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Scholar Extraordinary: The Life of Professor the Rt. Hon. Friedrich Max Muller, P.C.
ix393p brown hardback, frontispiece, an ex library copy with shelfmark taped to spine and stamps, light traces of use, first edition, clean and useful, this copy published in the year 1974
- GenresBiography
Hardcover
First published December 31, 1974
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About the author
Nirad C. Chaudhuri
31 books83 followersNirad C. Chaudhuri (Bangla: নীরদ চন্দ্র চৌধুরী Nirod Chôndro Choudhuri) was a Bengali−English writer and cultural commentator. He was born in 1897 in Kishoreganj, which today is part of Bangladesh but at that time was part of Bengal, a region of British India.
He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award, in 1975 for his biography on Max Müller called Scholar Extraordinary, by the Sahitya Akademi, India's national academy of letters. In 1992, he was honoured by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom with the title of Commander of Order of the British Empire (CBE). His 1965 work The Continent of Circe earned him the Duff Cooper Memorial Award, becoming the first and only Indian to be selected for the prize.
In 1951 he published his most famous book, Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, a penetrating and challenging analysis of Indian history, culture and British rule. The controversial dedication to the memory of the British Empire caused a furore at the time but the book is now considered a classic work of Indian literature. He was awarded the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize for The Continent of Circe (1965), was made CBE in 1992 and received the Hon.D.Litt from the University of Oxford; the University of Viswa Bharati also awarded him Deshikottama, its highest honorary degree.
A passionate admirer of western culture, he first visited England in 1955, a visit which inspired his book Passage to England. He decided to make his home in Oxford in 1970 when he was over seventy. He was a familiar and arresting sight out and about in Oxford, a diminutive figure, always impeccably dressed in a three-piece suit, although he wore Indian attire at home. He wrote his last book Three Horsemen of the New Apocalypse only a year before his death at the age of nearly 102.
He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award, in 1975 for his biography on Max Müller called Scholar Extraordinary, by the Sahitya Akademi, India's national academy of letters. In 1992, he was honoured by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom with the title of Commander of Order of the British Empire (CBE). His 1965 work The Continent of Circe earned him the Duff Cooper Memorial Award, becoming the first and only Indian to be selected for the prize.
In 1951 he published his most famous book, Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, a penetrating and challenging analysis of Indian history, culture and British rule. The controversial dedication to the memory of the British Empire caused a furore at the time but the book is now considered a classic work of Indian literature. He was awarded the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize for The Continent of Circe (1965), was made CBE in 1992 and received the Hon.D.Litt from the University of Oxford; the University of Viswa Bharati also awarded him Deshikottama, its highest honorary degree.
A passionate admirer of western culture, he first visited England in 1955, a visit which inspired his book Passage to England. He decided to make his home in Oxford in 1970 when he was over seventy. He was a familiar and arresting sight out and about in Oxford, a diminutive figure, always impeccably dressed in a three-piece suit, although he wore Indian attire at home. He wrote his last book Three Horsemen of the New Apocalypse only a year before his death at the age of nearly 102.
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July 22, 2022
Book: Scholar Extraordinary: Life of Friedrich Max Muller
Author: Nirad C Chaudhuri
Publisher: Chatto & Windus (3 October 1974)
Language: English
Hardcover: 408 pages
Item Weight: 574 g
Price: 1899/-
This book is the biography of the celebrated German indologist Friedrich Max Muller who “re-discovered the glory of ancient India through the study of Sanskrit language and literature at a time when the world knew little about it”.
In this book Chaudhuri seemingly abandons his customary anti-Indian attitude to his subject, in favour of an objective one and seeks to write out the story of the life of a “great lover of India with understanding as well as with sympathy”.
Consequently, he seeks to give an honest “account of the life of a man who was scholar and thinker”, and who “was interested in presenting the rediscovered ancient India, and not Germany, to modern Indians” (Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Scholar Extraordinary, Orient Paperbacks, New Delhi, 1974 pp. 1-2).
In doing so he makes it very apparent that Max Muller was not just an authority in Ideology but a surveyor of ideas.
Chaudhuri says: “But Max Muller’s position and reputation were not those of a specialised scholar; he was an intellectual playing a part in the mental history of his times by making people aware of new ideas extending view to new horizons. His fame spread out from the scholarly field to the lay world like that of Darwin or Einstein, but with a stronger and wider impingement which bore practical result in some countries” (ibid., p. 7).
The book penned in 1974, by bringing Max Muller back from forgetfulness in the public eye won the admiration of many.
The great Congress scholar C. D. Narasimhaiah said, “Mr. Chaudhuri has made ample amends for his poor and irresponsible writing by contributing an excellent work of scholarship in his recent book on Max Muller, Scholar Extraordinary” (C. D. Narasimhaiah, Moving Frontiers of English Studies in India, S. Chand and Co., New Delhi, 1977, p. 29).
