F. Max (Friedrich Max) Müller

Born in Dessau in 1823, he was educated in Leipzig, where he trained in classical languages and developed a lasting interest in Sanskrit. He later continued his studies in Paris and then settled in England, becoming closely associated with Oxford for the rest of his career.

At Oxford he built his reputation as a philologist and interpreter of religion, working on Sanskrit texts and comparative mythology. He is especially remembered for his work on the Rig-Veda and for the influential series Sacred Books of the East, which opened a wide range of Asian religious writings to English-speaking readers.

His ideas about language, myth, and religion shaped major debates of the nineteenth century, even where later scholars disagreed with him. He died in 1900, but he remains an important figure in the history of comparative religion, Indology, and the study of language.