To this book

We are what we know. We know what is handed down. Our daily life is organised by “historical narrations”. Universally. To judge over the validity of “historical narrations” and of history, we must know all about those narrators of history. Today, and during the last two centuries, all narrators of history are educated in institutions created by European Christians. They narrate history incoherently though the history all over is coherent and interdependent.

The libraries are flooded by incoherent deliberations and with books that are copied and pasted from other books. 

This is more so since the rise of the Ottoman Empire, since the blockade of the land route and beginning of search for a sea route to India, and all that has followed thereafter until our days. Why do they narrate incoherently though historical developments are coherent and interdependent by its nature? Why do they copy and paste and duplicate?

To judge over the validity of “historical narrations” in their books, the authors of this book search and investigate into the acquired qualifications and “careers” of all main narrators of this history. The search is based on primary documents. The result of this search is thrilling, mysterious and stunning. We are fed by books that are based on secondary sources. These books are mere propaganda, which should be stored in “bad libraries”.

The result of this search has banged on the Pandora’s Box and it is open now.  

About the Authors

PRODOSH AICH (1933), born in Kolkata, studied PHILOSOPHY in India, ETHNOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY and SOCIOLOGY in Germany, taught social sciences at the universities at Cologne, (Germany), Rajasthan (Jaipur, India) and Oldenburg (Germany).

He wrote Farbige unter Weißen (Coloured amongst Whites) in 1962. Two of his books: Die Indische Universität (The Indian University) 1971 and Rathaus-Plünderer (City-hall Plunderers) 1986 were sabotaged.

Preis des aufrechten Gangs (Thorns on a Righteous Path) in 2001 includes Die indische Universität and tales all about the struggle that went on for thirty-five years. Lügen mit langen Beinen (January 2003; LIES WITH LONG LEGS (August 2004)

Besides books he has made radio features and documentary films for Television. He is an Indian though living in Germany for a longer period than most Germans.

M.V.R Nair was born in Thiruvananthapuram in 1976. After completing his studies in Civil Engineering from University of Kerala, he started his technical career in India, At present, he is continuing his technical career abroad. He considers himself a history enthusiast with an active interest in ‘Indology’. He has been communicating with Dr. Aich after reading the book ‘Lies with long legs’ and working with him ever since in search of truths.

Truths.

European Christians in History

War, Robbery, Murder, Genocide, Occupation, Exploitation

?

Documented by

Prodosh Aich and MVR Nair

Prodosh Aich & MVR Nair

 Truths.

War,  Robbery,  Murder,  Genocide,  Occupation,  Exploitation

Churches,  Universities,

Demigods,  like  Max  Müller  prepare  the  Ground

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PREFACE

Life is full of surprises. The paths to insight, knowledge and truth are also full of surprises. The authors of this book come together by remarkable circumstances. These two authors belong to two distant generations. They live also at two distant places. The younger one is born in 1976, and brought up in Kerala, India. The other is born in 1933, and brought up in Bengal, India. The connecting link is that both are on the paths to gain insights, to acquire knowledge and to get to truths. Both authors are on search. Both authors are not inclined to take it as a coincidence that they have come together. Not even as unforeseeable coincidences. Both authors have learnt to shed off beliefs and superstitions. They want to know. They try to explain whatever comes across.

There are many persons on the paths to gain insights, to acquire knowledge and to get to truths. The contemporary societies do not offer facilities to getting together of these persons. How could they get together? In this particular case, the two authors of this book, both are agonized by the distortions of the cultural heritage of Bharatavarsa, a vast land which has later been named India by foreign people. These deliberate distortions of the cultural heritage of Bharatavarsa have been brought into the world by the foreign occupants and then further cultivated by their local stooges. In the beginning of their getting together the agony of the two authors is at different realms and levels.

There are many persons suffering from such agonies. But how could they get together? Both authors are also distressed becoming more and more sensitive on the continuous worsening of the Era of Vasco da Gama, which began by the declaration of a War by the European Christians on the rest of the world in the 15th century. The Vatican sanctioned the Kings of Portugal and Spain to occupy foreign lands and to annex these lands to their kingdoms.

This World War is being executed by European Christian Kingdoms under different masks. This World War is based on robbery, rape, murder, genocide, recruiting mercenaries, exploitation and sustained exploitation of people all over the world. European Christians do suppress this past governing over mass media.

From the beginning of this inhuman Era till this day, manifold efforts are undertaken to veil and cover the vicious doings of the European Christians as well. Yet it seems, despite everything, the mind of a substantial number of human beings cannot be managed to that extent that they do not register contradictions in the numerous tales told.

One such contradiction determines the younger one of the authors, born in 1976, living somewhere in the world, to the elder one, born in 1933, living somewhere in the world, to write a long e-mail on December 23, 2009:

“... Please allow me to thank you for your excellent work titled "Lies with long legs". (I got this email of yours from Shri. Sanjay Chaudhri) I read "Lies with long legs" during Aug 2009, ever since I have been not able to stop myself from reading it again and again. The book is a mine of knowledge and it essentially demolishes many long standing myths perpetrated by the colonialists. I am writing this mail for clarification of one doubt regarding Max Mueller. In your book, you have emphatically stated that Max Mueller's educational qualification (both his M.A & Ph.D) are based on "hearsay" and no documentary evidences support this claim.

But according to wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_M%C3%BCller ( ...)”.

This mail has lit a spark. The elder one has responded. This spark has consequences; unforeseeable coincidences? This is the beginning that two searchers and re-searchers for truths get together, toil together that has lead to the book that has been completed in September 2014. The seed of December 23, 2009, seeking a clarification of one apparently negligible issue of swindle regarding Max Müller, has sprouted, the sprout has grown and the growth reveals a world of swindles. The seed was of a “Banyan Tree”.

None of these two searchers and re-searchers would have continued this search in the way they have done and would have written this book individually. These two searchers and re-searchers have never met personally, never talked to each other on telephone. They have made use of the digital technology which is a typical product, a typical invention of the Era of Vasco da Gama. Unforeseeable coincidences?

These two searchers and re-searchers have taken note of George Orwell‘s novel “Nineteen Eighty-four” as an exemplary “intellectual” product of the Era of Vasco da Gama. Being a European Christian, George Orwell successfully veil the war-crimes committed by the European Christians and divert attentions creating a virtual world of a Big Brother’s “official deception, secret surveillance, and manipulation of the past by a totalitarian or authoritarian state”. This “Nineteen Eighty-four” is manipulation of human past par excellence. George Orwell ignored completely even the recent history that the European Christians, represented by the Pope and Kings of Spain and Portugal declared War on the rest of the world in the 15th century, a war that has not come to an end yet. The non-Catholic Kings in Europe have taken over the War from the Catholics and this declared World War by the European Christians is still accelerating. The Anglo-Saxon Christians, in Kingdoms or in so-called democratic states are in the forefront since the 18th century.

George Orwell is being celebrated by those major profiteers of this World War and by their university-trained “intellectual prostitutes”. In majority, the “intellectual prostitutes” are European Christians. And there non-Christian stooges as well, integrated in the same culture. George Orwell was, to be benevolent, at best blinded. He did not take note of the criminal developments of arms, of the Atom bombs dropped in Japan by his fellow European Christians who are still keeping foreign lands under occupation named “America”. He did not live long enough to experience that his not- “Big Brothers” started creating the digital technology even before “Nineteen Eighty-four” to gain absolute control of the mankind, of course not as “totalitarian states”.

No. These “Big Brothers” do it in disguise of being the champions of “democratic”, “constitutional” and “free-market” states”. We are unable to be benevolent towards these states and towards their “intellectual prostitutes”. Their Kingdoms, States, Churches and Universities practice systematically “official deception, secret surveillance, and manipulation of the past” and of course indiscriminate killings of human beings, their own “soldiers” included.

These two searchers and re-searchers, the authors of this book, know about the implications of using a “desk top” or of any other so-called fast-calculators, of using the internet, and of using the “smart phone”. They are conscious about the implications of the companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Linkedin, You Tube and the institution called Wikipedia financed by “Foundations”, founded by rich European Christians with tax-free money. Their obvious purpose is to limit the universe into their virtual worlds, and thus to manipulate the whole humankind in perfection. They bury science and create technologies to keep all human beings busy in their virtual worlds inhumanly.

The malice of this undertaking is that all these institutions are greedy too. These oligopolies are in constant competition with each other to become monopoly. The authors of this book know that their “Banyan Tree” would not have grown in those five years, from 2009 to 2014, without this malice of digital technology. They are thankful to have used this devils’ technology to bring out some of the truths. This is not unforeseeable coincidence. This is one of the major ways how truths come out.

Max Müller is a demigod in India. The Federal Republic of Germany uses Max Müller for its propaganda not only in all cultural matters in India. All over the world the Federal Republic of Germany call their propaganda institution “Goethe-Institutes”. In India, they call it Max-Mueller-Bhavan.

The intention of this manoeuvre is obvious. Young Indians should believe that in Max-Mueller-Bhavans the spirit of Max Müller prevails. It is like coming home. It is the Bhavan (residence) of Max Müller. He is not an Indian. He is more than an Indian. He has been propagated as a real friend of India and of Indians. He has saved the ancient Indian Culture, its vast literature in a no more spoken language called Sanskrit. He is much more than the Rishis, the seer-scientists of Bharatavarsa. Visiting a Max-Muller-Bhavan should create a feeling like coming home. So it is systematically propagated. This story is utter swindle and shameless as well. Yet this story has been accepted by the Republic of India. How long will this acceptance prevail?

The authors of this book on their search and re-search are thankful to this Max Müller, who has left behind so many authentic traces and trails not only to uncover his charlatanry and swindles. His case becomes exemplary as it uncovers and exposes also his consorts. Thus Max Müller uncovers the role of the European Christian Churches, Kingdoms and Universities, in short, to the growth of this “Banyan Tree”, the book titled TRUTHS.

The authors are thankful to all those persons who have been dealt with in the book for their being careless in not being able to destroy all traces and trails of their mischievous doings. They might have been too busy, always to be on the run, to have destroyed all traces and trails of their doings. They might have realised that it is more difficult to undo all traces and trails than to lay false tracks or to heave rubbish on traces and trails, layers after layers. Whatsoever, they have thus contributed to reveal truths. This is a way how truths come out.

Of all documented primary sources, the collections of personal and private letters of the major actors have proved to be most reliable. Especially the handwritten letters. Deciphering Max Müller’s letters to his mother is a terribly difficult job. These are written in German handwriting letters of his time (1823 – 1900). His handwriting is, mildly stated, difficult to read. It is difficult to identify contemporary persons able to read in a German script that is older than the Sütterlin scripts.

Many thanks to Helga Bross. She toiled a lot to learn reading the old Kurrent scripts in Max Müller’s style and then helped the authors to decipher and transcript those many letters. Unforeseeable coincidences? Or is this a way how truths are revealed?

Contents

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1 PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 2 WHO IS MAX MÜLLER M.A.?

