RAHDAKRISHNAN RECEIVES DEGREE
FROM H.S.I.U. /
DEGREE CONFERRED ON PRESIDENT
OF INDIA
On
the occasion of Your Excellency’s visit to Our country, it gives Us special
pleasure to receive you at this institution, itself dedicated to the pursuit of
knowledge and truth. It is altogether fitting that Your Excellency should be
the focus of this occasion, for Your Excellency has yourself, since your youth,
been dedicated to that cause. Your marked achievement to the august rank of
Professor at the youthfull age of twenty-eight, your consistent endeavour to
pursue knowledge and the numerous books that have flowed from your pen, bear
witness to this.
Today
more than ever before man realizes the bond of unity that exists within the
race; he is endeavouring to employ the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of the
ages. He is employing modern science and technology; he is reaping the
benefits, however limited, of political and economic unity; and to that extent;
he is transcending the age-old barriers that have divided the race so long and
is endeavouring to reflect on the welfare not only of himself and his immediate
neighbour but also on the welfare of all the human race. This endeavour is in
harmony with the spirit of the mystics of ages gone by “... in the mystic
traditions of the different religions we have a remarkable unity of the spirit.
Whatever religions they may profess they are spiritual kinsmen. While the
different religions in their historic forms bind us to limited groups and
militate against the development of loyalty to the world community, the mystics
have always stood for the fellowship of humanity,” so Your Excellency has
taught us. And in an effort to carry out this teaching to pursue truth – to
promote those bonds common to the human race – Your Excellency has dedicated
your whole life. To free the human race from superstition and fear that
originate from ignorance; to enable him to transcend the apparent obstacles of
race and religion; and to help him recognize the blood-ties of the whole human
race, Your Excellency has laboured. To this generation, so tormented between
modern knowledge and ancient faith, your scrupulous studies have pointed the
way by which man may be saved from traditional superstition and modern
scepticism.
Were
the thoughts of Plato and Socrates, the beliefs of Christianity and Judaism not
harmonized with Hindu philosophy; were Yoga and its various stages not exposed
to Western thought; had Western religion and philosophy not been exposed to the
philosophy and religion of the East through Your Excellency’s persistent
endeavour, how much the poorer would human thought have been!
In
the history of the human race, those periods which later appeared as great have
been the periods when the men and the women belonging to them had transcended
the differences that divided them and had recognized in their membership in the
human race a common bond. Your Excellency’s constant endeavour to challenge
this generation to transcend its differences, to recognize its common bond and
to work towards a common goal has doubtless made this age pregnant with
greatness. It is, therefore, in recognition of these labours that We, with
unequalled pleasure, bestow upon Your Excellency the degree of Doctor of
Letters, honoris causa.
Oct. 13, 1965. or Oct. 3, 1965
Important
Utterances of H.I.M. Emperor Haile Selassie I - page 551 - &
Selected
Speeches of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie - page 132 -
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