Dr. Radhakrishnan – An Eminent Exponent of

Dr. RADHAKRISHNAN
An Eminent Exponent of Philosophy

“The appeal of history to us all”, commented Professor G. M. Trevelyan. “is in the last analysis poetic. But the poetry of history does not consist of imagination roaming at large, but of imagination pursuing the fact and fastening upon it.” And seen in perspective, Professor Radhakrishnan’s Indian Philosophy and Idealist View of Life, G. M. Trevelyan’s History of England, Ananda Coomaraswamy’s History of Indian and Indonesian Art and Rajput Painting and P. C. Ray’s History of Chemistry in Ancient and Mediaeval India are among the finest examples of “imagination pursuing the fact and fastening upon it” in the history of twentieth century thought.

In his autobiographical essay entitled My Search for Truth. Prof. Radhakrishnan observes that “philosophy is not so much a conceptual reconstruction as an exhibition of insights”. Again, in his Reply to Critics (published in Prof. Schilpp’s The Philosophy of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan), Prof. Radhakrishnan argues that philosophy must take into account “the reports of the scientists, the intuitions of the artists and the insights of the saints”. Furthermore, it is this creative approach of an artist that can be perceived in his voluminous writings over the decades. And if one quality is to be emphasized, it should be this, for, of all philosophers, he is the creative artist of the modern Indian philosophical scene.

Professor Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan is not only a creative inter­preter of Indian philosophy but also an elegant stylist. Indeed he is one of the greatest stylists in the history of philosophy. Here are some sentences culled at random: “It takes centuries of life to make a little history, and it takes centuries of history to make a little tradi­tion”, “To be spiritual is to think so hard that thinking becomes view­ing”; “There can he no compulsory conscription in the House of Truth”; “In liberation, a man becomes his own masterpiece”; “Gorge­ous flowers justify the muddy roots from which they spring”; “A millennium is the time when all the heads will be hard and all the pillows soft”; “The last part of life’s road is to be worked in single file”; “When the wick is ablaze at the tip, the whole lamp is said to be burning”; “The path to perfection is a slope rather than a staircase”; “We cannot put our souls into uniforms”; “We invent by intuition, though we prove by logic”; “To be ignorant is not the special preroga­tive of man, to know that he is ignorant is his special privilege.”

Prof. Radhakrishnan’s celebrated volumes’ on Indian Philosophy (The first volume was published in 1923 and followed by the second volume in 1927) constitute a classic in the recent history of Indian Philosophy. Here is certainly the authentic Radhakrishnan. For these two volumes reflect the two characteristic features of Radhakrishnan’s writings – elegance of style and the comparative method. Just as Professor Das Gupta’s History of Indian Philosophy and Prof. Hiri­yanna’s Outlines of Indian Philosophy and The essentials of Indian Philosophy are models of dialectical exposition, so is Radhakrishnan’s survey of Indian Philosophy a masterpiece of stylistic elegance. What strikes the reader is his elegance of style which is sustained throughout the two volumes covering more than 1500pages. His chapters on The Advaita Vedanta of Samkara and The Theism of Ramanuja constitute the keystone of what could be termed as the architectonic unity of the two volumes. Again Prof. Radhakrishnan has made use of the comparative method despite its risks. For example, comparing Samkara’s theory of knowledge with that of Kant, Radhakrishnan argues that Kant’s emphasis on the Phenomena as distinguished from the Noumena, results in the Kantian “plurality of things in them­selves”. This is different from Samkara’s position who believed in only one fundamental reality. Thus Radhakrishnan argues that “in this matter Samkara is certainly more philosophical than Kant, who illegi­timately imports the distinctions of the world into the region of things-in-themselves”.

Again commenting on Bradley’s view that the real is the har­monious, Radhakrishnan makes the following point: “From the stricter point of view of Samkara, even harmonious truth is not reality. We cannot say that reality is harmony, for the latter means a number of parts interrelated in a Whole. This distinction of parts and whole is an empirical one, which we are attributing to the transcendental reality”. Interestingly enough, these differences highlight the unique contributions made by Indian thinkers to the elucidation of common philosophical problems. Equally interesting is Radhakrishnan’s com­parison between Samkara and Ramanuja: “Ramanuja, holds that the divine is the human view enlarged. To Samkara on the other hand, the real is beyond appearances and truth is beyond thought”. At this point it is also worth mentioning that despite Radhakrishnan’s evalua­tion of some of the fundamental doctrines of Indian Philosophy in the light of his own understanding of Western philosophy, he does not depart from the traditional meaning of the basic texts. To cite an example he describes Sri Aurobindo’s thesis that the Vedic hymns must be understood at two levels – the psychological - mystic for the elect and the concrete-material for the common people – as an “ingenious point of view” which could neither be supported by modern European scholarship nor through the traditional interpretations of Purva-Mirnamsa. Here it is difficult to agree with Prof. Radhakrishnan. Far from flouting traditional authority, Sri Aurobindo helps us to return to the sources of our wisdom. Although it is true that Samkara has not written on the “Samihitas” as such, he has commented on the “Mantras” which recur in the Upanishads. Indeed Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation of Vedic hymns is something more than “ingenious point of view”. Actually it is an illuminating point of view which must be explored further in the context of Samkara’s reflections on this subject.