CHAPTER 3 FRIEDRICH MAXIMILIAN’S SCHOOL DAYS AT LEIPZIG

CHAPTER 4 WHICH QUALIFICATIONS DOES

CHAPTER 5 LEARNING SANSKRIT IN GERMANY IN GENERAL AND AT LEIPZIG IN PARTICULAR

CHAPTER 6 WHAT DOES FRIEDRICH MAXIMILIAN

CHAPTER 7 EUROPEANS ENCOUNTERING SANSKRIT

CHAPTER 8 WHY DOES FRIEDRICH MAXIMILIAN GO TO PARIS?

CHAPTER 9 WHAT DOES FRIEDRICH MAXIMILIAN

CHAPTER 10 WHAT DID FRIEDRICH MAXIMILIAN MÜLLER

CHAPTER 11 THE ANCIENT LANGUAGE SANSKRIT HOW DOES IT TRAVEL FROM

CHAPTER 12 WHAT DOES FRIEDRICH MAXIMILIAN MÜLLER DO IN LONDON?

CHAPTER 13 FRIEDRICH MAXIMILIAN MÜLLER

CHAPTER 14 THE EUROPEAN SANSKRIT SCHOLARS

CHAPTER 15 DOES MAX MÜLLER FLEE ALSO FROM LONDON? OR DOES HE SEEK A REFUGE AT OXFORD?

CHAPTER 16 “A CONFESSION” CAME PRIOR TO THE MOMENTS OF TRUTH. MOMENTS OF TRUTH BEGIN TO ARRIVE

CHAPTER 17 MOMENTS OF TRUTH BEGIN TO CONTINUE

CHAPTER 18 MOMENT OF TRUTHS – HOUR OF DECISION

CHAPTER 19 INDOLOGY, LINGUISTICS,

CHAPTER 20 DIRTY MORASS ALL-EMCOMPASSING

CHAPTER 21 EPILOGUE

INTRODUCTION

This book does not pretend to deal with history. This book deals with our past and with our present by connecting facts that have been disconnected by so-called philosophers, historians, and social scientists in general and by “scholars extraordinary” in particular. It looks back to ancient heritage based on primary documents and evidences.

This book does not intend to describe our past, does not intend to add just another story to the lot, as modern historians do. It simply puts facts coherently together that are based on primary documentary sources. It is a report of a rigorous scrutiny of secondary sources. It puts scholars and their scholarly deliberations to the test of validity collating their biographies and their deliberations with the primary documents.

The authors of this book do not claim to be scholars in the prevailing international academic culture. They have become simple-minded in course of time. They just want to know things and matters as these actually are and how these things and matters came into being. They constantly try to shed off virtual worlds created by superstitions, beliefs, ideologies, systems of artificial terminology and all that goes with these creations. They do exercise in careful reading. And while they read, they raise questions and questions, digging back to the beginning, to the origin.

This methodology is learnt from the wisdom that is practiced in daily life through ages in all human societies. This wisdom is simple. Whenever someone tells a tale, two simple questions are to be put to begin with: who is the narrator and how does the narrator come to know what he is telling about.

The authors begin the presentation of their documentary journey to our past and present putting these two simple questions to a Max Müller, M.A. Why Max Müller, M.A.? All queries to human cultural heritage automatically lead to the “East”, to “Orient” and thus to the cultural heritage of Bharatavarsa, a vast land which has later been named India by foreign people. None else has left behind more printed pages on the “East” and on “India” than Max Müller. He has also claimed to be the first human being performing the remarkable Hercules-job, collecting and editing the oldest book that the humankind has ever known: the complete Rig Veda in the Sanskrit script. Sanskrit is an ancient language.

Another reason to begin this search and re-searches exemplarily with the detailed biography of Max Müller is that he is kept as a demigod in the Gallery of all-time Scholars very high who seemingly excelled in the Science of Ancient Cultures, as one of those European Christian intellectual giants. In any standard books on History and culture we find quotes like:

“The German Indologist H. Jacobi came independently to similar conclusions and dated the beginning of the Vedic period in the middle of the 5th millennium. Mostly one followed, however, the dating set by the famous German Indologist Max Mueller who taught in Cambridge in the late 19th century. Setting out from the lifetime of the Buddha around 500 BC he dated the origin of the Upanishads in the centuries from 800 to 600 BC as the philosophy in them had originated before Buddha’s deeds. The Brahmana– and Mantra texts preceded these in the centuries from 1000 to 800 respectively from 1200 to 1000 BC. Today one dates the oldest Vedic text, that of Rigveda, into the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. Since the Vedas soon after this genesis as a divine manifestation were not allowed to be changed anymore and handed down to our contemporary time by priest families verbally in an unbelievably precise manner, they can now be considered, after their dating can be regarded as being fixed at least in specific centuries, as historical sources of first rank for the history of the Vedic society in northern India.”

Nothing in this quote is based on primary sources. Absolutely nothing. These types of loose writings are based actually on “modern-science-rituals” of “copy and paste” from available printed pages. Take palatable parts from printed secondary sources, add some new bits of “information” or “imagination”, make it plausible, and make it sellable. In this way these secondary-source-writings create virtual worlds of fantasy with sellable qualities only.

Unless the claims are collated with career-data of the celebrated authors, the truth will never be unveiled. None of the claims of any European Christian intellectual giants have been challenged or put to the test of validity. This is unsurprisingly done in this book. In course of the journey along with the real biography of Max Müller, M.A., for example, it is revealed, we apologise looking a little ahead, that his claims are swindles. It is also revealed that his biography is exemplary to this culture. We are surprised to note that Max Müller was kept on the payroll of the British East India Company to accomplish his scholarly jobs; from the very beginning of his occupational career. Yes, the British East India Company. And what did the British East India Company do in Bharatavarsa?

It is remarkable that in the cultural heritage of Rig Veda there is no mention of a land or of a geographical area which is called “India”. This is all the more remarkable because this cultural heritage includes vast number of profound books on knowledge, science, philosophy and literature. Rig Veda is the first of the four Vedas composed in the Vedic language. The other profound books are handed-down in the Sanskrit language that emerged later. There are two more ancient languages, Prakrit and Pali following Sanskrit. Also in the post Vedic books in the Sanskrit language there is indeed mention of a vast geographical area of culture called Bharatavarsa. The name “India” is obviously accorded by foreign people, most probably by the Hellenes in the Greek language. For convenience the authors of this book use “India” keeping Bharatavarsa in mind.

After the unsuccessful foray of Alexander the Macedonian, about 2400 years back, the Hellenistic diplomat Megasthenes stays in Bharatavarsa as Ambassador of Seleucus I for eleven years. He writes four bulky volumes on his observations and experiences there, but he does not write on the Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, Sutras, Brahmanas and the likes, nor makes any special references to languages. This may indicate that the Hellenes were quite familiar with these books and with the languages. However, this is not known. It is known that the cultural heritage of India was not brought to Christian Europe in the Greek language. Whatever the Hellenes have reported on India comes to the rest of Europe much later, after the Europeans have lived around a thousand years in Christianity.

The first recorded real encounter of European Christians with India goes back to the beginning of the 16th century. The “Thomas Christians” a few hundred years earlier, were immigrants in the south of Bharatavarsa. They never went back to Europe. Vasco da Gama was the next. Vasco da Gama and the “Vasco da Gamas” do not arrive in India on foray like Alexander the Macedonian or quite a few Islamic ruffians; they are on war and lay the foundation of foreign occupation of “India”, along with the Christian Orders of the Vatican in Goa.

Yet, whatever is known about this ancient cultural heritage of Bharatavarsa in our time is not conveyed in Latin or in Portuguese languages. These are conveyed mainly in the English language. This is so in today’s India as well. Most of the authors of those books are Europeans Christians from British “United Kingdom”. The questions arise inevitably, why in English and how these authors writing in English or in some other contemporary European languages could know about the ancient cultural heredity of Bharatavarsa? Did they learn the Vedic, Sanskrit, Prakrit or Pali languages? Where, when, from whom, for how long?

The knowledge accumulated in Bharatavarsa in course of time immemorial is stored in the Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, Sutras, Brahmanas and the likes, either in the Vedic language or in the Sanskrit language. Before the creation of scripts these treasures were preserved in oral-tradition. The oral-tradition exists also in today’s India, parallel to the written-tradition that emerged logically much later than the oral-tradition. The parallel existence of oral and written tradition has preserved the ancient books undistorted.

At least three gulfs have to be bridged before one reaches the treasures stored in the Vedic language and the Sanskrit language. The modern European languages have emerged recently. There is an immense gap in terms of time. Another gap is in terms of the difference in culture. Third gap is in terms of the differences in depth and richness of these two sets of languages, the Vedic language and the Sanskrit language in one side, and the European languages on the other. Were these divides bridged? How could these divides be bridged?

All major European Christian authors have, however, claimed that they translated the Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, Sutras, Brahmanas and the likes from the original “Sanskrit” language. The Vedas are composed in the Vedic language. The Sanskrit language is post-Vedic. Well, we may let this ignorance regarding the Vedic language be.

But how do they overcome those three Gulfs? Apart from the issues of their ignorance regarding the Vedic language, their efforts bridging the Gulfs, it has then to be explicated at least where, when, from whom and for how long these European Christian authors had chances to learn this obscure foreign language called Sanskrit.

The next issue is to scrutinise the life-career of those European Christian authors individually, beside Max Müller, who handed-down the accumulated knowledge in Bharatavarsa to their fellow European Christians in European languages. This may appear to be an easy undertaking whenever one gets into a “modern” library. There are so many books and plenty of reference books in the libraries introducing and specifying those individual European Christians who are credited accomplishing this difficult performance. But is it so? How reliable are these printed papers?

It is, de facto, not an easy undertaking to scrutinise all those printed papers. One has to demand proofs for almost each sentence. These readily available references books in the libraries do not disclose their sources. Therefore it is needed to search for primary sources in the archives. Whenever primary source is absent, the only conclusion would be that the version that has been scrutinised is a fake.

The readily available reference books do not stand this test. These books are deceptive packages. These books are not authentic. These books do not carry truths. Arriving at this point one has to search for sources, for primary sources, look into the bio-data of those individual European Christians in details to collate their writings to their bio-data. One has to collate each and every “fact” in the reference books with original documents. This has to be learnt by own experiences. We, the authors of this book, have undergone this toilsome process.

Scholars belonging to this culture have never learnt to question their celebrated “intellectual giants” whether, where, for how long and in which educational institutions they acquired their claimed qualifications and abilities to read and understand the books written in the Vedic or in the Sanskrit languages. We, the authors of this book, have questioned these celebrated “intellectual giants” decorating the reference books. What were their sources? Did they critically check their sources? Or were they just “imaginative”?

These are the issues dealt in this book. The results of scrutinises presented in this book are based on documented primary sources only. The logic is simple and straightforward. Any deliberation which cannot be traced back to a primary source, and the referred primary source cannot stand the test of its validity, is faked. It is a tiresome searching job no doubt. But this hardship is necessary. This book is a proof that most of the secondary sources do not carry historical truths even in parts. The consequent application of this simple and straightforward method of search and re-search has banged on the box of Pandora.

This book opens up the whole panorama of swindles of the prevailing Era of Vasco da Gama. This Era is rooted in the declaration of War on the rest of the world by the European Christians in the 15th century. This declaration of War on the rest of the world is documented by two Papal Bulls.

