuscript of his book, ‘The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore’, which was published in 1918. Describing Tagore’s philosophy, he says, “Tagore’s supreme spirit is not an abstract entity, residing at a safe distance from the world, but is the concrete dynamic life at the centre of things, giving rise to the roar of the wind and the surf of the sea… Rabindranath Tagore is a wholeness of vision which cannot tolerate any absolute divisions.”
Mysore to Kolkata
Radhakrishnan was appointed as Professor of Indian Philosophy at Mysore University. It was during this period that he published a series of articles in which he often examined Bergson’s philosophy, and attempted to prove that he was an absolutist. He wrote his second book, ‘The Reign of Religion in contemporary Philosophy’, which was published in 1920. In this, he examined the philosophy of thinkers like William Jones, Rudolph Euken, James Ward, Leibniz, and others. An extraordinary thing about Radhakrishnan is he condemned such dominance of religion in philosophy, and pleaded for the development of philosophy in which religion is neither the basis, nor the motivating force.
At University of Kolkata, he became a successor to Brijendra Nath Seal (doyen of Indian philosophy) perplexing many. In 1923, Radhakrishnan’s monumental work, “Indian Philosophy – Volume I’ was published. The impact of this book was tremendous. It resulted in the vivification of philosophical thought in Indian universities.
Dr. Radhakrishnan was a Professor in small towns, big cities, was Chancellor of Andhra University, Banares University, Spalding Professor at Oxford, Ambassador to Moscow, Vice-president and the President of India. One can go on and on about Dr. Radhakrishnan as a teacher, outstanding philosopher and humanitarian.
It may be said of a philosopher or scientist that the essential in the being of such a man lies precisely in “what he thinks and how he thinks, not in what he does or suffers.” This is what Einstein said about himself. Radhakrishnan, for inscrutable reasons, said very little about himself
