Max Muller - K S Ramaswami Sastri

In a letter sent by Max Muller in November 1886, to one who criticized his views signing himself as a Silesian Horseherd, He says:

"I am an old professor, am now seventy-two years old, or as has been often said to me, seventy-two years young. Like yourself I commenced life with nothing, and have labored till I have become not rich, but independent. Here in wealthy London and in wealthy Oxford I am considered a poor man, but I am quite content, and call that riches. I have been married thirty-seven years, have one son, Secretary to the Embassy at Constantinople, and a happily married daughter, with four grand-children. Of my sorrow, the loss of two daughters, I must remain silent. All my life I have been engaged in investigating the past; I am a philologist and have therefore been also a student of history, have especially studied the historical development of the various religions of mankind, and to this end have had to make a study of ancient languages, particularly Oriental languages."

Such is the beautiful and brief summing up of his life by himself and no other words can be a better introduction to this brief sketch of his life and writings.

"My Autobiography"

In this book, he gives us a vivid description of his life and his recollections. His son says of him in the preface to the book: "The real secret of his success lay not in his friends, but in himself;—in the knowledge that his success or failure in life depended entirely on his own efforts; in the fixity of purpose which made him refuse all offers that would lead him from the pathway that he had laid down for himself; and in the unflagging industry with which he strove to reach the goal of his ambition." Max Muller says of himself in it:

"One confession I have to make, and one for which I can hardly hope for absolution, whether from my friends or from my enemies. I have never done anything; I have never been a doer, a canvasser, a wirepuller, a manager, in the ordinary sense of these words…… The only thing of consequence, to my mind, is what we think, what we know, what we believe!"

(To be continued in October 2005 Issue)

© "Eminent Orientalists –– Indian, European, American" published by Asian Educational Services, C-2/15, S.D.A., New Delhi 110 016. Reprinted with permission.

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