A War is never an end in itself, never a self-purpose. A War does never fall from the blue. A War is always planned and triggered by the better equipped power to gain economic power at the cost of others. A War does never come to an end before the better equipped power wins. Or the better equipped power loses. There are always losers and winners. No exceptions.

This book looks back to the beginning and looks into the continuous Warfare still going strong. The authors call this war to be the World War I, which is marked by relentless robbery, rape, murder, genocide, occupation, extensive exploitation and sustained exploitation!

The authors apologise for using their simple, straight, undiplomatic, academically unusual language; and also for continuous references and reminders to hard facts. It might appear that certain hard facts are being repeated. It is not exactly so. The repetitions of identical facts are not just repetitions; these repeated identical facts open up other panoramas, many other perspectives, in different contexts. They become more comprehensive vis-a-vis new contexts.

The contents of documented primary sources are exactly cited and are not just reproduced in parts or narrated. Our book does not intend to be entertaining, does not intend to make anybody believe anything, but to unveil truths, removing rubbish and dirty covers, layers after layers, which have been deliberately thrown.

Along with the rigorous scrutiny of Max Müller’s biography, all other demigods and the major actors in this celebrated gallery are also taken under rigorous scrutiny with their economical, political and cultural background as well as their social settings. The box of Pandora is thus wide open.

CHAPTER 1

PROLOGUE

Modern scholars and their sciences

“No one who is at all acquainted with the position which India occupies in the history of the world, would expect to find many synchronisms between the history of the Brahmins and that of other nations before the date of the origin of Buddhism in India. Although the Brahmins of India belong to the same family, the Aryan or Indo-European family, which civilised the whole of Europe, the two great branches of that primitive race were kept asunder for centuries after their first separation. The main stream of the Aryan nations has always flowed towards the North West. No historian can tell us by what impulse those adventurous Nomads were driven on, through Asia towards the isles and shores of Europe. The first start of these world-wide migrations belongs to a period far beyond the reach of documentary history; to times when the soils of Europe had not been trodden by either Celts, Germans, Slavonians, Romans or Greeks. But whatever it was, the impulse was as irresistible as the spell which, in our own times, sends the Celtic tribes towards the prairies or the regions of gold across the Atlantic. It requires a strong will, or a great amount of inertness, to be able to withstand the impetus of such national, or rather ethnical movements. Few will stay behind when all are going. But to let one’s friends depart, and then to set out ourselves – to take a road which, lead where it may, can never lead us to join those again who speak our language and worship our gods – is a course which only men of strong individuality and great self- dependence are capable of pursuing. It was the course adopted by the southern branch of the Aryan family, the Brahmanic Aryans of India and the Zoroastrians of Iran.

At the first dawn of traditional history we see these Aryan tribes migrating across the snow of the Himâlaya southward to the ‘Seven rivers’ (the Indus, the five rivers of the Panjâb and the Sarasvati), and ever since India has been called their home. That before that time they had been living in more northern regions, within the same precincts with the ancestors of the Greeks, the Italians, the Slavonians, Germans and Celts, is a fact as firmly established as that the Normans of William the conqueror were the Northmen of Scandinavia. The evidence of language is irrefragable, and it is the only evidence worth listening to with regard to ante-historical periods. It would have been next to impossible to discover any traces of relationship between the swarthy natives of India and their conquerors, whether Alexander or Clive, but for the testimony borne by language. What other evidence could have reached back to times when Greece was not peopled by Greeks, nor India by Hindus? Yet these are the times of which we are speaking. What authority would have been strong enough to persuade the Grecian army, that their God and their hero ancestors were the same as those of King Porus, or to convince the English soldier that the same blood was running in his veins and in the veins of the dark Bengalese? ... There was a time when the ancestors of the Celts, the Germans, the Slavonians, the Greeks, and Italians, the Persians, and the Hindus were living together within the same fences, separate from the ancestors of the Semitic and Turanian races.

It is more difficult to prove that the Hindu was the last to leave this common home, that he saw his brothers all depart towards the setting sun and that then, turning towards the south and the east, he started alone in search for a new world. But as in his language and in his grammar he has preserved something of what seems peculiar to each of the northern dialects singly, alone, as he agrees with the Greek and the German where the Greek and the German seem to differ from all the rest, and as no other language has carried off so large a share of the common Aryan heirloom – whether roots, grammar, words, myths or legends – it is natural to suppose that, though perhaps the eldest brother, the Hindu was the last to leave the central home of the Aryan family.

The Aryan nations, who pursued a north-westerly direction, stand before us in history as the principal Nations of North-western Asia and Europe. They have been the prominent actors in the great drama of the history, and have carried to their fullest growth all the elements of acting life with which our nature is endowed. They have perfected society and morals, and we learn from their literature and works of art the elements of science, the laws of art, and the principles of philosophy. In the continual struggle with each other and with Semitic and Turanian races, these Aryan nations have become the rulers of history, and it seems to be their mission to link all parts of the world together by the chains of civilisation, commerce, and religion. In a word, they represent the Aryan man in his historical character.

But while most of the members of the Aryan family followed this glorious path, the southern tribes were slowly migrating towards the mountains which gird in the north of India. After crossing the narrow pass of the Hindukush or the Himâlaya, they conquered or drove before them, as it seems without much effort, the aboriginal inhabitants of the Trans-Himalayan countries. They took for their guides the principal rivers of northern India, and were led by them to new homes in their beautiful and fertile valleys.”

These few lines tell precisely the prevailing Modern History of Human Culture in a nutshell. Every sentence of this quotation seems to carry findings of meticulous research by scholars that have been summed up in these lines. Is it so? It is not so. Not a single source has been mentioned. So, for readers, for us, for our understanding there is only one alternative left. Either believe in this told history or reject. Nothing can be checked. Nothing can be known. As it is just mentioned, Modern History of Human Culture is founded on these lines whatsoever. Never before lines like these were published. Not a single line in this quote has been revised. Modern Scholars have believed in these findings and have accepted these findings. Willingly, as it appears. One needs only to consult published literature.

These lines are quoted from a celebrated scholarly book published in 1859 by a renowned scholar of that time who is well-celebrated till today. The inner title-page of this book is noteworthy. Here it is.

As simple - minded searchers, we have learnt to adopt the wisdom of our ancestors that is universally practiced in daily life through ages. Whenever we hear a tale or see something, we are alert and we are careful. From the inner title-page we come to know that the author is one Max Müller. He has acquired the academic degree of a Master of Arts. We all know that “Master of Arts” is an academic degree. It is, in simpler words, academy-leaving-certificate indicating that the holder of the certificate did consume his years in the academy successfully. It is not a research degree. Research Degrees can only be acquired by doing and publishing independent research. These are post M.A. degrees. Research Qualifications can also be acquired by doing and publishing research works.

Therefore, we conclude that Max Müller, M.A., did not acquire a research a research degree up to the year 1859. This does not mean that Max Müller, M.A. has not acquired research qualifications. It would have been a better decoration of the inner-title page referring to eventual published research reports. We must look out whether, when, where and on what subjects he has done independent research. We have taken a note of our query and we shall follow it up. We must also know where and from which College or University Max Müller has acquired his academic degree of a Master of Arts.

*****

The title of the book “A HISTORY OF ANCIENT SANSKRIT LITERATURE” assumes that Max Müller, M.A. has thoroughly studied ancient Indian history, ancient Indian literature and ancient Indian culture handed-down in an ancient Indian language called Sanskrit. We shall search for primary sources to check up these claims.

We have read the sub-title of the book: “SO FAR AS IT ILLUSTRATES THE PRIMITIVE RELIGION OF THE BRAHMINS” several times. The sub-title tells that Max Müller, M.A. has also acquired thorough knowledge of religions in general and specific knowledge of the religion of the Brahmins. And that the religion of the Brahmins has been qualified by Max Müller, M.A. as primitive. We shall search for primary sources to check up where and how he acquired these claimed competences. And we shall also have to know how Max Müller, M.A. defined the term “primitive”.

*****

Further we are informed by the inner title page of the book that Max Müller, M.A. has also been attached to many learned institutions. We come to know as well that, at least in 1859, Max Müller was “Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford; Correspondent de l'Institut lmpérial de France; Foreign Member of the Royal Bavarian Academy; Honorary Member of the Royal Society of Literature; Corresponding Member of the Asiatic Society of Bengal; and of the American Oriental Society; Member of the Asiatic Society of Paris, and of the Oriental Society of Germany; and Taylorian Professor in the University of Oxford.”

We admit we are unable to take this inner-title-page of the book. We do not find any systematic relationship between these 8 (eight) different institutions and Max Müller, M.A. as the author of a book titled: A HISTORY OF ANCIENT SANSKRIT LITERATURE. As simple-minded readers and searchers for truths we wished to comprehend the purpose of all these information on the inner-title-page of this book. Yes, what could be the purpose? What is the purpose?

Then we stumbled on “Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford” on the top of the list and “Taylorian Professor in the University of Oxford” at the end. A college, we all know, is not a university. Colleges are for teaching and not for research. British Colleges at Oxford are no exceptions. For all practical purposes, “All Souls College” at Oxford is biased by Christian belief and not laden with knowledge. Colleges like All Souls College do socialize its pupils to become Christian missionaries at a more effective level than those trained solely in Christian Churches and all that goes with it. Does this mention indicate his confession of being a Christian missionary? Or should it create some other associations? We are on alert. “Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford” should not create associations that All Souls College at Oxford is a part of Oxford University.

“Taylorian Professor in the University of Oxford” does not indicate the subject. We became curious and did search and digging. The results take us in surprise. Here are the results:

A “Taylorian Professor in the University of Oxford” did never exist. There was indeed a Taylor Institution at Oxford, which was not a part of Oxford University. This institution organized lessons in “modern” European languages. Here is the story of the Taylor Institution in a nutshell. None of the colleges at Oxford, or Oxford University used to teach “modern languages”. In 1724, George I tried to initiate teaching of French and of German to train future diplomats at Oxford University. He failed. The Authorities of the University rejected the initiative. Oxford University continued teaching Greek and Latin only.

Years later, the notable architect Sir Robert Taylor (1714-1788) fixed in his will in favour of his only son, Michael Angelo Taylor, that a part of his huge fortune was to be spent to set up a foundation “for the teaching and improving those European languages … essential to Diplomatic and commercial pursuits” at Oxford. “After various legal complications and the death of Sir Robert's son, Michael Angelo, in 1834, the University inherited the sum of £65,000.” After many controversies “the Taylorian statute finally passed on 4 March 1847” for teaching European languages and started with French and German. Even the newly constructed building of the foundation differs distinctly from that of Oxford University.

It is known that Oxford University added the Boden Chair for Sanskrit to Greek and Latin in 1832. We are however unable to comprehend how a Taylorian Professor for Modern Languages, in the University of Oxford or just at Oxford, should be qualified to write a scholarly book on “A HISTORY OF ANCIENT SANSKRIT LITERATURE, SO FAR AS IT ILLUSTRATES THE PRIMITIVE RELIGION OF THE BRAHMINS.” Was it not a subject for the holder of the Boden Chair for Sanskrit? We have taken this issue as a marker.

