Friedrich Max Müller

The missionaries have done far more than they themselves seem to be aware of, nay, much of the work which is theirs they would probably disclaim. The Christianity of our nineteenth century will hardly be the Christianity of India. But the …

Whatever may be the date of the Vedic hymns , whether 1500 or 15,000 B.C. , they have their own unique place and stand by themselves in the literature of the world " .

Max Müller explained that his conjectural chronology of the Rigveda was only a terminus ad quem adding “we should not forget that this is a constructive date only and that such a date does not become positive by mere repetition” (1916: 34).

None of our philosophers, not excepting Heraclitus, Plato, Kant, or Hegel, has ventured to erect such a spire, never frightened by storms or lightnings. Stone follows on stone, In regular succession after once the first step has been made, …

Whatever may be the date of the Vedic hymns, whether 1500 B.C.E. or 15,000 B.C.E., they have their own unique place and stand by themselves in the literature of the world. They tell us something of the early growth of the human mind of …

Finally, in his Autobiography published just after his death in 1900, he made this astonishing statement: “As to the actual date of the Veda … if we were to place it at 5000 BC, I doubt whether anybody could refute such a date, while if we …

Without a subject there is no object in the world, without understanding there is nothing to understand, without mind no matter.

We shall then learn that the history of mankind is the best philosophy, and that not only in Christianity and Judaism, but that in all religions of the world, God has at divers times spoken through the prophets in divers manners, and still …

The same word, Deva, in Sanskrit, Deus in Latin, remained unchanged in all their prayers, their rites, their superstitions, their philosophies, and even today it rises up to heaven from thousands of churches and cathedrals—a word which, …

There is more real antiquity in the Veda than in all the inscriptions of Egypt or Ninevah . . . old thoughts, old hopes, old faith, and old errors, the old Man altogether. (Müller 1895: 1.75–76)

[An] ancient city has been laid bare before our eyes which, in the history of all other religions, is filled up with rubbish, and built over by new architects. Some of the earliest and most instructive scenes of our distant childhood have …

I wish to point out that there was another sphere of intellectual activity in which the Hindus excelled–the meditative and transcendent–and that here we might learn from them some lessons of life which we ourselves are but too apt to …

If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered over the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even …

If an answer must be given as to the place where our Aryan ancestors dwelt before their separation, . . . I should still say, as I said forty years ago, 'Somewhere in Asia,' and no more.

All one's ideas of Adam and Eve, and the Paradise, and the tower of Babel, and Shem, Ham, and Japhet, with Homer and Aeneas and Virgil too, seemed to be whirling round and round, till at last one picked up the fragments and tried to build …

They gave to the new cities and to the rivers along which they settled, the names of cities and rivers familiar to them, and reminding them of the localities which they had left.

The worship of Shiva, Vishnu, and other popular deities was of the same and in many cases of a more degraded and savage character than the worship of Jupiter, Apollo or Minerva.

Nor Aught nor Naught existed; yon bright sky Was not, nor heaven's broad woof outstretched above. What covered all? what sheltered? what concealed?

Still the child betrays the passions of the man, and there are hymns, though few in number, in the Veda, so full of thought and speculation that at this early period no poet in any other nation could have conceived them.

The gods are constantly inyoked to protect their worshippers, to grant them food, large flocks, large families, and a long life; for all which benefits they are to be rewarded by the praises and sacrifices offered day after day, or at …

I do not wish by what I have said to raise any exaggerated expectations as to the worth of these ancient hymns of the Veda, and the character of that religion which they indicate rather than fully describe.

'Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto,' or, translating his words somewhat freely, 'I am a man, nothing pertaining to man I deem foreign to myself.

the Christianity of the early Councils was not that of the Apostles, and "that what has been said by Christ, that alone was weII said?"

How can a missionary in such circumstances meet the surprise and questions of his pupils, unless he may point to that seed, and tell them what Christianity was meant to be; unless he may show that. like all other religions, Christianity, …