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DR. RADHAKRISHNAN: WORLD - PHILOSOPHER

Dr. PAUL ARTHUR SCHILPP
Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy (Emeritus) Southern
Illinois University, U.S.A. and Editor, Library of Living Philosophers.

South India is indeed historically rich, and was the natural soil to root such a seer as Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the first Philosopher - Ruler since Marcus Aurelius (in the Second Century A.D.). Why did he speak in the flowing words of a poet, like a Rabindranath Tagore, while offering his ideas with the vision of the Hindu sages, both ancient and as modern as Gandhi, and of Jesus in the West? Why? How? Because Radhakrishnan was blessed with an unusually acute mind � a gift from God � and he used that gift to become a world scholar.

Although he was born to Hindu Parents on September 5, 1888 in the small town of Tiruttani, just forty miles north-west of Madras, he was not a man who had unusual advantages of wealth. His schooling and college education were primarily under Chri­stian missionaries, and he suffered strong words of criticism from those missionary teachers about his Hindu beliefs. But, with the truly traditional attitude of Hinduism, he was tolerant and broad-minded.

It was with his beliefs of “props� shaken that he set out for self-discovery and to find his own truth.

After extensive reading of mankind’s classic books both East and West, already as a very young man, he had the courage to begin to search out his own philosophy.

Like the brilliant scholar he was to be all his exceptional career, he set out to study all the Hindu classics, the dialogues of Buddha, the works of Jainism, and also the Christian Bible, Plato, Kant, Bergson, and many more. How many philosophers do we have with the staggering ground of Radhakrishnan, now or in the past? After years of devoted study, he was to synthesize, to distill, to accept these eclectic ideas and remain under, perhaps, the broadest religious umbrella of the world � Hinduism � ­and to write his fine book. The Hindu View of life.

Radhakrishnan wrote in 1955 that the “Fundamental need of the world is the recovery of Faith� (Rof F, p. 1) Because he had observed that ‘Far deeper than any social, political, or economic readjustment is a spiritual reawakening.� He spoke of his concern for the breakdown of our civilization, and challenged us to movements of the spirit to correct wrongs in our existing order. He wrote, of course, after the frantic chase after Atomic Bomb Supremacy had cast its awful shadow over our globe � or as he put it � “The new prospect of a possible liquidation of the world by Illiln’s own wanton interference.� (Rof F, p. 1).

How refreshing was that book, Recovery of Faith, in the midst of what has been happening in Western, and even Eastern philosophy � a pre-occupation with symbolic logic, and logical positivism � whatever you wish to call the movements about the meaning of language and numbers that has engulfed many of our Western philosophical meetings. In my Presidential Address to the American Philosophical Association, I called it “The Abdication of Philosophy�. When Albert Einstein referred to the logical positivists as “The twittering of little birdies�, he put it a bit stronger than I would have put it.

Radhakrishnan dared to address social issues of his time. Like philosophers of wisdom once did, he struck deeply into the roots of true significance of man’s life. He spoke to us eloquently in the King’s English, to use the idiom. (This is with due respect to both America and India, who fought to ward off the British Empire.)

During his lifetime I had a number of opportunities to engage Radhakrishnan in personal conversation both in America and in India. I always found him to be as amiable and hospitable as he was profound.

But, especially, I shall never forget the first time we met. I had driven to the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, from a few miles away at Northwestern University (where I spent 29 yearsof my life in the Philosophy Department). During the course of his lecture, I grew increasingly impressed by the great man and his ideas. Before his lecture ended I was certain I wanted to create a volume in the Library of Living Philosophers ‘Series on Radhakrishnan’s philosophy.

After his talk, I accompanied him walking to his room at the University Quadrangle Club, and enroute, immediately proposed the volume. Very modestly, he replied: “Oh, no, I am not in the company of Bertrand Russell, Alfred North Whitehead and the others on whom you have created volumes.� Of course, I countered that he was too humble.

When he sat down to write his agreement to such a volume, the only blank piece of paper we could find between the two of us was the of a laundry list. History should find that anecdote amusing.

During the two other visits to America, he had dinner with us in our home near Northwestern University. In our present home near Southern illinois University, we have two portraits of Radhakrishnan in my study. One is inscribed to us “with love�, and the other is a news photo of the two of us seated side by side, conferring in Calcutta in 1951.

Let me share with you how realistically Radhakrishnan looked at issues and ideas in the actual world. Although he was a fervent spokesman for intercultural exchange, world peace and understanding, he also dared to dispassionately examine his own Hindu world in India.

For example, like Gandhi, he was very concerned with the position and freedom of women. He was long ahead of his time recognizing the movement of Women’s Liberation in the East and West. What daring it took to write the following words in 1937, over 40 years ago.