*****

We also take note of several different status-descriptions in this remarkable list as well: Max Müller, M.A. is “Correspondent” Member, “Foreign” Member, “Honorary” Member, “Corresponding” Member and “Member” of an “Institute”, of an “Academy” in “Societies” in different Countries. What do these different types of membership indicate? It is even more puzzling when we look into the types and details of institutions mentioned. Because we stumbled, we wanted to get more details about these institutions. Here are the results:

Ø Correspondent de l'Institut lmpérial de France. This Institute is in France happened to be not royal, not national, but it is imperial. Imperial has something to do with empire and empire has something to do with a geographically extensive group of lands and peoples, is something like making a conquest, an occupation, isn’t it? When was the institution founded, by whom, for what purpose? For how long did it exist? Did it really exist? We have reasons to maintain our scepticism as we don’t find answers to our questions.

Ø Foreign Member of the Royal Bavarian Academy. We assumed Max Müller is a German name. And Royal Bavarian Academy must have been a German institution. Our assumptions are correct. Why then “foreign member”? While trying to collect a little more information on this institution we stumbled again. “Royal Bavarian Academy” of what? Elector of Bavaria Max III Joseph founded in 1769 the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Munich. Then a school of Arts for drawing and graphic in 1770. King of Bavaria Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria elevated this school to an Academy of Fine Arts in 1808 which was also called the "Royal Academy of Fine Arts" and never Royal Bavarian Academy. We wonder about this type of slip in the inner title-page of a scholarly book.

Ø Honorary Member of the Royal Society of Literature. It must had been: The Royal Society of Literature in Britain, founded in 1820 by King George IV, in order to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent"

Ø Corresponding Member of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. To be accurate Max Müller’s “Asiatic Society” could at best be the “Asiatick Society of Bengal”, founded in 1784 in Calcutta by Sir William Jones. He is considered to be a scholarly demigod. A detailed hi(story) will follow after a while in a separate chapter. At present this much: The “Asiatick Society of Bengal” was the first factory for forging history and for brainwashing. And Sir William Jones was a high-graded swindler.

Ø American Oriental Society was founded in 1842. This so-called oldest US learned society claimed to deal with basic research in languages and literatures of Asia. It also claimed to deal with subjects like philology, literary criticism, textual criticism, palaeography, epigraphy, linguistics, biography, archaeology, and the history of the intellectual and imaginative aspects of Oriental civilizations, especially of philosophy, religion, folklore and art. Is there any area of so-called Humanities left? Quite naturally all European waves, also the orient enthusiasms, reached the European “colonisers” in “America” too. But learned societies for basic research as well? Who were the “scholars”?

Ø Asiatic Society of Paris. If one puts Asiatic Society of Paris in the search machines of the web, one gets something else. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Asiatic Society of Japan - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopaedia, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and so on. If one goes deep, one finds in the “Bibliot. Nat. France cat.” a Société Asiatique, founded in1822.

Ø Oriental Society of Germany. In the search machines of the web there is no reference to a society called Oriental Society of Germany. The nearest approach would be: The Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft (DOG), which is an “Eingetragener Verein” - a registered voluntary association -, based at Berlin in Germany. The DOG was officially founded in January 1898 to foster public interest in oriental antiquities. Then there was The Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (DMG), a scholarly organization dedicated to studies on Asia and on a broader Orient. The DMG was established on 2 October 1845 in Leipzig by leading Oriental scholars from Germany, as well as members of other “Oriental Societies” such as the Asiatick Societies in Paris, London and Kolkata.

We do not know whether others also stumbled so often while studying the inner title-page of this book as we did and/or how they reacted if they did actually stumble. Nothing is handed down on this issue. We are surprised. We have become apprehensive by this simple check-up, which leads us to ask questions like: Are these simple inaccuracies? Don’t they show too many facets to be accounted for as just careless inaccuracies? We remain apprehensive. That is why we raise other questions like: Could there be a system behind these inaccuracies? Who is this Max Müller, M.A.? What is known about his life, work and career? What did he do? How did he earn his living? Which institutions recruited him? We have taken note of all these dissonances arisen in our mind about the author Max Müller, M.A.

*****

It has not escaped our attention that there are no references to the sources in the entire text we have cited in the beginning of this chapter. Before we get into the issue of sources, we would like to turn back our attention to the quoted text in the beginning and start reading it more carefully. As mentioned, we are simple-minded persons. We are slow in grasping because we read every sentence and try to comprehend the whole meaning. This is the way how we read. We apologise in advance if our mode of reading should irritate. But we are as we are.

“No one who is at all acquainted(Max Müller obviously claims to be well “acquainted”) with the position which India occupies in the history of the world (Max Müller claims to be a “global” historian), would expect to find many synchronisms (! ?) between the history of the Brahmins (We shall have to verify his claim to know all about the Brahmins correlating the claims to his biography.) and that of other nations before the date of the origin of Buddhism in India (Had there been ‘nations’ prior to Buddhism?). Although the Brahmins of India belong to the same family, the Aryan or Indo-European family (How has it been established that there was “the Aryan or Indo-European family”, when, by whom and how?), which civilised the whole of Europe, the two great branches of that primitive race were kept asunder for centuries after their first separation (“first separation”? Does Max Müller subtly intend to make us believe that there are Aryans and Aryans who are in fact Indo-Europeans? And that these “two branches of this primitive race” separated at some “pre-historic” period? That one of the branches civilised the whole of Europe? That the branch of the Brahmins was inferior to those who had civilised the whole of Europe?). The main stream of the Aryan nations has always flowed towards the North West (How does Max Müller arrive to this assertion?). No historian can tell us by what impulse those adventurous Nomads were driven on, through Asia towards the isles and shores of Europe (Has there been any systematic ‘historical research’ on this issue?). The first start of these world-wide migrations belongs to a period far beyond the reach of documentary history; to times when the soils of Europe had not been trodden by either Celts, Germans, Slavonians, Romans or Greeks (How can we know anything if it is beyond historical sources? How should Max Müller come to know about ‘the first start’?). But whatever it was (Obviously Max Müller is not keen to establish how it has been!), the impulse was as irresistible as the spell which, in our own times, sends the Celtic tribes towards the prairies or the regions of gold across the Atlantik. It requires a strong will, or a great amount of inertness, to be able to withstand the impetus of such national (?), or rather ethnical (?) movements. Few will stay behind when all are going. But to let one’s friends depart, and then to set out ourselves – to take a road which, lead where it may, can never lead us to join those again who speak our language and worship our gods (gods?) – is a course which only men of strong individuality and great self- dependence are capable of pursuing (We are left speechless by these limitless fantasies!). It was the course adopted by the southern branch of the Aryan family, the Brahmanic Aryans of India and the Zoroastrians of Iran.

At the first dawn of traditional history (What is traditional history? Who handed it down? When? Where is it available?) we see these Aryan tribes (!) migrating across the snow of the Himâlaya (Is it by any means possible to migrate ‘across the snow of the Himâlaya’ on foot?) southward to the ‘Seven rivers’ (the Indus, the five rivers of the Panjâb and the Sarasvati), and ever since India has been called their home. That before that time they had been living in more northern regions, within the same precincts with the ancestors of the Greeks, the Italians, the Slavonians, Germans and Celts, is a fact as firmly established (‘firmly established’ by whom, how and when?) as that the Normans of William the conqueror were the Northmen of Scandinavia (What is the message behind this rather poetic narration: Only Aryan “tribes” have brought ‘civilisation’ to mankind? What about the Semites? Had there been other “tribes” also?). The evidence of language is irrefragable, and it is the only evidence worth listening to with regard to ante-historical periods (Max Müller claims to be an expert in ‘Linguistics’ also!). It would have been next to impossible to discover any traces of relationship between the swarthy natives of India and their conquerors, whether Alexander or Clive, but for the testimony borne by language (Is this a subtle message that the Christian occupants of in Bharatavarsa were not ‘colonizers` in fact? Did they just visit their relatives and they claimed their legal ‘heir’, while they were plundering indiscriminately?).

What other evidence could have reached back to times when Greece was not peopled by Greeks, nor India by Hindus (Which people “peopled” Greece and India and how did Max Müller come to know this?)? Yet these are the times of which we are speaking. What authority would have been strong enough to persuade the Grecian army, that their God and their hero ancestors were the same as those of King Porus, or to convince the English soldier that the same blood was running in his veins and in the veins of the dark Bengalese? ... There was a time when the ancestors of the Celts, the Germans, the Slavonians, the Greeks, and Italians, the Persians, and the Hindus were living together within the same fences, separate from the ancestors of the Semitic and Turanian races (That is it!).

It is more difficult to prove that the Hindu was the last to leave this common home, that he saw his brothers all depart towards the setting sun and that then, turning towards the south and the east, he started alone in search for a new world. But as in his language and in his grammar he has preserved something of what seems peculiar to each of the northern dialects singly, alone, as he agrees with the Greek and the German where the Greek and the German seem to differ from all the rest, and as no other language has carried off so large a share of the common Aryan heirloom – whether roots, grammar, words, myths or legends – it is natural to suppose that, though perhaps the eldest brother, the Hindu was the last to leave the central home of the Aryan family (We shall have to scrutinise meticulously where, when, from whom Max Müller could have learnt which languages!).

The Aryan nations who pursued a north-westerly direction, stand before us in history as the principal Nations of North-western Asia and Europe. They have been the prominent actors in the great drama of the history, and have carried to their fullest growth all the elements of acting life with which our nature is endowed. They have perfected society and morals, and we learn from their literature and works of art the elements of science, the laws of art, and the principles of philosophy. In the continual struggle with each other and with Semitic and Turanian races, these Aryan nations have become the rulers of history, and it seems to be their mission to link all parts of the world together by the chains of civilisation, commerce, and religion. In a word, they represent the Aryan man in his historical character (Is this the message that the Aryan tribes, the Aryan people, the Aryan nations have been the most decisive actors in the great drama of history? Have they perfected human society and morals? Do we learn from their literature and works the elements of science, the laws of art, and the principles of philosophy? Is this the message that in the continual struggle with each other and with Semitic and Turanian races these Aryan nations have become the rulers of history?).

But while most of the members of the Aryan family followed this glorious path, the southern tribes were slowly migrating towards the mountains which gird in the north of India. After crossing the narrow pass of the Hindukush or the Himâlaya, they conquered or drove before them, as it seems without much effort, the aboriginal inhabitants of the Trans-Himalayan countries. They took for their guides the principal rivers of northern India, and were led by them to new homes in their beautiful and fertile valleys.”

*****

We get back to the issue of sources of information. In all standard books on history, on history of culture, on Indology published after 1859 we find all those facts presented here by Max Müller as referred to in the beginning of this chapter. On this fundament, Max Müller has integrated other perceptions on society and culture without any critical check-up of the validity of the assertions. In none of the standard books on these subjects published before 1859, we find these facts presented by Max Müller. Therefore, we conclude that Max Müller has handed-down these facts for the first time in the literature on the Modern History, on Human Culture and on Indology. Thus, he is accountable for his sources.

