MAX MUeLLER.

OXFORD, December, 1882.

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CONTENTS.

DEDICATION,

INTRODUCTION,

LECTURE I. WHAT CAN INDIA TEACH US?

" II. ON THE TRUTHFUL CHARACTER OF THE HINDUS,

" III. THE HUMAN INTEREST OF SANSKRIT LITERATURE,

" IV. OBJECTIONS,

" V. THE LESSONS OF THE VEDA,

" VI. VEDIC DEITIES,

" VII. VEDA AND VEDANTA,

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INTRODUCTION.

Professor Max Mueller has been so long and widely known in the world of
letters as to render any formal introduction unnecessary. He has been
from his early youth an assiduous student of philology, justly
regarding it as an important key to history and an invaluable
auxiliary to intellectual progress. A glance at his personal career
will show the ground upon which his reputation is established.

Friedrich Maximilian Mueller, the son of Wilhelm Mueller, the Saxon
poet, was born at Dessau, December 6th, 1823. He matriculated at
Leipzig in his eighteenth year, giving his principal attention to
classical philology, and receiving his degree in 1843. He immediately
began a course of Oriental studies, chiefly Sanskrit, under the
supervision of Professor Brockhaus, and in 1844 engaged in his
translation of the "Hitopadesa." He removed from Leipzig to Berlin,
and attended the lectures of Bopp, Ruecker, and Schelling. The next
year he went to Paris to listen to Eugene Burnouf at the College de
France. He now began the collecting of material for his great quarto
edition of the "Rig-Veda Sanhita" and the "Commentary of
Saganadranja." He visited England for this purpose to examine the
manuscripts in the Bodleian Library and at the Indian House. At the
recommendation of H. H. Wilson, the Orientalist, he was commissioned
by the East India Company to publish his edition in England at their
expense. The first volume appeared in 1849, and five others followed
during the next few years.

In 1850 he delivered a course of "Lectures on Comparative Philology"
at Oxford, and the next year was made member of Christ Church,
curator, etc., and appointed Taylorian Professor of Modern European
Languages and Literature. He received also numerous other marks of
distinction from universities, and was made one of the eight foreign
members of the Institute of France. The Volney prize was awarded him
by the French Academy for his "Essay on the Comparative Philology of
Indo-