The fine-points received from Nirad babu’s book, can be summed up as follows:
**Muller translated the Upanishads for Schelling, and researched on Sanskrit language under Franz Bopp who was the first methodical academic of the Indo-European languages
**Muller translated and published a compilation of Indian fables called Hitopadesha
**Muller published the complete Rig Veda in Sanskrit using manuscripts obtainable in England, found in the collection of the East India Company
**He powerfully believed in the requirement for reforms in Hinduism in order to overlay views of Christianity on former
**Under his leadership, the British Empire funded a huge sum of money for education reforms in India.
However ther are facts in great quantities that this book does not say. Let us sum-up those, pointwise:
1) Max Muller was in fact, a draftsman of an insidious design. He went on to generate a fantasy of many a deceitful theory all manufactured on fictional premises which were carried forward by left historians afterward. The idea was to create a fissure in society, cement the division and foster a stumpy self-esteemed self-hating Hindu society. To this end, Muller supported the Brahmo Samaj movement and believed that the Samaj will invent an Indian form 'Christianity', since he was too frantic to bring Christianity into India, with the intention that the religion of the Hindus be doomed.
2) The generation of tomorrow educated in a convent and enthused by the covetousness of the west cannot even distantly imagine the scheme of Vedic Cultural and civilizational flamboyance. Instead, they classify it with nuances like Arya, Aryan invasion, Dravidians, Animist, Tribal, Aboriginals, Dalit, Hindu Mythology. Worst of all, they would not learn their ancient scripture, literature, and their pristine language Sanskrit.
In this respect we ask: Who introduced these words and senses? Is there a Vedic spirit?
None of the words mentioned above is Vedic creation but smuggled and dishonestly planted by Missionaries, under the aegis of by Max Muller.
3) Max Muller was the first man who initiated a novel word Aryan in 1853 to the Indian milieu in our social glossary which went on to describe a compassionate concept of distinctive racial, linguistic, and origin classification. Consistent with him, ‘Aryan is an outsider who moved into the Bharat’. The intention was to push the word “Outsider and Aryan” to disgrace the Pre Vedic lineage. And just two simple words turn the “Dasavatar the evolution of Lord Vishnu” into Humane form so methodically portrayed in the religious scripture into mythology. The expression mythology which was immaterial until now into Indian scripture became a keystone for all subsequent left historians.
4) Prior to this, ‘Bharat’ was a homogenous land of Vedic origin with abundant collections of systematically narrated literature, Sanatani historicity, and archeology-facilitated descent. But since then, the word “Aryan and outsider” had been used so copiously, that the new generation today consider it to be the oldest word of human advancement.
5) Max Muller was the architect of Aryan Invasion theory without any chronological, controlled, or hereditary proof. He had his set of anthropologists who refined this thought only to establish the presence of Missionaries. He presaged Vedic people as Aryan with a theory of their immigration from outside. It was a menacing design to create a rupture in society. The Vedic people were termed as foreigners on Indian soil.
6) The Vedic language Sanskrit which was the mother of all the regional languages in Bharat, was connived to be called a foreign language. Much of the predicaments related to linguistic divergence among various states post-independence were enshrined into harming the status of Sanskrit and cutting it off from its Bharat origin.
7) Following Max Muller’s scheme to initiate the word Aryan in 1853 as an ‘outsider for India’, a storyline was steadily built around Sanskrit as a foreign language. The only raison d'être was to shame and put an end to the practice of Sanskrit learning and thus making the Sanatani masses impermeable to their ancient and magnificent learning. And it happened over a significant interlude of time. Macaulay added by Muller introduced English education and closed down Gurukul and Sanskrit education analytically and with precision, almost.
8) Muller penned a book “Muller: Biography of words and the Home of Aryans” to complement his design. And counterfeit left historians of post-independent India, under the aegis of the first education minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad provided it enough hastening liberty.
The Scholar Extraordinary was nothing but a man employed to create a twisted, warped, contorted, deformed, disfigured, mangled and distorted translation of the Vedas.
Sorry Nirad babu, let us reverentially agree to disagree.
Author: Nirad C Chaudhuri
Publisher: Chatto & Windus (3 October 1974)
Language: English
Hardcover: 408 pages
Item Weight: 574 g
Price: 1899/-
This book is the biography of the celebrated German indologist Friedrich Max Muller who “re-discovered the glory of ancient India through the study of Sanskrit language and literature at a time when the world knew little about it”.
In this book Chaudhuri seemingly abandons his customary anti-Indian attitude to his subject, in favour of an objective one and seeks to write out the story of the life of a “great lover of India with understanding as well as with sympathy”.
Consequently, he seeks to give an honest “account of the life of a man who was scholar and thinker”, and who “was interested in presenting the rediscovered ancient India, and not Germany, to modern Indians” (Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Scholar Extraordinary, Orient Paperbacks, New Delhi, 1974 pp. 1-2).
In doing so he makes it very apparent that Max Muller was not just an authority in Ideology but a surveyor of ideas.