In the concluding chapter of his work on Indian Philosophy Dr. Radhakrishnan has stressed that the Republic of “Hindu thought never developed a Monroe Doctrine in matters of culture”. And Dr. Radhakrishnan has revealed not only this traditional hospitality of the Hindu mind in his exploration of the spiritual depths and metaphysical lights of Indian philosophy, but has also added a new dimension of sympathetic insight in his interpretation of Buddhist philosophy. As an interpreter of the Brahma Sutras, the Principal Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita, Dr. Radhakrishnan who had already included a section on The Ethical Idealism of Early Buddhism and lectured on Gautama the Buddha (which was justly hailed as a masterpiece “on a master­mind by a mastermind” and won for him the coveted fellowship of the British Academy) has also commented on The Dhammapada. It is this universality of outlook combined with an empathy reminiscent of Vachaspati Misra which has led him to investigate the bearings of Indian philosophy on politics and literature and the deeper implica­tions of mysticism and ethics in his perceptive essays on Kalidasa and Tagore, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharshi, Tilak and Gandhi. And it is also relevant to note here that Prof. Radha­krishnan has edited three volumes of philosophical essays – Contem­porary Indian Philosophy, edited jointly by Prof. J. H. Muirhead which includes contributions by Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Prof. K. C. Bhattacharya, Ananda Coomaraswamy, M. Hiriyanna and Prof. Radhakrishnan; Mahatma Gandhi, Essays and Reflections on his Life containing essays and articles by Albert Einstein, Rabindranath Tagore, Radhakrishnan and several others, presented to Mahatma Gandhi on his seventieth birthday on October 2, 1939 and History of Philosophy, Eastern and Western in two volumes sponsored and pub­lished by the Government of India in 1952.

“It is an honour to philosophy” noted Dertrand Russell, “that Dr. Radhakrishnan should be President of India”. Indeed Lord Russell regarded it as a fulfilment of the Platonic wish that philosophers must be king. However, unlike Plato who did not admit poets in his Republic, Radhakrishnan began his career with an interpretative work on The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore. Here is Professor Radhakrishnan’s admirable response to Tagore: “It is the peculiar glory of great literature that it lasts much longer than kings and dynas­ties. History bears witness to the power of the human spirit which endures longer than dynasties and creeds. The political world of Homer is dead, while this song is living today. The splendour of Rome has vanished, but the poetry of Virgil is yet vital. The dreams of Kalidasa still move us like the cry of a living voice, with their poig­nant sense of tears in human relations, while the Ujjain, of which he was the ornament, has left her memory to his keeping. The great mediaeval potentates are forgotten ‘but the song of Dante is still cheri­shed; and the Elizabethan Age will be remembered as long as the English language lives on account of its Shakespeare. When our lords and leaders pass into oblivion, Tagore will continue to enchant us by his music and poetry. For the value of his work lies in those elements of universality which appeal to the whole world. He has added to the sweetness of life, to the stature of civilization”. Surely, Dr. Radhakrishnan’s Republic (in the geographical and cultural senses of the term) is different from Plato’s Republic!

Seldom in history has there been a philosopher so representative of his age, one who so completely articulates the aspirations of his contemporaries in ushering in a new era of understanding between nations. Professor Radhakrishnan, who was the president of the UNESCO, had also served for a period of nine years on the International Committee of Intellectual Cooperation set up by the League of Nations, which included among its members such great scientists and scholars as the late Madame Curie, Sir J. C. Bose, Albert Einstein and Gilbert Murray. The similarity between Gilbert Murray and Prof. Radha­krishnan is truly striking. Like Gilbert Murray who perceived the values of Greek poetry as constituting a source of creative insights in his understanding of international relations, Dr. Radhakrishnan has also drawn upon the ancient fountainhead of Indian philosophy in his assessments of the contemporary international scene. And in its broa­dest sense, Dr. Radhakrishnan’s career illustrates in a striking manner the controlling force of the artistic impulse.

The development of comparative religion, partly facilitated by the anthropological vistas, unveiled by Sir James Frazer, was, however, mainly due to the publication of Samskrit classics in Europe. The impact of Indian philosophical thought on Western intellectuals like Schopenhauer, Goethe, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, W. B. Yeats, A. E. and several others, and Western influences on our leaders such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Tagore, Sri Aurobindo and Gandhi are some aspects of this cross-fertilization of cultures and civilizations leading to a more fundamental cultural understanding between India and the West. Dr. Radhakrishnan’s famous works entitled East and West in Religion, Eastern Religions and Western Thought and East and West are outstanding contributions to the study of Comparative Religion and the East-West Spiritual Dialogue. Indeed his Eastern Religions and Western Thought is particularly valuable for its com­parisons and contrasts between the speculations of Greece, Palestine and Christendom on the one hand and Indian thought on the other. And Dr. Radhakrishnan’s greatness as a philosopher lies in the fact that he had underscored “the power of spirit in the hearts of men”. “What we require” proclaimed Prof. Radhakrishnan in this Inaugural Lecture on The World’s Unborn Soul as the first Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at Oxford, “is not professions and programmes but the power of spirit in the hearts of men, a power which will help us to discipline our passions of greed and selfishness and organize the world which is at one with us in desire”.