F. Max (Friedrich Max) Müller

Born in Dessau in 1823, Max Müller was a German-born scholar who built his career in Britain and became one of the best-known interpreters of Sanskrit and Indian religion for Victorian readers. He studied in Leipzig, Berlin, and Paris before settling in Oxford, where his work on the Rig Veda and other Sanskrit texts made him a major figure in philology and Indology.

Müller wrote for both specialists and general audiences. He is especially remembered for editing the monumental Sacred Books of the East series and for popular lectures and essays on language, mythology, and the study of religion. His work helped shape early comparative religion, even when some of his theories later became dated.

He died in 1900, but his influence lasted well beyond his lifetime. For listeners today, he remains an important doorway into the nineteenth-century study of myth, language, and the religious traditions of India and the wider world.