“Full of tenderness and deep affection as Indian married life is, its value can be greatly increased by suitable changes in the social institutions which have become stabilized by the unwil­lingness of legislatures to interfere with social customs. The only security which Indian women have against the breaking down of their bodies and minds is the goodwill of their husbands, and that is not enough in our present conditions.�    (PL, p. 5A)

Radhakrishnan stood for the betterment of women’s lot long before the world had given the idea much thought. After all, I come from America where women won the right to vote in public elections only in 1920. That was accomplished only by a long - lobbied amendment to our Constitution. (And women in the U.S. are still rallying for the Equal Rights Amendment.) Radha­krishnan believed in education and rights for women � single, married, divorced, or widowed.

We all know that Radhakrishnan was influenced as a young man by Swami Vivekananda � The man who also stormed America in 1893. (LofP, p. 6A). Vivekananda’s writings helped Radhakrishnan to see Hinduism in its broadest aspects, social improvement rooted in spirituality. In Radhakrishnan’s own later writings, he helped Hindus and Moslems to understand Christianity, and Christians to understand Oriental religions. “No formula can confine God,� he wrote (LofP. p. 9) Like Gandhi and other great souls, Radhakrishnan found in essence that there are “as many paths to God as there are souls upon the quest.�

He felt that “The different religions are not rivals or competing forces but fellow labourers in the same great task. God has not left Himself without witness among any people....There is always a natural manifestation of the one Almighty God amongst all right - thinking men...Serious students of comparative religion are impressed by the general revelation of God.� (ALofP, p. 9)

Radhakrishnan predicted that in a “new world order� there would be no “Spiritual monopolies� such as in the past. He did not believe in a “pet fancy of the pious that their own religion is the flower of the development of religion and the final end into which all others converge.� (ALofP, p. 19)

He declared that religion must be rational and that it “Must express itself in reasonable thought, fruitful action, and right social institutions.� Saint Thomas (who, according to legend, preached and died here in South India), could not have said it better.

Radhakrishnan attracted attention East and West as early as age 32 in 1920 with his work, The Reign of Religion in Contemporary Philosophy. Already his earlier articles in the quarterly magazine Mind had aroused interest and his book was used as a text in India, Britain, and America. By then he had been classified, like Hegel, as an Objective Idealist, but Unlike Hegel, not an absolutist. Radha­krishnan was an everlasting seeker after truth, but he never claimed to possess it. Like Albert Eistein, he was always approximating to the absolute, but never claimed to have reached it. Also, like Eins­tein, Radhakrishnan was constantly aware of man’s limitations. In 1921, at only 33, he was appointed to the King George V Chair of Philosophy at the University of Calcutta.

For the prestigious 14th Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britan­nica, he was invited to write the article on “Indian Philosophy�. He wrote for the Hibbert Journal and he gave the Upton Lectures in 1926 which resulted in the book, The Hindu View of Life. That same year he addressed the International Philosophical Congress at Harvard University. Thus, by age 38, when many young men and women are climbing the professional ladder in philosophy, Radhakrishnan was a luminary.

In his Harvard address, Radhakrishnan was already concerned about the world headed toward Technology, Science, Behaviourism, and the like � lacking a spiritual foundation. He found the world, for all its so-called “advancement�, too inattentive to “poverty and starvation.� He called this “a chaotic condition due to lack of fellow­ship and co-operation.�

Radhakrishnan found Alduos Huxley’s popular satirical book Brave New Warld to be one that held out no hope or comfort for a just social order for modern man. Rather, it was “a world of the death of all things of the spirit.� (LofP, p. 21)

just social order for a just social order for modern man. Rather, it was “a world of the death of all things of the spirit.� (Lofp p. 21)

He found “something fundamentally defective in the present organization of society.� It is not sufficiently democratic, he said. “The basis of democracy,� he added, “is the recognition of the dignity of human being.� (Lofp, p. 23)

Early in his career, Radhakrishnan was pleading for a civili­zation founded on inter-cultural understanding and rooted in spirit. He found the League of Nations to be “wanting� � and organization of satisfied powers and weaker nations, without true intent to ward off war. He called for “the supremacy of law and organizing the world for an enduring peace�. (p. 24-25).

Radhakrishnan warned that Science rapidly became the God of our times, that “electrons and protons do not clear up the mystery of reality ... God and soul cannot be treated as mathematical equa­tions.� He found in our era a depressing lack of insight. He wrote that “analytical intellect� was too much relied upon. He called us to read the writings of Hinduism and Christianity, to Plato and Plotinus, St. Paul, St. Augustine, Luther and Pascal. “Life is not a simple geometric pattern,� he wrote, “but the essence of living is
³¦°ù±ð²¹³Ù¾±±¹¾±³Ù²â.â€� (LofP, p. 29A)

As for the role of philosophy in building a better world order, he said: “T´Ç form men is the object of philosophyâ€�. (or, to be more contemporary â€� Human beings). (p. 36) Religion was “not fasting and prayers,â€� but achieving “a pure and contrite heartâ€�.

“The temple of God is holy, whioh temple ye are,� he quoted from Christian scriptures. (p. 37).