There was no mention of the Aryan-race prior to Max Müller. He was thus the discoverer or inventor of the Aryan-race as well. He did describe the physical features of the Aryans in comparison to the rest of humankind. The Aryans were tall, strong, fair skinned, fair haired, blue or grey-eyed. In 1859 photography was yet to be invented. When did he go to the land of Aryan-origin? When did he see “Aryans”? The land of Aryan-origin, so it is told by Max Müller, was to be Central-East Asia. It is handed-down that the Venetian Marco Polo spent long years in that area in the 13th century. He has written a lot on what he had seen and experienced. Why did he not see the Aryans, why did he not write on the Aryan-Race?

We must find out how and when Max Müller discovered these facts. It is undeniable that he is accepted as an authority on all these facets of ancient “History”, on “Religions”, on “Indology”, on “Philosophy” and on “Linguistics”. Even his claim to have acquired perfect command over the ancient Language called Sanskrit is also universally accepted. He is also accountable on this issue.

A language does not travel. A language has to be transported by human beings. There are two ways. One travels to the land of that language, learns it and carries it to his land. Or one comes from that land and brings the language with him and also teaches it. We shall have to investigate how Sanskrit arrived in Europe and how European scholars of Sanskrit came to their knowledge of Sanskrit.

*****

As indicated before, we are simple-minded persons. Though we are products of the universally prevailing “educational” system created and spread by European Christians, somehow we have retained our simplicity. We practice calling a spade a spade. And we are in search of knowledge. We are too simple-minded to be able to believe. We always want to know. If we do not understand, we ask questions.

Our basic premise is:

“A good scientific theory should be explicable to a barmaid.”

We do not claim copy right for this wonderful and precise expression. This sentence is not ours. Had it been ours, we would not have claimed copy right any way. This sentence was formulated by a New Zealand-born physicist and chemist who became known as the father of nuclear physics. He is widely credited being the first "splitting the atom" in 1917 in a nuclear reaction between nitrogen and alpha particles, in which he also discovered (and named) the proton. If he could explicate his theories to a barmaid, we demand the same from all scholars in the humanities as well. We must demand from the scholars of all subjects to explicate their findings in a simple language. He was also awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908. However, we feel our New Zealand-born physicist and chemist should not have singled out the “barmaids” as less intelligent persons. “Barmaids” are not fools. We owe this sentence to Ernest Rutherford (1871 – 1937).

We were unable to accept that Max Müller and his scholarly followers wanted us to believe that the “Aryans” were tall, strong, fair skinned, fair haired, blue or grey-eyed. Our obvious query was: How do they know? When did they discover them? Did the “Aryans” ever exist?

*****

We put two and two of the “world (hi)story” in written form together. We are struck by the fact that Moses is the first landmark. He introduced “The God”. “God” revealed the truths to him only. He and his followers, the later Jews, were content considering Moses exceptionally chosen by “God”. The followers of Moses considered themselves to be exceptionally fortunate being associated with him. Jesus Christ, a Jew, is the next landmark founding “Christianity”. Mohammed (was he a Jew, or a Christian or what?) founded the “Islam”. All three of them are categorised to be of “Semitic origin”. The cultural heredity of these three landmarks determined the approach to life of the Europeans. European Christians felt inferior to the “Jews”. It is not handed-down that the Jews were keen to spread their religion. But we remember the terms “mission” and “jihad”. We won’t discuss just now, whether these campaigns were forays in disguise.

A category called “race” to differentiate human beings was not yet coined. Nor the concepts of occupation and exploitation of foreign lands and people. These concepts were coined during the “Era of Vasco da Gama” only. We shall have to search in these directions as well.

It is undeniable that since around the last two centuries the world in all walks of life is being dominated by European Christians. They have given many names for this culture to cover the roots of this culture. We are puzzled by the names of this culture as Christian, occidental, European, industrial, western, post-war–, democratic, modern, humanistic, formed, solidarity–, leisure-time–, information–, risk–, media–, open, global, television–, Internet–, information–, interactive, fun-, media-, knowledge culture, etc. etc..

We have to raise many questions like: why so many names are coined to characterize a single culture? Is it an expression of a special fantasy, special accuracy or does it only express embarrassment and helplessness; a search for identity; or a desperate attempt to veil the essential characteristics of this culture and to try to divert the focus to superficial changes caused by technological developments? What are the fundamentals of this society? We shall have to search for answers.

Putting two and two together of the “Era of Vasco da Gama” we ascertain few other concepts beside “race” and “occupation and exploitation of foreign lands and people” as well: “Indo-German” Indo-Europeans, “Aryans”, “Indo-Aryans”, “affinities, similarities, kinships and families in languages”, “defining human beings in terms of outer physical features and relating these features to determine the human, cultural and social quality of them”, just to mention a few. All these extend the area of our search and re-searches, though it begins with the “curriculum Vitae” of Max Müller.

*****

We are confronted with the remarkable fact that most of today’s “science-subjects” adding up to the “modern humanities” have emerged during the “Era of Vasco da Gama”. Fact is also that never before we were exposed to the industrial complex of mind-management. “To make others believe” is the purpose. Today it is almost all-comprehensive and almost perfect. It is not that the “scientists” of our time have become cleverer and have packed their messages more slyly. No, that’s not the case. By the heavy load of comprehensive exposures, we are losing our ability to recognise manipulation more and more.

This begins in the family. In the family, the “elders” possess the monopoly of power. First thing is to assert oneself first. It does not matter how and by which means. This principle of exercising power is also practiced at schools, on jobs, in sub-cultures and becomes part and parcel of the entire culture. Technological innovations of mass-media play a major role. Nothing depends on truth. It is the plausibility and the created images count. All sellable fakes become thus truth. The logic is primitive but effective. People wouldn’t buy it if it were not true, would they? Have we not already forgotten the media reports on the “Gulf war” of the last century, “Kosovo- air strikes”, “Gulf war again, “Afghanistan – crusade”, “Libya” and “Syria”? And the intelligent bombshells enriched with uranium that identify the villains only? We wonder whether the prevailing hypocrisy could be topped. The “drone-warfare” and its international legality earn close observations.

We must not have to apologise because of these “provocative” sentences. They may appear to be provocative. The might-media-manipulation-industry deliberately overwhelms us with disjoined information. We may appear to be provocative due to our endeavour to put issues in coherence that is, as a matter of fact, all issues are coherent. By this method, we offer resistance against the might-media-manipulation-industry that constantly tries to reduce our memory. Gradually it is becoming less than that of the hard disc of our own computer. These manipulators of opinions know very well how deeply the racial consciousness is rooted in this prevailing culture, and how to exploit this prejudice to camouflage conflicting issues.

We apologise taking a little aside and look back into the vast literature in Vedic language and in the Sanskrit language. We have studied these issues meticulously. The results will be presented in due course. At present only this much. There are quite a few features and concepts, which do not occur, in the ancient literature in Bharatavarsa. For example: belief, religion, god, temple, race, caste, only to mention a few terms which have been imported in “Indian” languages by means of projection operated by “Christian-European-Scholars”. Race and caste are contributed by the Iberian occupants of foreign lands only.

These are reasons to be sceptical when we read the lines written by Max Müller and all that goes with this writing. Therefore, to begin with, we are undertaking a thorough investigation not of his deliberations in writing. Before we get involved with his writings, we would like to get into his “Curriculum Vitae” in details to assess whether it is worth reading his writings. A detailed review of “Curriculum Vitae” of any person will show, whether, when, where, for how long, how a person could have eventually acquired knowledge in a subject that he claims to know. A detailed review of “CurriculumVitae” of Max Müller will also reveal exemplarily the epub of his teachers, his compatriots, his cultural descendants, in short, the whole culture.

We all know from experiences through the ages that social behaviour is socially inherited. Behaviour has to be learnt and internalized. We come back to our questions following our simple check-up of the text in the beginning of this chapter that was caused by the unusual layout of a “scholarly” Book: Why all these inaccuracies on the inner title page of his book which almost amount to swindle? We take liberty to reproduce the inner page at the end of this chapter of a prologue and begin a long and toilsome journey in search of truths. We reject secondary sources on principle. We depend upon primary sources. We shall keep our eyes wide open to be able to judge not only:

CHAPTER 2

WHO IS MAX MÜLLER M.A.?

His family heredity, childhood and early school days

Max Müller is born in Dessau, in a small Duchy called Anhalt-Dessau, on December 6, 1823. He was not born as Max Müller. He is Friedrich Maximilian Müller. He changes his name rather late, at sometime in 1847 while staying in England. He marries in England much later. On the marriage testimony, he is registered as Frederick Maximilian Müller. Why does he do this exercise with his name? Why did he try to conceal his identity as Friedrich Maximilian Müller? We do not know yet. We shall try to find out in due course.

Anhalt-Dessau is a small, prosperous and progressive Duchy. So it is said. Until 1603 Anhalt-Dessau was ruled by the Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, and thereafter Anhalt-Dessau was recreated, being raised to a duchy in 1807. It was located in the north-central Europe, south of Prussia, having Zerbst in between, and between the two “provinces” of Saxony. Territory wise the Duchy was about 630 square-kilometres having a maximum 60,000 in population. Dessau was the administrative town having a population of about 3,000. Frederick Leopold IV succeeded Duke Leopold III in 1817. This is the phase not only in the “German” history when the “nobles” are systematically losing their might and economic hegemony leading to the rise of Capitalism in Europe and all that went and goes with it. Occupation of foreign lands, so-called Colonialism included. A land called Germany was not created yet.

“Müller” is a traditional surname widely spread in Germany. The “Müllers” in Germany belonged to the lower strata of the “commons” in the society. Traditionally the “Müllers” were grinders of corns and seeds of all sorts.

Friedrich Maximilian’s parents Wilhelm and Adelheide Müller also gave birth to a daughter, Auguste, on 20. April 1822. Wilhelm Müller was the sixth of seven children of Christian Leopold and of Marie Leopoldine Müller. They were poor. Christian Leopold Müller was a tailor. He was often ill at stretches. Before Wilhelm Müller was three years old, all other children had expired.

Christian Leopold Müller did not try to train Wilhelm as a tailor. In spite of his poverty, he sent his son to schools. He wanted his only surviving son Wilhelm to prosper more in life by getting education. He lost his wife while Wilhelm was fourteen years old, in 1808. A year later, Christian Leopold Müller married the widow of a well-to-do master-butcher, Marie Seelmann, so that he would be able to ensure his son Wilhelm a good education. So it is told. He succeeded.

Wilhelm Müller could begin studying literature, history, and philology at the University in Berlin when he was eighteen, in 1812. We take note that Berlin is far off from Anhalt- Dessau and more expensive than the nearer off university at Leipzig. Six months later, however, Wilhelm joined the Prussian army in the “War of Liberation” against Napoleon, who was retreating from his disastrous invasion of Russia. Within a year, Wilhelm Müller became a lieutenant at the age just over nineteen. On his tour of duty, he stayed in Brussels where he got involved in a love affair that ended badly.

