Max Müller

1.1 What is the short answer?

Max Müller was a German scholar who lived from 1823 to 1900. He spent most of his life in England. He is best known for editing the Rigveda in print.

1.2 What kind of scholar was he?

He studied Sanskrit and the history of languages. He also wrote on religions.

1.3 Did he ever go to India?

No. He never visited India. Yet his home in Oxford became a place that Indians in England liked to visit. He worked on Sanskrit manuscripts in England.

2.1 Why was the edition a big project?

The Rigveda is a collection of ancient hymns. Müller set out to print it from manuscripts.

2.2 Who paid for it?

In 1846 he went to London. The East India Company agreed to pay the expenses. The Prussian minister Baron von Bunsen helped him persuade the Company’s directors.

2.3 How long did it take?

The first volume came out in 1849. Müller was only 26. The work ran to six large volumes. One source gives 1874 for the last volume. Another gives 1873. So say that it took about 25 years.

2.4 Why was the work hard?

Müller copied the Sanskrit by hand from manuscripts. He wrote that he could not copy Sanskrit for three or four hours without mistakes.

3.1 How did people react?

The printed Rigveda caused a great stir in India. It was the first publication of the Rigveda. Some orthodox groups tried to ban it. They said a mleccha, a foreigner, had written it.

3.2 Did it change Indian movements?

Yes. Dayanand Saraswati founded the Arya Samaj in 1875. That was one year after the edition was completed. He told his followers to go back to the Rigveda as the oldest text.

3.3 What did Indians call him?

Indians gave him the title Moksha Mula. It means Root of Salvation. It showed how highly many Indians respected his work.

4.1 What is it?

It is a series of English translations of Asian religious texts. Oxford University Press published it. Müller was its editor. The series began in 1879.

4.2 What did it cover?

It covered scriptures from several faiths and languages. They include Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese, Arabic and Zend texts. Müller himself translated Vedic hymns, the main Upanishads and the Dhammapada.

4.3 How many volumes were there?

Sources give different counts. They range from 49 to 51 volumes. So remember the series name, not one number.

Counts differ between sources. In an exam, trust the series name, not the number.

5.1 What did Müller notice in the hymns?

Many Vedic hymns praise one god as the greatest. Another hymn then praises a different god in the same way. So each god gets a turn.

5.2 What two words did he coin?

Müller coined kathenotheism for worship of one god at a time. He used henotheism for a case where many gods exist but only one is worshipped.

Source: Menzies, History of Religion, and Müller’s own statement on the word Aryan.

5.3 Is it the same as monotheism?

No. Monotheism says only one god exists. Henotheism does not deny the other gods. It only puts one god first in worship.

6.1 Is Aryan a race?

Müller said no. He used Aryan only for people who speak an Aryan language. He wrote that he meant neither blood nor bones, nor hair nor skull.

6.2 What was his famous comparison?

He said an ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, blood, eyes and hair is as wrong as a linguist who speaks of a dolichocephalic dictionary. A dictionary has no head. So the phrase is nonsense, and that was his point.

6.3 Why does this matter for exams?

Many in Europe kept nourishing ideas of Aryan racial superiority. Müller spoke against the racial use of the word. Read where the debate stands today in Coming of the Aryans: The Migration Debate.

7.1 Did he become an English citizen?

Yes. He became a naturalised English citizen. He was well known to Queen Victoria and the royal family.

7.2 Did he accept a knighthood?

No. He was offered one and declined it. He already held higher honours from foreign governments.

7.3 What other roles did he hold?

He presided over the International Oriental Congress in 1892. His father was the German poet Wilhelm Müller.

Sources: New York Review of Books, ERIC textbook and Menzies.

8.1 What traps repeat?

• Did he visit India? No. He never went.
• Which text? The Rigveda, funded by the East India Company.
• Which series? The Sacred Books of the East. Do not fix on one volume count.
• Which word? Henotheism: many gods exist, one is worshipped.
• Aryan: a language label in Müller’s use, not a race.

8.2 Where can I read more?

See The Rigveda, Rigvedic Religion and the Later Vedic Age and Vedic and Puranic Literature as Historical Sources.