Friedrich Max Müller
German-born British philologist, orientalist and indologist (1823–1900)
AI overview
Friedrich Max Müller was a German-born British scholar of the 1800s who specialized in studying languages, Eastern cultures, and Indian civilization. His work in comparing languages and interpreting ancient texts significantly influenced how European scholars understood religion and culture across the world.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Person · Open Library
- Born
- 6 December 1823
- Died
- 28 October 1900
- Works
- 502
Top works
- Germany
- The German classics from the fourth to the nineteenth century
- [Combined Sanskrit, Tibetan, Japanese, and English translations of the three sūtras of Sukhāvatī
- Religii︠a︡, kak predmetʺ sravnitelńago izuchenii︠a︡
- Vorlesungen über den Ursprung und die Entwickelung der Religion
via Open Library + Wikidata
Recent publications · Crossref
5 total works indexed
Article
Friedrich Max Müller ( German: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈmaks ˈmʏlɐ]; 6 December 1823 – 28 October 1900) was a German-born British comparative philologist and Orientalist. He was one of the founders of the Western academic disciplines of Indology and religious studies. Müller wrote both scholarly and popular works on the subject of Indology. He directed the preparation of the Sacred Books of the East, a 50-volume set of English translations which continued after his death.
Müller became a professor at Oxford University, first of modern languages, then of comparative philology in a position founded for him, and which he held for the rest of his life. Early in his career he held strong views on India, believing that it needed to be transformed by Christianity. Later, his view became more nuanced, championing ancient Sanskrit literature and India more generally. He became involved in several controversies during his career: he was accused of being anti-Christian; he disagreed with Darwinian evolution, favouring theistic evolution; he raised interest in Aryan culture, opposing the racial misuse of the term ‘Aryan,’ which later developed into the racist Aryan ideology of the 20th century; and he promoted the idea of a "Turanian" family of languages.
Gallery (7)
Connections
Categories
1823 births1900 deaths19th-century British historians19th-century British linguists19th-century British male writers19th-century British translators19th-century German historians19th-century German male writers19th-century German philologists19th-century German translatorsBritish critics of ChristianityBritish Indologists