Truth, said Radhakrishnan. (LofP, p. 47A) is according to the Mahabharata, “Penance and sacrifice of a high order.� And “Truth is always natural with Good,� “Truly religious souls from Buddha and Christ down to lesser mortals ... have striven to lighten the load of humanity.� Radhakrishnan has written: We must share the “burden of pain that lies upon the world, with its poor and lowly, with its weak and suffering,� (LofP, p. 50A)

As we said earlier, Radhakrishnan spent the first eight years of life from 1888 to 1896 in Tiruttani. This is today, still a center for religious pilgrims. After early schooling in that small town and in Vellore, he studied at Madras Christian College from 1904 to 1908. His years of teaching were in various places in India, starting with Madras Christian College as a youthful professor at age 21. Already just eight years later in 1917, he wrote a treatise on “Indian Philosophy� for a series edited by that distinguished British scholar, J. H. Muirhead, when Radhakrishnan was only 29. (Professor Muirhead, by the way, was a guest in our home in Evanston, Illinois, a good many years later.)

Who, within memory, be they Oriental or Occidental, has had the privilege of commuting every year for twelve years between any Oriental University and Oxford University, as did Radhakrishnan from 1936 to 1948, commuting annually between Benares Hindu University and Oxford, teaching one semester each year in both universities? At Oxford he was Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics and at Benares he was Vice-Chancellor of the University. A unique experience whether in Oriental or in Occidental philosophy.

During those years, he added to his reputation as a philo­sopher who made an enormous contribution by teaching the West about the East and vice versa. His contribution to intercultural under­standing in our century cannot be exaggerated.

Equally unique were 21 years in Radhakrishnan’s later life, when, in addition to his profession as a philosopher, he also entered a quite different profession of Diplomacy. He had been serving his country his entire life as a philosopher. Now, beginning in 1948, at age 60, he also became a diplomat. He accepted Nehru’s call to represent India officially in UNESCO as their Representative in Paris. In this capacity he served for three years (1946-49). During the last year, UNESCO elected him Chairman of their Executive Council.

On his return to India from Paris, Nehru appointed Radha­krishnan as India’s Ambassador to the USSR in Moscow. He held that post most successfully for another three years (1949-52). It was during this period, when the Radhakrishnan volume was being created that almost all of our correspondence was carried in both direc­tions by diplomatic pouch.) On his return to India from that Ambas­sadorship, he was elected Vice-President of India, for the next decade (1952-1962).

And in 1962, the people of India elected him to the highest position in their giving � the President of the Republic. When Radhakrishnan stepped down from that position, in 1967, he was already 79 years old. The first � and only � “Philosopher Ruler� since Marcus Aurelius (who died in 180 A.D.) What a life of one triumph after another. Twenty-one years of public service to his people as a distinguished and universally honoured diplomat.

Sir Sarvepalli gave over 70 years of his life to his beloved subject of Philosophy, 21 of his later years additionally to his country’s Diplomatic Service. No other philosopher anywhere has been able to match that record in almost 2000 years. Surely such outstanding distinguished service more than entitles him to this International Celebration of his 100th Birthday � although there is absolutely nothing that we can possibly add to that incomparable record.

Philosophically speaking his life was exactly what he called it in his first (1937) autobiography, his “search for Truth.� And, diplomatically speaking, it was what, in his second Autobiography (1952) he called a continuous dedication to meeting “the World’s Need,� by aiming at a unified and universal “Religion of the Spirit�.

Radhakrishnan was an Idealist, a Philosopher whose views were broadly based upon the concepts of religion. He did not sup­port any view of narrow dogma. “The world is seeking not so much a fusion of religions as a fellowship of religions, based on the realiza­tion of the foundational character of man’s religious experience.� he wrote. (LLP. p. 75).

Further, he believed that religion had to do with the inner souls of individuals. “Religious life belongs to the realm of inward spiritual revelation,� he said (LLP, p. 77 A). And further rejecting the mere superficialities of all sects, he said: “Traditions do not create the truth, but clothe it in language and symbol for the help of those who do not see it themselves.�

In his most pragmatic outlook, his philosophy preached that religious spirit must pervade a person’s life by the way in which one LIVES and TAKES meaningful ACTION in life (Again, not mere fasting and prayers), he said. (LLP, p. 80A). “The mandate of Religion is that man must make the change in his own nature in order to let the divine in him make manifest itself.� (LLP, p. 80).

“The truth speaks to us in varying dialects across far conti­nents and over centuries of history,� said Radhakrishnan. (LLP, p. 80A). He firmly believed that “There will come a time when the world will be inhabited by a race� of persons “freed from the yoke, not only of disease and privation but of lying words, and of love turned into hate.� He said: “When human beings grow in complete­ness into that invisible world which is the Kingdom of Heaven, then they will manifest in the outer world the Kingdom which is within them.� (LLP, p. 81A).

May we take to heart these powerful words of Radhakrishnan, that great 20th century seer, in our strivings for a better world.