Müller, Max (1823–1900)

Max Müller was a German-born Vedic scholar and fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, who painstakingly edited the first critical edition of the Rig-Veda Samhitâ (6 volumes) and oversaw publication of the monumental series The Sacred Books of the East (50 volumes, to which he contributed translations of the Dhammapada and the Upanishads). Son of the German Romantic poet Wilhelm Müller (1794–1827), Max Müller was born in Anhalt-Dessau and educated at the University of Leipzig, completing his PhD in 1843. Müller continued his studies at Berlin under Franz Bopp and Friedrich Schelling, the former known for his work identifying the linguistic links among the so-called Indo-European (or Aryan) family of languages, the latter inspiring Müller's interest in comparing the historical developments in language with those of religion. After further studies in Sanskrit at Paris under Eugène Burnouf, Müller, encouraged by Burnouf and supported by Baron Christian von Bunsen, received a commission from the East India Company and Oxford University Press to edit the Rig Veda (published in 1849–1873). Shortly after arriving in London, Müller secured various appointments at Oxford University, eventually receiving a chair in comparative philology in 1868. Because of his research, and his unwavering support for Indian nationalism, Müller gained admirers throughout India, his home soon becoming something of a pilgrimage site for students and pundits.

Müller first gained prominence in 1856, when he published “Comparative Mythology,” a book-length essay wherein he expertly applied the then current linguistic theory to the question of the origin of mythology. Müller believed that the chief source of ancient myths was the Sun (hence the term solar mythology) and argued that the earlier names (nomina) that people gave to solar and other natural phenomena were later confused for divine beings (numina). To account for these names, stories developed around them. But far from being a case of mistaken personification, ancient mythology also provided evidence for the evolutionary development of human thought and language. For Müller, mythology represented an earlier “mythopoeic” strata of human thought, a vestige of the distant past that still impressed itself on present-day cultures and religions.

In addition to his work in philology and comparative mythology, Müller also championed the comparative study of religion as a “science” over and against theology. Müller coined the term science of religion in 1870 and, through several series of public lectures he gave over the next quarter century, laid out a methodology that he hoped would ensure its success as an academic enterprise. These included Lectures on the Science of Religion (1872); Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, as Illustrated by the Religions of India (1879); Natural Religion (1889); Physical Religion (1891); Anthropological Religion (1892); and Theosophy, or Psychological Religion (1893).