Reading Max Muller today
I had read a lot about Max Muller, before I got around to reading anything that he wrote. In fact, going by the contrasting views that I had read about him, I knew of two Max Mullers. The first Max Muller opened the eyes of western scholars (and some eastern, they say) to the real worth of Vedas and argued for this civilization’s rightful place in history. The second Max Muller misrepresented the facts about Vedas to suit his faith and prejudice. Which one is the real Max Muller? Was he the apostle who propagated the message of Vedas to the west? Or was he the devil who distorted the facts to fit prejudices, confusing the uninformed? Recently I had the opportunity to read what Max Muller thought of Vedas and Indians in his own words. Initial revelation was that Max Muller is not as much of a student of philosophy and religion as he is a historian. His interest in Vedas and the rest of Sanskrit literature mainly is the light that it can throw to the history of development of reli