Friedrich Max Müller Quotes

Thus we may infer that the only characteristic difference between modern Christianity and the old heathen faiths is the belief of the former in a personal devil and in hell. "The Aryan nations had no devil," says Max Muller. "Pluto, though of a sombre character, was a very respectable personage; and Loki (the Scandinavian), though a mischievous person, was not a fiend. The German Goddess, Hell, too, like Proserpine, had once seen better days. Thus, when the Germans were indoctrinated with the idea of a real devil, the Semitic Seth, Satan or Diabolus, they treated him in the most good-humored way."

Would you say that any one sacred book is superior to all others in the world? ... I say the New Testament, after that, I should place the Koran, which in its moral teachings, is hardly more than a later edition of the New Testament. Then would follow according to my opinion the Old Testament, the Southern Buddhist Tripitaka, the Tao-te-king of Laotze, the Kings of Confucius, the Veda and the Avesta.

As for more than twenty years my principal work has been devoted to the ancient literature of India, I cannot but feel a deep and real sympathy for all that concerns the higher interests of the people of that country. Though I have never been in India, I have many friends there, both among the civilians and among the natives, and I believe I am not mistaken in supposing that the publication in England of the ancient sacred writings of the Brahmans, which had never been published in India, and other contributions from different European scholars towards a better knowledge of the ancient literature and religion of India, have not been without some effect on the intellectual and religious movement that is going on among the more thoughtful members of Indian society. I have sometimes regretted that I am not an Englishman, and able to help more actively in the great work of educating and improving the natives. But I do rejoice that this great task of governing and benefiting India should have fallen to one who knows the greatness of that task and all its opportunities and responsibilities, who thinks not only of its political and financial bearings, but has a heart to feel for the moral welfare of those millions of human beings that are, more or less directly, committed to his charge. India has been conquered once, but India must be conquered again, and that second conquest should be a conquest by education. Much has been done for education of late, but if the funds were tripled and quadrupled, that would hardly be enough. The results of the educational work carried on during the last twenty years are palpable everywhere. They are good and bad, as was to be expected. It is easy to find fault with what is called Young Bengal, the product of English ideas grafted on the native mind. But Young Bengal, with all its faults, is full of promise. Its bad features are apparent everywhere, its good qualities are naturally hidden from the eyes of careless observers. . . . India can never be anglicized, but it can be reinvigorated. By encouraging a study of their own ancient literature, as part of their education, a national feeling of pride and self-respect will be reawakened among those who influence the large masses of the people. A new national literature may spring up, impregnated with Western ideas, yet retaining its native spirit and character. The two things hang together. In order to raise the character of the vernaculars, a study of the ancient classical language is absolutely necessary: for from it these modern dialects have branched off, and from it alone can they draw their vital strength and beauty. A new national literature will bring with it a new national life and new moral vigour. As to religion, that will take care of itself. 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 ancient religion of India is doomed — and if Christianity does not step in, whose fault will it be?

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, after once it has been clearly seen that in the beginning there can have been but One, as there will be but One in the end, whether we call it Atman or Brahman.

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 which we find no trace anywhere else.

Whatever the Vedas may be called, they are to us unique and priceless guides in opening before our eyes tombs of thought richer in relics than the royal tombs of Egypt, and more ancient and primitive in thought than the oldest hymns of Babylonian or Accadian poets. If we grant that they belonged to the second millennium before our era, we are probably on safe ground, though we should not forget that this is a constructive date only, and that such a date does not become positive by mere repetition. ... 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.

It is surely astounding that such a system as the Vedanta should have slowly been elaborated by the indefatigable and intrepid thinkers of India thousands of years ago, a system that even now makes us feel giddy as in mounting the last steps of the swaying spire of a Gothic cathedral. None of our philosophers, including Heraclitus, Plato, Kant or Hegel, has ventured to erect such a spire, never frightened by storms or lightning. Stone follows on stone in regular succession after once the first step has been made, after once it has been clearly seen that in the beginning there can have been One, as there will be but One in the end, whether we call it Atman or Brahman.

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 go back beyond the Veda, and come to measure the time required for the formation of Sanskrit … I doubt whether even 5,000 years would suffice for that.”

Without a subject there is no object in the world, without understanding there is nothing to understand, without mind no matter. You think that matter comes first, and then what we call mind. Where is this matter? Where have you ever seen matter? You see oak, fir, slate, and granite, and all sorts of other materies, as the old architects called them, never matter. Matter is the creation of the mind, not the reverse. Our entire world is thought, not wood and stone. We learn to think or reflect upon the thoughts, which the Thinker of the world, invisible, yet everywhere visible, has first thought. What we see, hear, taste, and feel, is all within us, not without. Sugar is not sweet, we are sweet. The sky is not painted blue, we are blue. Nothing is large or small, heavy or light, except as to ourselves. Man is the measure of all things, as an ancient Greek philosopher asserted; and man has inferred, discovered, and named matter. And how did he do it? He called everything, out of which he made anything, matter; materia first meant nothing more than wood used for building, out of which man built his dwelling. Here you have the whole secret of matter. It is building-material, oak, pine, birch, whichever you prefer.

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 speaks.

I need hardly say that I agree with almost every word of my critics. I have repeatedly dwelt on the merely hypothetical character of the dates, which I have ventured to assign to first periods of Vedic literature. All I have claimed for them has been that they are minimum dates, and that the literary productions of each period which either still exist or which formerly existed could hardly be accounted for within shorter limits of time than those suggested. ... If now we ask as to how we can fix the dates of these periods, it is quite clear that we cannot hope to fix a terminum a qua [sic]. Whether the Vedic hymns were composed [in] 1000 or 2000 or 3000 years BC, no power on earth will ever determine.

There will be and can be no rest till we admit, what cannot be denied, that there is in man a third faculty, which I call simply the faculty of apprehending the Infinite, not only in religion, but in all things; a power independent of sense and reason, a power in a certain sense contradicted by sense and reason; but yet, I suppose, a very real power, if we see how it has held its own from the beginning of the world — how neither sense nor reason has been able to overcome it, while it alone is able to overcome both reason and sense.

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 ignore or to despise.