Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was born into a poor Telugu Brahmin family at Tiruttani in the Tamil Nadu state, a town in Madras Presidency, British India, 64 km to the northwest of Madras (now Chennai). His mother tongue was Telugu.[1] His mother's name was Sitamma. His early years were spent in Tirutani and Tirupati. His father was a subordinate revenue official in the service of a local Zamindar (landlord). His primary education was at Primary Board High School at Tirutani. In 1896 he moved to the Hermansburg Evangelical Lutheral Mission School in Tirupati.[2]

Dr. Radhakrishnan was awarded scholarships throughout his academic life. He joined the Voorhee's College in Vellore but switched to the Madras Christian College at the age of 17. He graduated with a Master's degree in Philosophy from the Madras Christian College in 1906, being one of its most distinguished alumni.[3] Radhakrishnan wrote his thesis for the M.A. degree on "The Ethics of the Vedanta and its Metaphysical Presuppositions".[4] He was afraid that his M.A. thesis, "The Ethics of the Vedanta" would offend his philosophy professor, Dr. A.G. Hogg. Instead, Dr. Hogg commended Radhakrishnan on doing an excellent job.[citation needed] Radhakrishnan's M.A. thesis was published when he was only 20.

Dr. Radhakrishnan studied philosophy by chance rather than by choice. Being a financially constrained student at the time, when a cousin, after graduating from the same college, passed on his textbooks in philosophy to Radhakrishnan, it automatically decided his academic course. [5][6] Later on he felt deep interest in his subject and wrote many acclaimed works on philosophy, both eastern and western.