Wilhelm Müller resumed his studies at the University in Berlin in 1814. He completed his studies in 1817 there. While studying he discovered his affinity to cultural activities. He visited literary circles. He wrote also his own verses. He fell in love with the poetess Louise Hensel, who encouraged him in his writer-career but did not return his affections and love. He had also joined the Berliner Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache (Berlin Society for the German language). Thus he got the chance to travel to Greece, Egypt and the Middle East with the Prussian chamberlain Baron Sack. Unfortunately, because of the plague in Constantinople they stopped off in Italy. Around Easter, he parted from Baron Sack because he wanted to stay on in Italy, went to Naples and spent the summer in Rome.

On his return from Italy, he was appointed as a teacher of classic languages at Dessau in 1818. Then he took up the job of an assistant librarian in the ducal library in Dessau. A year later, he became a librarian of the small Duchy having a population of maximum 60,000 as we remember. As a librarian, however, he became a part of the administration of the Duchy though on the bottom line to begin with. He was then twenty-five.

Wilhelm Müller, being the son of a poor tailor, thus arrived at the threshold of the entry to the “high society” of Anhalt-Dessau. He made friends in circles engaged in cultural activities also outside Anhalt-Dessau. Franz Schubert will set two of his verses to music: Die Winterreise (The winter trip) and Die schöne Müllerin (The miller's beautiful wife). These two songs are played even today. Max Müller will proudly mention this in his Auld Lang Syne, published by Longmans, Green, and Co., London and Bombay in 1898 (p.42), i.e. two years before his death. Auld Lang Syne is one of our primary sources to reconstruct the real life of Friedrich Maximilian Müller.

In 1821 Wilhelm Müller, when he was 27 years old, entered into a love-match marriage with Adelheid Basedow. She was then 21 years old. Adelheid belonged to a more prominent family, a few ladder higher in the ranking of social-prestige-scale than Wilhelm, in Anhalt-Dessau. The family Basedow did not approve this love-marriage. The newly married couple got thus socially isolated.

Adelheid was granddaughter of Johann Bernard Basedow (1723-1790). He was born at Hamburg in 1723, as the son of a barber and wigmaker. However, we do not know how, he managed to come to Leipzig as a student of theology, but gave himself up entirely to the study of philology, i.e. classic-languages. In 1752 he wrote a thesis: "On the best and hitherto unknown method of teaching children of noblemen", and obtained the degree of Master of Arts from the University at Kiel in the northern part of present Germany. Why at Kiel and not at Leipzig, we do not know. The documents kept in the archives are comparatively rather meagre. He was not that important personality as Max Müller will proudly refer to Johann Bernard Basedow after hundred and eighty years in his Auld Lang Syne and in his My Autobiography published by Longmans, Green, and Co., London and Bombay.

Johann Bernard Basedow evolved to a “pedagogic reformer”. The Duke of Anhalt-Dessau, Wilhelm Leopold III welcomed him to implement his pedagogic ideas in his small Duchy. In 1774 Johann Bernard Basedow was permitted to set up a school, called Philanthropinum, in Anhalt-Dessau. “Philanthropinum” is derived from Greek and means “friend of mankind”. As simple-minded persons, we do not quite comprehend this “pedagogic reform”. We consider only facts and facts behind the facts. And, these are these.

The school opened in December 1774. The motto was, so it is said, "everything according to nature". Rich and poor were to be educated together. The curriculum was practically-based and conducted in German (rather than Latin or Greek), handicrafts were taught, there was an emphasis on games and physical exercise, and school uniform was made simple and more comfortable, so it is handed-down. The facts behind these facts are: The school was open to the children of nobles only. Yet the performances of his first pupils profoundly impressed observers. However, Johann Bernard Basedow’s heavy drinking and emotional outbursts drove away the best teachers from Philanthropinum. In 1784 Johann Bernard Basedow disconnected himself from the school, the Philanthropinum, in Anhalt-Dessau.

Adelheid’s father Ludwig Basedow (1774 – 1835) studied law at Frankfurt University. He returned to Anhalt-Dessau and joined 1807 the Anhalt-Dessau-Administration. In 1814, he then joined the Law Administration of Prussia. Anhalt-Dessau and Prussia were then having Tax disputes. Ludwig Basedow found a mutually accepted solution. Thereafter he got the job of the Head of the Administration of the small Duchy Anhalt-Dessau, still having a population of about maximum 60,000. He was later raised to the title of the lowest ranking heritable noble as Ludwig von Basedow in 1833, only two years before he expired in 1835.

Adelheid could not enjoy the social privileges of eventually being Adelheid von Basedow unlike her two elder brothers. As we recall, she had married Wilhelm Müller in 1821, long before her father was raised to the nobles in 1833. None the less, she belonged to a well to do bourgeois family in Anhalt-Dessau, already a bourgeois in the third generation. She was socially marginalized when she married Wilhelm Müller, who was just on the threshold of climbing the ladder to the class of the bourgeois, and that against the approval of her family.

Being a librarian of the Duchy Wilhelm Müller became a “Hofrat”, a title at the bottom line of a higher carrier-scale of Anhalt-Dessau administration. But he was challenged to excel. Adelheid was proud and ambitious. She pushed him. We know nothing about the education of Adelheid. She encouraged Wilhelm Müller to establish himself as a poet and as a writer and did everything she could to help her husband. Wilhelm Müller started impressively. He undertook many cultural trips together with Adelheid whenever he found a chance in his leisure times being a librarian. This was absolutely necessary to getting known in cultural circles outside Anhalt-Dessau.

Wilhelm Müller prospered. But this exercise was strenuous and exhausting as well. He would have probably become a part of the “society” in Anhalt-Dessau as a poet and as a writer. As ill luck would have it, Wilhelm Müller expired while he was just on the verge of becoming a celebrated personality as a poet and as a writer.

In July, 1827 Wilhelm Müller fell ill. Five days later, after he fell ill, he died of an attack in his sleep, just before his thirty-third birthday. Adelheid Müller was then 27 years old, Auguste 5 and Friedrich Maximilian 3 and a half. His untimely death was surrounded by rumours of suicide or murder that persisted over the years which were not favourable for the mental balance and growth of the half-orphan Auguste and Friedrich Maximilian. More over the family was being left behind in poverty without any material resources.

These are the hard facts in regard to the family and social background of Friedrich Maximilian when he is three and half years old. A lot of myths have been written and printed on and about Friedrich Maximilian Müller by Max Müller, by his British wife Georgina Max Müller, and by his son W. G. Max Müller. We take liberty of a break to look a little ahead. We reproduce here an exemplary paragraph on the family background of Friedrich Maximilian Müller which has remained undisputed as yet:

“Max Müller's mother was Adelheid, elder daughter of President von Basedow, Prime Minister of the Duchy of Dessau. She was very small, but very beautiful, clever and lively, and had a fine contralto voice; and it was from her that Max Müller inherited his intense love of music. Frau Hofrathin Müller was a highly cultivated woman, understanding English, French, and Italian perfectly. She was a woman of an eager, even passionate temperament, and her children evidently suffered early from this, as Wilhelm Müller's letters are full of warnings to her not to punish too severely, and not to expect too much from her children (babies of four and five when their father died). Her father, President von Basedow, was himself the son of a man famous in Germany in his day, the pedagogue Basedow, the forerunner of Pestalozzi and Frobel.“

This we read in: THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE FRIEDRICH MAX MÜLLER, EDITED BY HIS WIFE, in two volumes, here in volume I, Longmans, Green, and Co., 39 Parternoster Row, London, New York and Bombay 1902 by Georgina Max Müller. She is Georgina Adelaide Grenfell, born 1835, marries Friedrich Maximilian Müller in 1859 and becomes Georgina Max Müller.

We have quoted the second paragraph of the very first chapter written by Georgina Max Müller. We have taken a note that the same publisher that brought out the volumes “Auld Lang Syne” as well as “My Autobiography” by Max Müller has printed these volumes by Georgina Max Müller.

“My Autobiography” by Max Müller is another primary source and those two volumes by Georgina Max Müller are our second graded primary source. In our judgement, whatever Georgina Max Müller could write about the life of Friedrich Maximilian Müller came from Max Müller or from her own wishful phantasm. In her volumes, she has included complementary documents to Auld Lang Syne and to My Autobiography by Max Müller. We shall have to judge the quality of these documents in due course.

*****

We get back to the childhood and early school days of Friedrich Maximilian at Dessau. Adelheid has to vacate their common home after the sudden death of Wilhelm Müller. She is unable to pay the rent. She first takes refuge in the house of her parents. But very soon she shifts to a ground floor flat in a tiny house as Wilhelm Müller did not leave behind any cash amount or property for his widow and for the two little kids. She has to manage with a meagre pension granted by the Duke of Anhalt-Dessau. It is the yearly sum of 100 thalers, as long as she remains a widow and until her son has completed his twenty-first year. And thereafter she was to be entitled to draw the sum of fifty thalers for the rest of her life. Here we get an indication of the minimum sum needed for a single person to survive at that period, 50 thalers per annum.

In the archives we are unable find any hints why Adelheid Müller and her two helpless kids do not continue to stay with her affluent parents. We are unable to judge what happens in those days and months. We assume that Adelheid was sidelined or even ostracized by her parental family due to her love-marriage with Wilhelm Müller. She might have been too proud to ask for material support either from her parents, or from the affluent stepmother of Wilhelm Müller. There are no indications that these two affluent families ever communicated with each other.

It is handed-down that Adelheid had earned a reputation of being a good singer with a sweet voice. But she can neither earn additional funds for the family by singing, nor can she spare time to seek an occupation. She is solely dedicated to her two children. She is proud and brave. She does not move in the so-called society.

But she sends her children regularly visiting both the families. She does not accompany them. The children cling to the mother. And the mother clings to the children. In spite of her social isolation and of her extreme poverty Adelheid has been able to educate the kids sending both Auguste and Friedrich Maximilian to schools. There are however indications that a few friends of late Wilhelm Müller came forward to assist her in financial or other crisis now and then, and not her parents, not her brothers, not her well-to-do stepmother-in-law.

*****

The childhood of Friedrich Maximilian is hard, sad and uneventful. He suffers from chronic headaches from the very childhood till he will be 37 years old. We are unable to judge finally whether Friedrich Maximilian picks up this precarious state of his health before or after the early death of his father. It is doubtless that the life of Friedrich Maximilian changes radically caused by the sudden death of his father.

Max Müller will write two years before his death in his “My Autobiography. A Fragment”, published after his death in 1900 with a preface of his son W. G. Max Müller in the same publishing house as mentioned above, on the childhood of Friedrich Maximilian. There we read (p. 53):

“My childhood at home was often very sad. My mother, who was left a widow at twenty-eight with two children, my sister and myself, was heart-broken. The few years of her married life had been most bright and brilliant. My father was a rising poet, ... Contemporaries and friends of father, particularly Baron Simolin, a very intimate friend, who spent the Christmas of 1825 in our house, ... Anyhow, my father, whose salary was minute, seems to have been able to enjoy the few years of his married life in great comfort. The thought of saving money, however, seems never to have entered his poetical mind, and after the sudden death, due to paralysis of the heart, it was found that hardly any provision had been made for his family. Even the life insurance, which is obligatory on every civil servant, and the pension granted by the duke, gave my mother but a very small income, fabulously small, when one considers that she had to bring up two children on it. It has been a riddle to me ever since how she was able to do it.”

