F. Max Muller

Chips from a German Workshop, Volume I: Essays on the Science of Religion (Dodo Press) F. Max Muller

Friedrich Max Muller (1823-1900), more commonly known as Max Muller, was a German philologist and Orientalist, one of the founders of the western academic field of Indian studies, who virtually created the discipline of comparative religion. Muller wrote both scholarly and popular works on the subject of Indology, a discipline he introduced to the British reading public, and the Sacred Books of the East, a massive, 50-volume set of English translations prepared under his direction, stands as an enduring monument to Victorian scholarship. After studying Sanskrit in Paris, he moved to London in 1846 and supported himself at first with creative writing, his novel Memories: A Story of German Love (Deutsch Liebe, 1857) being popular in its day. He eventually became the leading intellectual commentator on the culture of India, which Britain controlled as part of its Empire. His other works include: Chips From a German Workshop (1867-75, 4 vols.), Introduction to the Science of Religion (1873), India, What Can it Teach Us? (1883), Biographical Essays (1884), The Science of Thought (1887), Six Systems of Hindu Philosophy (1899), Anthropological Religion (1892) and My Autobiography: A Fragment (1901).