Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan

Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan was born on 5th September 1888 in Tirutani, a famous religious center in the Madras State, His father's name was Veera Samayya. He was a tehsildar.

Radhakrishnan belonged to a middle-class, reputable Hindu Brahmin family. He was married in 1906, at the age of 18. He spent a happy married life. His wife died in 1956. Dr. Radha Krishnan was a brilliant scholar. He spent the first eight years of his life happily in his hometown with his parents. The wonderful imaginative, open-heartedness, and broad-mindedness of his respected and beloved parents, enabled them to send their son to a well-known, well-managed, well-disciplined Christian educational institution. Radhakrishnan chose to study Philosophy as his main subject in his B.A. degree course.

He even studied Sanskrit and Hindi and had a lot of interest in the traditional languages of India. He also read the Vedas and the Upanishads with great interest.

Even today, Radhakrishnan is considered to be one of the most prominent writers of the current generation. His works are mostly on philosophical, theological, ethical, educational, social, and cultural subjects. All his valuable works or articles have magnificent dynamism. His works are written in an extremely simple, inspiring, soft and peaceful way and are captivating, refreshing, exciting to all the readers. His first book, 'The Ethics of the Vedanta and its Material Presupposition', was published in 1908, when he was only twenty years old. All his later works are landmarks in their own fields, like The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore' (1918). "Idealistic View of Life' (1932), 'Eastern Religions and Western Thought, 'Reign of Philosophy in Contemporary Thought', Kalki or The Future of Civilization', 'Indian Philosophy (2 vols.), etc.

Radhakrishnan had a dynamic personality. He is considered as an affectionate symbol and a beautiful emblem of our age-old Indian culture and civilization. Radhakrishnan is regarded as the greatest living philosopher of India and one of the greatest living philosophers of the world. He was indeed, a flexible mastermind, a great scholar, a great philosopher, a great prophet, a great writer, a great orator, a great statesman, a great administrator, all together in one. Jawaharlal Nehru, who was one of his closest friends, said about Radhakrishnan: "I join you in paying my honor to our President, Dr. Radhakrishnan. He has served his country in many ways. But in particular, he is a great teacher from whom all of us have learned much and will continue to learn. It is India's peculiar advantage to have a great philosopher, a great educationist, and a great humanist as President. Every year his birthday will be celebrated as 'Teacher's Day."