Friedrich Maximilian is marked by poverty from his early childhood. He is also socially isolated between two more or less affluent families. His mother is disinherited from her parental family for all practical purposes. We do not find any indication whether Adelheid Müller ever inherited her legitimate portion of her parental holdings and wealth. All these must have been depressing also for Friedrich Maximilian. None the less, “Max Müller” will write later in his autobiography (p. 53 ff):

“On my mother’s side my relatives were more civilized, and they had but little social intercourse with my grandmother and her relatives. My mother’s father was von Basedow, the president, that is Prime Minister of the duchy of Anhalt-Dessau, a position in which he was succeeded by his oldest son, my uncle. He was the first man in the town; the Duke and he really ruled the Duchy exactly as they pleased. ... My grandfather’s father again was the famous reformer of public education in Germany. He (1723–1790) ... migrated to Dessau, to become the founder of the ‘Philanthropinum’, and at the same time the path-breaker for men such as Pestalozzi (1746-1827) and Froebel (1782-1852). ...I was often told that I took after my mother’s family, whatever that may mean, and this was certainly the case in outward appearance, though I hope not in temper. My great-grandfather, the Pedagogue as he was called, was a friend of Goethe’s, and is mentioned in his poems.”

*****

The life of Friedrich Maximilian would have taken a different course if Adelheid could have left Dessau after the sudden death of her husband, Wilhelm Müller. But there is no way out. He has to live with his mother and sister in a tiny ground floor flat in a tiny house at Dessau, which is then a small town having a population of about 3,000. Adelheid is now 27 years old. She never thought of marriage again. She decides to live for her children only. She does her best looking after that both the kids do well at schools. She knows that education was the only way out, at least for Friedrich Maximilian, to do well, to prosper in life.

It is not easy for Friedrich Maximilian in the school. Dessau is a small town. His schoolmates and the teachers know all about his deprivations. He is half orphan, isolated from both of the family lines, poor, a “mummy’s darling” and partly disable being regularly attacked by severe headaches. There are very little positive aspects in his life to talk about with his schoolmates. There are only limited options left for him not to fall into depression: excel in learning, excel in sports, and learn talking on imaginative remote themes, conceived or exaggerated.

We have not found any indication that Friedrich Maximilian ever participated in any sport activities. Due to his chronic headaches, he cannot excel in learning either. He practices talking entertainingly. To begin with glorifying the fame of his father that is always a theme at home also and conceiving fantastic stories.

Max Müller will describe this period of Friedrich Maximilian’s life at Dessau and his situation there in “My Autobiography” (p. 90), written, as mentioned, at the age of around 75, far better than we ever could have done going through historical records in the archives:

“The more I think about that distant, now very distant past, the more I feel how, without being aware of it, my whole character was formed by it. The unspoiled primitiveness of life at Dessau as it was when I was at school there till the age of twelve would be extremely difficult to describe it in all its details. Everybody seemed to know everybody, and everything about everybody. Everybody knew that he was watched, and gossip, in the best sense of the word, ruled supreme in the little town. Gossip was in fact, public opinion with all its good and bad features. Still the result was that no one could afford to lose caste, and that everybody behaved as well as he could.”

As already indicated, several adverse factors could have lead Friedrich Maximilian to a traumatic life which he has to tackle from the very early childhood: we recall, the sudden death of his father, negligence by families of both sides, depressions of Adelheid, their social isolation, Adelheid’s ambitions, poverty and his severe migraines. Friedrich Maximilian has to cope with the adverse situation and to develop strategies. He makes the best of it. His basic personality is being set accordingly. He does it in his own way. We shall come along to “his way” in due courses. Presently we read in “My Autobiography” by Max Müller on the early childhood of Friedrich Maximilian (p. 52 - 57):

“My sister and I were always terrified when we were sent to visit her, for with her dishevelled grey hair, her thin white face, and her piercing eyes, she was to us the old grandmother or the witch of Grimm’s stories; and the language she used was such that, if we repeated at home, we were severely reprimanded. She knew very little about my father, but her memory about her first husband and about her own youth and childhood was very clear, though not always edifying. Her stories about ghosts, witches, ogres, knickers, and the whole of that race were certainly enough to frighten a child and some of them clung to me for a very long time, ... On my mother’s side my relations, who were all high in the public service, my grandfather, as I said, being the Duke’s chief minister, made life more easy and pleasant b for us; but for many years my mother never went into society, and our society consisted of members of our own family only. All I remember of my mother at that time was that she took her two children day after day to the beautiful Gottesacker (God’s Acre), where she stood for hours at our father’s grave, and sobbed and cried. ... At home the atmosphere was certainly depressing to a boy. I heard and thought more about death than about life, though I knew little of course of what life or death meant. I had but few pleasures, and my chief happiness was to be with my mother, I shared her grief without understanding much about it. She was passionately devoted to her children and I was passionately fond of her. What there was left of life to her, she gave it to us, she lived for us only, and tried very hard not to deprive our childhood of all brightness. She was certainly most beautiful, and quite different from all other ladies at Dessau, not only in the eyes of her son, but it seemed to me, of everybody. ... As far as I can recollect, I was never so happy as when I could be with her. She read so much to us that I was quite satisfied, and saw perhaps less of my young friends than I ought. When my mother said she wished to die, and to be with our father, I feel sure that my sister and I were only anxious that she should take us with her, for there were few golden chains that bound us as yet to this life.”

Is it not a morbid atmosphere for children? This atmosphere will continue until Friedrich Maximilian becomes 12 years old. Thereafter he will be sent to a school at Leipzig. How he fares in the school in Dessau? There are no significant indications. Friedrich Maximilian enters the “Gymnasium” (High School) at Dessau when he is six years old. “Gymnasiums” then had 13 classes.

Georgina Max Müller reports (p. 6) in her book: “His school reports were not remarkable, and certainly at that time he gave little evidence of the power that was in him. ‘Writing bad’ was the almost invariable report, and in later years he often lamented the small pains taken by the writing master to improve it.”

We do not know more about the real child-life of Friedrich Maximilian at Dessau that constituted his basic personality. We assume, poverty and his migraine have played an important role in his basic personality, in his childhood and in his early school days.

A lot has been published on “Max Müller” later. His biographers, including his wife, Georgina Max Müller, and his son, W. G. Max Müller, have totally left out the background that constituted his basic personality. It has even been totally ignored that there is the chapter two in the “My Autobiography” which is titled “Childhood at Dessau”, p. 45 – 94. There we read in the pages 65 ff memorizing the school life of Friedrich Maximilian at Dessau:

“I remember a number of small events in my school-life at Dessau ... The influence which music exercised on my mind ... My work at school and at home was not too heavy; I was fond of it and very fond of books. ... Paper was so dear that one had to be very sparing in its use. Every margin and cover was scribbled over before it was thrown away, and I fest often so happened by the scarcity of paper that I gladly accepted a set of copybooks instead of any other present that I might have asked for on my birthday or at Christmas. I am sorry to say I have had to suffer all my life from the inefficiency of our writing master or may be from the fact that my thoughts were too quick for my pen. In other subjects I did well, but though I was among the first in each class, I was by no means cleverer than other boys. ... I feel sure I could have done a great deal more at school than I did, but it was partly my music and partly my incessant headaches that interfered with my school work. ... I was fortunate at school. I could hold my own with the boys, and as to the masters, several of them had known my father or had been his pupils, and they took a personal interest in me. I remember more particularly one young master who was very kind to me, and took me home for private lessons and for giving me some good advice.”

There is not much more about Friedrich Maximilian’s real childhood in the chapter “Childhood at Dessau”. Information on his childhood and on his school life at Dessau is unsystematically touched in this chapter now and then. This scattered information is packed between Max Müller’s uncalled for reflections on “God and the world”; on the Jews in Anhalt-Dessau and on persons, he met during the years of his life that have nothing to do with Friedrich Maximilian’s “Childhood at Dessau”. It is an unsystematic narration full of phantasm than an autobiography describing his childhood. We have taken a note of this aspect in his writings in “My Autobiography” and the volumes of “Auld Lang Syne” and we shall keep our eyes wide open.

We put together the scattered information in pages chronologically. Max Müller remembers Friedrich Maximilian’s school days in his autobiography (p. 62–63):

“At school our religious teaching was chiefly historical and moral. ... Some, by no means all, children of Roman Catholic and Jewish parents were allowed to be absent from religious lessons. ... If Jews or Roman Catholics wished for any special religious instructions it was given by their own priests or Rabbis, and was given without any interference on the part of the Government. ... Thus we grew up from our earliest youth, being taught to look upon Christianity as an historical fact, on Christ and on His disciples as historical characters, on the Old and New Testaments as real historical books. Though we did not understand as yet the deeper meaning of Christ and of His words, we had at least nothing to unlearn in later times ...“

His memories of the childhood of Friedrich Maximilian written a little before he will die are yet remarkable. We find on pages 67-69 of his autobiography:

“A large number of Jews had been received at Dessau by a former duke; ...he stipulated that they should only settle in certain streets. These streets were by no means the worst streets of the town; on the contrary, they showed greater comfort and hardly any of the squalor which disgraced the Jewish quarters in other towns in Germany. As children we were brought up without any prejudice against the Jews, though we had, no doubt, a certain feeling that they were tolerated only, and were not quite on the same level with ourselves. We also felt the religious difficulty sometimes very strongly. Were the Jews not the murderers of Christ? And had they not said: ‘the blood be on us and on our children’? ...I knew several Jewish families, and received much kindness from them as a boy. Many of these families were wealthy, but they never displayed their wealth, and in consequence excited no envy. All that is changed now. The children of the Jews who formerly lived in a very quiet style at Dessau, now occupy the best houses, indulge in most expensive tastes, and try in every way to outshine their non-Jewish neighbours. They buy themselves, and, when they can, stipulate for stars and orders as rewards for successful financial operations, carried out with the money of princely personages. Hence the revulsion of feeling all over Germany, or what is called Anti-Semitism, which has assumed not only a social, but also a political significance. I doubt whether there is anything religious in it, as there was when we were boys. ...One cannot blame the Jews or any other speculator for using their opportunities, but they must not complain either if they excite envy, and if that envy assumes in the end a dangerous character.”

On page 77 ff we read:

“The very idea of death never came near me till my grandfather died (1835), but even then I was only about twelve years old, and though I had seen much of him, particularly during the years that my mother lived again in his house, yet he was too old to take much share in his grandchildren’s amusements. ...He made no secret that he cared more for the son of his son who was the heir, and was to perpetuate the name of Basedow, than for the son of his daughter.”

As indicated earlier Adelheid is keen maintaining her social duties. She sends her children to visit both families. She does not visit them. What Max Müller lets us know in the following sub-sentence is puzzling: “particularly during the years that my mother lived again in his house”. We keep this small puzzle in mind.