Chaudhuri says: “But Max Muller’s position and reputation were not those of a specialised scholar; he was an intellectual playing a part in the mental history of his times by making people aware of new ideas extending view to new horizons. His fame spread out from the scholarly field to the lay world like that of Darwin or Einstein, but with a stronger and wider impingement which bore practical result in some countries” (ibid., p. 7).
The book penned in 1974, by bringing Max Muller back from forgetfulness in the public eye won the admiration of many.
The great Congress scholar C. D. Narasimhaiah said, “Mr. Chaudhuri has made ample amends for his poor and irresponsible writing by contributing an excellent work of scholarship in his recent book on Max Muller, Scholar Extraordinary” (C. D. Narasimhaiah, Moving Frontiers of English Studies in India, S. Chand and Co., New Delhi, 1977, p. 29).
The fine-points received from Nirad babu’s book, can be summed up as follows:
**Muller translated the Upanishads for Schelling, and researched on Sanskrit language under Franz Bopp who was the first methodical academic of the Indo-European languages
**Muller translated and published a compilation of Indian fables called Hitopadesha
**Muller published the complete Rig Veda in Sanskrit using manuscripts obtainable in England, found in the collection of the East India Company
**He powerfully believed in the requirement for reforms in Hinduism in order to overlay views of Christianity on former
**Under his leadership, the British Empire funded a huge sum of money for education reforms in India.
However ther are facts in great quantities that this book does not say. Let us sum-up those, pointwise:
1) Max Muller was in fact, a draftsman of an insidious design. He went on to generate a fantasy of many a deceitful theory all manufactured on fictional premises which were carried forward by left historians afterward. The idea was to create a fissure in society, cement the division and foster a stumpy self-esteemed self-hating Hindu society. To this end, Muller supported the Brahmo Samaj movement and believed that the Samaj will invent an Indian form 'Christianity', since he was too frantic to bring Christianity into India, with the intention that the religion of the Hindus be doomed.
2) The generation of tomorrow educated in a convent and enthused by the covetousness of the west cannot even distantly imagine the scheme of Vedic Cultural and civilizational flamboyance. Instead, they classify it with nuances like Arya, Aryan invasion, Dravidians, Animist, Tribal, Aboriginals, Dalit, Hindu Mythology. Worst of all, they would not learn their ancient scripture, literature, and their pristine language Sanskrit.
In this respect we ask: Who introduced these words and senses? Is there a Vedic spirit?
None of the words mentioned above is Vedic creation but smuggled and dishonestly planted by Missionaries, under the aegis of by Max Muller.
3) Max Muller was the first man who initiated a novel word Aryan in 1853 to the Indian milieu in our social glossary which went on to describe a compassionate concept of distinctive racial, linguistic, and origin classification. Consistent with him, ‘Aryan is an outsider who moved into the Bharat’. The intention was to push the word “Outsider and Aryan” to disgrace the Pre Vedic lineage. And just two simple words turn the “Dasavatar the evolution of Lord Vishnu” into Humane form so methodically portrayed in the religious scripture into mythology. The expression mythology which was immaterial until now into Indian scripture became a keystone for all subsequent left historians.
4) Prior to this, ‘Bharat’ was a homogenous land of Vedic origin with abundant collections of systematically narrated literature, Sanatani historicity, and archeology-facilitated descent. But since then, the word “Aryan and outsider” had been used so copiously, that the new generation today consider it to be the oldest word of human advancement.
5) Max Muller was the architect of Aryan Invasion theory without any chronological, controlled, or hereditary proof. He had his set of anthropologists who refined this thought only to establish the presence of Missionaries. He presaged Vedic people as Aryan with a theory of their immigration from outside. It was a menacing design to create a rupture in society. The Vedic people were termed as foreigners on Indian soil.
6) The Vedic language Sanskrit which was the mother of all the regional languages in Bharat, was connived to be called a foreign language. Much of the predicaments related to linguistic divergence among various states post-independence were enshrined into harming the status of Sanskrit and cutting it off from its Bharat origin.
7) Following Max Muller’s scheme to initiate the word Aryan in 1853 as an ‘outsider for India’, a storyline was steadily built around Sanskrit as a foreign language. The only raison d'être was to shame and put an end to the practice of Sanskrit learning and thus making the Sanatani masses impermeable to their ancient and magnificent learning. And it happened over a significant interlude of time. Macaulay added by Muller introduced English education and closed down Gurukul and Sanskrit education analytically and with precision, almost.
8) Muller penned a book “Muller: Biography of words and the Home of Aryans” to complement his design. And counterfeit left historians of post-independent India, under the aegis of the first education minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad provided it enough hastening liberty.
The Scholar Extraordinary was nothing but a man employed to create a twisted, warped, contorted, deformed, disfigured, mangled and distorted translation of the Vedas.
Sorry Nirad babu, let us reverentially agree to disagree.
Displaying 1 of 1 review