Friedrich Max Müller (German: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈmaks ˈmʏlɐ];[1][2] 6 December 1823 – 28 October 1900) was a German-born British comparative philologist and Orientalist.

Müller became a professor at Oxford University,[3] first of modern languages,[4] then of comparative philology[3] in a position founded for him, and which he held for the rest of his life.

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, deeply disliking the resulting racist Aryanism; and he promoted the idea of a "Turanian" family of languages.

[5] Müller was named after his mother's elder brother, Friedrich, and after the central character, Max, in Weber's opera Der Freischütz.

In 1835, at the age of twelve, he was sent to live in the house of Carl Gustav Carus and attend the Nicolai School at Leipzig, where he continued his studies of music and classics.

While preparing, he found that the syllabus differed from what he had been taught, requiring him to rapidly learn mathematics, modern languages and science.

He began to translate the Upanishads for Schelling, and continued to research Sanskrit under Franz Bopp, the first systematic scholar of the Indo-European languages (IE).

The recent discovery of the Indo-European language group had started to lead to much speculation about the relationship between Greco-Roman cultures and those of more ancient peoples.

Scholars sought to compare the genetically related European and Asian languages to reconstruct the earliest form of the root-language.

He believed that the earliest documents of Vedic culture should be studied to provide the key to the development of pagan European religions, and of religious belief in general.

Müller was greatly impressed by Ramakrishna Paramhansa, his contemporary and proponent of Vedantic philosophy, and wrote several essays and books about him.

Müller believed that the sophisticated Upanishadic philosophy could be linked to the primitive henotheism of early Vedic Brahmanism from which it evolved.

[17] For Müller, the culture of the Vedic peoples represented a form of nature worship, an idea clearly influenced by Romanticism.

In Müller's view, "gods" began as words constructed to express abstract ideas, but were transformed into imagined personalities.

[23] In his Translator's Preface, Müller wrote: The bridge of thoughts and sighs that spans the whole history of the Aryan world has its first arch in the Veda, its last in Kant's Critique. ...

[This quote needs a citation]Müller continued to be influenced by the Kantian Transcendentalist model of spirituality,[24] and was opposed to Darwinian ideas of human development.

"[26] On 25 August 1866, Müller wrote to Chevalier Bunsen: India is much riper for Christianity than Rome or Greece were at the time of St. Paul.

I should like to live for ten years quite quietly and learn the language, try to make friends, and see whether I was fit to take part in a work, by means of which the old mischief of Indian priestcraft could be overthrown and the way opened for the entrance of simple Christian teaching...[27]In his career, Müller several times expressed the view that a "reformation" within Hinduism needed to occur, comparable to the Christian Reformation.

In the Lutheran tradition, he hoped that the "superstition" and idolatry, which he considered to be characteristic of modern popular Hinduism, would disappear.

[30] Müller wrote: The translation of the Veda will hereafter tell to a great extent on the fate of India, and on the growth of millions of souls in that country.

[31][32]Müller hoped that increased funding for education in India would promote a new form of literature combining Western and Indian traditions.

[33]In his sixties and seventies, Müller gave a series of lectures, which reflected a more nuanced view in favour of Hinduism and the ancient literature from India.

If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most full developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant—I should point to India.

As to modern times, and I date them from about 1000 after Christ (AD), I can only say that, after reading the accounts of the terrors and horrors of Mohammedan rule, my wonder is that so much of native virtue and truthfulness should have survived.

[38] Similar accusations had already led to Müller's exclusion from the Boden chair in Sanskrit in favour of the conservative Monier Monier-Williams.

By the 1880s Müller was being courted by Charles Godfrey Leland, Theosophist Helena Blavatsky, and other writers who were seeking to assert the merits of pagan religious traditions over Christianity.

The designer Mary Fraser Tytler stated that Müller's book Chips from a German Workshop (a collection of his essays) was her "Bible", which helped her to create a multi-cultural sacred imagery.

[citation needed] Müller proposed an early, mystical interpretation of theistic evolution, using Darwinism as a critique of mechanical philosophy.

[49] According to Müller, these five languages were those "spoken in Asia or Europe not included under the Arian [sic] and Semitic families, with the exception perhaps of the Chinese and its dialects".

Next follows an elaborate exposition of the heavenly land in terms of Israel, Montreal and the second part depicts the return to earth from being eaten by Max Müller on the day Edward the Seventh dedicated the Great Sewer of London.