"I have declared again and again that if I say Aryans, I mean neither blood nor bones, nor hair nor skull; I mean simply those who speak an Aryan language… in that sense, and in that sense only, do I say that even the blackest Hindus represent an earlier stage of Aryan speech and thought than the fairest Scandinavians...To me an ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair, is as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar."
Letter to Protap Chunder Mozoomdar, author of The Oriental Christ: "Tell me some of your chief difficulties that prevent you and your countrymen from openly following Christ, and when I write to you I shall do my best to explain how I and many who agree with me have met them and solved them. I do not hesitate to say that on some of these points we may have to learn more from you than we can teach you, and I say this honestly, and from personal experience. That too will be a lesson difficult to learn for our bishops and missionaries, but in Christian humility they will have to learn it. From my point of view, India, at least the best part of it, is already converted to Christianity. You want no persuasion to become a follower of Christ. Then make up your mind to act for yourselves. Unite your flock, and put up a few folds to hold them together. The bridge has been built by you for those who came before you. Step boldly forward, it will not break under you, and you will find many friends to welcome you on the other shore, and among them none more delighted than your old friend and fellow labourer."(Vol. II., Ch. XXXIV., pages 415-416.)
"On 16th December 1868 A.D. Meuller wrote to Duke of Argyle, the Minister for India: - 'The ancient religion of India is doomed and if Christianity does not step in, whose fault - will it be?'(Vol. I., Ch. XVI., page 378.)
Letter to Behramji Malabari on how to understand the Vedas (Menant, pages 300-301)
I am deeply interested in the effect my Hibbert Lectures will produce in India. When writing them I was often thinking of my friends in your country more than of my audience at Westminster ..... I wanted to tell those few at least whom I might hope to reach in English, what the true historical value of their ancient religion is, as looked upon, not from exclusively European or Christian, but from a historical point of view. I wished to warn against two dangers: that of undervaluing or despising the ancient national religion, as is done too often by your half-Europeanized youths; and that of over valuing it, and interpreting it as it was never meant to be interpreted, of which you may see a painful instance in Dayananda Sarasvati's labours on Veda. Accept the veda as an ancient historical account, containing thoughts in accordance with the character of an ancient and simple-minded race of men, and you will be able to admire it, and to retain some of it - particularly the teachings of the Upanishads, even in these modern days. But discover in it steam engines and electricity, and European philosophy and morality, and you deprive it of its true character, you destroy its real value, and you break historical continuity and try to understand it, and you will then have less difficulty in finding the right way toward the future.
References
- ^ Müller biography at Gifford Lectures website
- ^ Müller archive
- ^ Müller, F. Max. India, What can it teach us, Lecture I, 1882.
- ^ Müller, Georgina, The Life and Letters of Right Honorable Friedrich Max Müller, 2 vols. London: Longman, 1902.
- ^ Müller, F. Max. Three Lectures on the Science of Language, etc., with a Supplement, My Predecessors. 3rd ed. Chicago, 1899, p. 5.
- ^ Müller, F. Max. Chips from a German Workshop, second edition, 1866, p. 27.
- ^ Müller, F. Max. India, What can it teach us, Lecture IV, p. 118, 1882.
- ^ Müller, F. Max. Biographies of Words and the Home of the Aryas, p. 120
- ^ Müller, F. Max. Ramakrishna His Life and Sayings
- ^ Müller, F. Max. Rig-Veda-Samhita: The Sacred Hymns of the Brahmans
- ^ Menant M D, (1907) "Influence of Max Muller’s Hibbert Lectures in India", The American Journal of Theology, vol. 11, no. 2, p. 293-307, available to [jstor] subscribers
- Lourens P. van den Bosch, Friedrich Max Müller: A Life Devoted to the Humanities, 2002. Recent biography sets him in the context of Victorian intellectual culture.
- Jon R. Stone (ed.), The Essential Max Müller: On Language, Mythology, and Religion, New York: Palgrave, 2002. Collection of 19 essays; also includes an intellectual biography.
Publications
- A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature So Far As It Illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans (1859)
- Lectures on the Science of Language (1864, 2 vols.)
- Chips from a German Workshop (1867-75, 4 vols.)
- Introduction to the Science of Religion (1873)
- India, What can it Teach Us? (1883)
- Biographical Essays (1884)
- The Science of Thought (1887)
- Six Systems of Hindu Philosophy (1899)
- Gifford Lectures of 1888–92 (Collected Works, vols. 1-4)
- Natural Religion (1889)
- Physical Religion (1891)
- Anthropological Religion (1892)
- Theosophy, or Psychological Religion (1893)
- Auld Lang Syne (1898), a memoir
- My Autobiography: A Fragment (1901)
- The Life and Letters of the Right Honourable Friedrich Max Müller (1902, 2 vols.)
See also
- Paul Deussen
- Sacred Books of the East
- Aryan Invasion Theory
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