When Friedrich Maximilan has just passed twelve, Adelheid sends him to one Professor Carus at Leipzig, a friend of late Wilhelm Müller. It seems, Adelheid loses control over him and feels that he needed the guidance of a male authority. So it is handed-down. Professor Carus admits him to the best school at Leipzig. His son Victor is of the same age and visits the same school. We turn again to Max Müller‘s autobiography, to the chapter “Childhood at Dessau”, p. 79:

“As far back as I can remember I was a martyr to headaches. No doctor could help me, no one seemed to know the cause. It was a migraine, and though I watched carefully I could not trace it to any fault of mine. The idea that it came from overwork was certainly untrue. It came and went, and if it was one day on the right side it was always the next time on the left, even though I was free from it sometimes for a week or a fortnight, or even longer. It was strange also that it seldom lasted beyond one day, and that I always felt particularly strong and well the day after I had been prostrate. For prostrate I was, and generally quite unable to do anything. I had to lie down and try to sleep. After a good sleep I was well, but when the pain had been very bad I found that sometimes the very skin of my forehead had peeled off. In this way I often lost two or three days in a week and as my work had to be done somehow, it was often done anyhow, and I was scolded and punished, really without any fault of mine own.”

All in all, the child-life of Friedrich Maximilian at Dessau has been depressive which demanded strategies to stand the adversities he faces. Max Müller closes this chapter in his Autobiography with the words, p. 92/93:

“My narrow Dessau views became a little widened when I went to school at Leipzig; still more when I spent two years and a half at the University of Leipzig, and afterwards at Berlin. Still, during all this time I saw but little of what is called society, I only knew of people whom I loved and of people whom I disliked. There was no room as yet for indifferent people, whom one tolerates and is civil to without caring whether one sees them again or not. Of the simplest duties of society also I was completely ignorant. No one ever told me what to say and what to do or what not to say and what not to do. What I felt I said, what I thought right I did. There was, in fact, in my small native town very little that could be called society.

*****

We have put together the factors that engraved the basic personality of Friedrich Maximilian at Anhalt-Dessau mostly in the words written by Max Müller. We have not commented or analysed contradictions in them or on Friedrich Maximilian’s internalized strategies to compensate his agonies experienced in child-life, nor on repressions exercised by social facts. We feel we should not conceal our conclusions before we close this chapter, i.e. “Childhood at Dessau” as it has been chaptered by Max Müller.

As mentioned earlier, the surname Müller is extremely frequent all over Germany. Friedrich Maximilian does not feel comfortable to be a “Müller”. His paternal grandfather was a poor tailor. His grandfather marries a relatively rich widow of a master butcher to provide education for his son Wilhelm, the only child alive out of seven children. Well, a butcher become quite well to do in terms of money, but is not considered to be a respected occupation in Dessau or elsewhere either.

As a child, he identifies more with the family of his mother and glorifies “achievements” of his father. Thus, he represses the background of being a “Müller” and all that goes with it. We recall that Wilhelm Müller dies early at the age of 33. He becomes a schoolteacher when he passed his 25. Shortly later, he becomes the librarian of the small Duchy Anhalt-Dessau. He does not have much time to excel as a writer and a poet. Yet we find the following lines (Autobiography, p. 47-48) in the beginning pages of the same chapter “Childhood at Dessau”.

“There is curious race of people, who, as soon as a man of any note dies, are ready to found anything for him – a monument, a picture, a school, a prize, a society – to keep alive his memory. Of course societies want presidents, members of council, committees, secretaries &c., and at last, subscriptions also. Thus it has happened that the name of founder (Gründer) has assumed particularly in Germany, a perfume by no means sweet. Those who are asked to subscribe to such testimonials know how disagreeable it is to decline to give at least their name, deeply as they feel that in giving it they are offending against the rules of historical perspective. I should not say that my father was one of the great poets of Germany, though Heine, no mean critic, declared that he placed his lyric poetry next to that of Goethe. ... His poems became popular in the true sense of the word, and there are some which the people in the street sing even now without being aware of the name of their author. Schubert’s compositions also have contributed much to the wide popularity of his Schöne Müllerin and his Winterreise, ... In the company of Mendelsohn, the philosopher and of F. Schneider, the composer, a monument of my father in the principal street of his native town, and before the school in which he had been a pupil and a teacher, could hardly seen out of place.”

Well, it is more than a “Freudian slip”, it is more than “going the extra mile”; it is more than “bigger, nicer, better”. We keep in mind; whatever we know about the childhood of Friedrich Maximilian, we know a little from the archives, from “My Autobiography” written by Max Müller in 1898–99, a little before he dies and those two volumes written by Georgina Max Müller. Usually narrated facts as memories are not checked, if it is palatably presented. We do read carefully and check published memories. Max Müller obviously commanded over this art of telling tales. In Germany, there is an old proverb: “Kein Meister ist vom Himmel gefallen” (No master falls from Heaven). He seems to have learnt this art right from his very childhood.

Exchange of surname is possible today. At that time at Dessau Friedrich Maximilian does not know that he will later become Max Müller. If we are ready to follow Max Müller, then Friedrich Maximilian has compensated his being a “Müller” in his own way. He identifies with the family of his mother in spite of severe neglects. Max Müller refers back to the grandfather of his mother, though she is born ten years after her grandfather had expired. The reason is simple. Johann Bernhard Basedow (1724 –1790) was a known as an educationist. Johann Bernhard Basedow‘s descendants, the grandfather and granduncle of Friedrich Maximilian are not such known personalities.

Max Müller tells little about his own grandfather Ludwig Basedow (1774 – 1835). Naturally, he is proud that his grandfather earned a heritable title of a noble “Von” as late as in 1833, when Friedrich Maximilian was just ten years old. Max Müller does not tell us anything about Friedrich Maximilian‘s relationship with his uncle either. He tells us only that (p. 53):

“On my mother’s side my relatives were more civilized, and they had but little social intercourse with my grandmother and her relatives. My mother’s father was von Basedow, the president, that is Prime Minister of the duchy of Anhalt-Dessau, a position in which he was succeeded by his oldest son, my uncle.”

Well. Anhalt-Dessau was one of the smallest Duchies neighbouring Prussia having a population of at most 60,000 only. His mother’s father, “von Basedow”, was not “the president, that is Prime Minister of the duchy of Anhalt-Dessau” but simply the head administrator. In the memory of Max Müller the head administrator of one of the smallest Duchies in Germany becomes the “Prime Minister of the duchy of Anhalt-Dessau.”

On page 56 he wants us to note: “My mother’s relations, who were all high in the public service, my grandfather, as I said, being the Duke’s chief Minister, made life more easy and pleasant for us; but for many years my mother never went into society, and our society consisted of members of our own family only.” Is it not amazing that Max Müller does not even indicate that his mother, his sister and he himself has just been neglected by his “mother’s relations”?

Remembering his childhood at Dessau Max Müller fails to develop a sense of looking at realities. As Friedrich Maximilian he obviously suffered from poverty, but is unable to comprehend the cause of the poverty. Though, as Friedrich Maximilian, he was not considered to be a part of his “mother’s relations, who were all high in the public service”, he wishes to have belonged to “Basedows” while writing his “Autobiography”. In his fantasy, he is actually a “von Basedow”, almost a “noble”. In his wishful thinking he is nearer to the nobles rather than being a “Müller”. To what extent he identified himself with the Basedows is reflected in his remark (p. 53): “I was often told that I took after my mother’s family, whatever that may mean, and this was certainly the case in outward appearance, though I hope not in temper.”

Almost at the end of this chapter of ours, we repeat a quote from “My Autobiography”:

“My childhood at home was often very sad. My mother, who was left a widow at twenty-eight with two children, my sister and myself, was heart-broken. The few years of her married life had been most bright and brilliant. My father was a rising poet, ... Contemporaries and friends of father, particularly Baron Simolin, a very intimate friend, who spent the Christmas of 1825 in our house.”

In 1825, Friedrich Maximilian is two years old. How can Max Müller remember in 1898 that “Baron Simolin, a very intimate friend”, had “spent the Christmas of 1825 in our house”?

We apologise taking a little aside and looking a little ahead. Neither Max Müller nor Friedrich Maximilian in his letters to his mother has ever mentioned this Baron Simolin with his first name. Simolins are known as “Freiherren” since the 17th Century. There are many “Simolins”, having at least three lineages. Max Müller uses the technique to relate himself to many celebrated surnames and conceals the first names, as we shall see also later. It is a hollow technique to suggest that he came along with almost all celebrated persons of his time.

We are unable to ascertain whether Max Müller has been unable to differentiate between fantasy and reality or Friedrich Maximilian had evolved systematically to a Max Müller as we are experiencing by his memories on the life of Friedrich Maximilian which are far from truths. We shall have to look into evidences.

We close this chapter here ascertaining that all along his schools life in Dessau Friedrich Maximilian could not excel due to his poverty, due to his chronic headaches, due to his humble social background and due to his social deprivations. He tried to compensate his sufferings and deprivations by creating daydreams, inventing fantastic episodes, developing aspirations that could not be related to the reality. These ways of compensations are not unusual.

CHAPTER 3

FRIEDRICH MAXIMILIAN’S
SCHOOL DAYS AT LEIPZIG

We recall Adelheid Müller is in search of a masculine guidance for Friedrich Maximilian. He is isolated in Dessau. The members of her parental family do not care for him, not even the male members. Ultimately, she finds a solution when he is 12 years old. A friend of late Wilhelm Müller, one Professor Carus, at Leipzig is ready to take care for Friedrich Maximilian. His son Victor is of the same age. Together they attend the best school at Leipzig, the Nicolai-Schule. They become friends. Leipzig is about 60 km away from Dessau. On his school days at Leipzig, there is only one relatively reliable source of information: Max Müller. There are no records kept in the archives.

The source Georgina Max Müller is inadequate. As referred in the last chapter she marries Friedrich Maximilian Müller in the 1859. She is then 24 years old. She belonged to a copper-smelter and merchant family in the British Kingdom. Her educational background is unknown. Both of her volumes include in the main, letters written in German, translated into English. We are unable to ascertain whether she ever learnt German.

She devotes in her book approximately 6 pages to this life period of Friedrich Maximilian Müller under headings: “Nicolai School Leipzig”, “Dr. Carus”, “Music”, “Letters to his Mother” and “Examination at Zerbst”. She does not care for chronology. She quotes letters without referring to dates. Amongst them, there are also six letters of Friedrich Maximilian to his mother. These letters are translated into English from German original. We do not know by whom. We know only that the diction, the style in English, is almost that of an English scholar and not of a schoolboy. We take liberty to quote her here only once. We refrain from our comments. Georgina Max Müller:

“Before leaving the house of Dr. Carus, Max writes to his mother:— Translation.

'When I remember the time that I first sent you my birthday greetings from Leipzig, and now see that this period of life is nearly over. I must gratefully acknowledge how good God has been to us in various ways, and has given us many compensations. But above all, how grateful we should be that God has preserved you, our dear mother, to us, to sweeten for us all that is bitter, to reward all effort. How I rejoice over next year, in which a new existence opens for me, a higher aim in life floats before me, and I shall have you both with me. I cannot tell you how I rejoice at the thought of this time, when I must take another step forwards, and shall again, at all events for a time, be with my own people.'”

The chapter III of “My Autobiography” by Max Müller comprises the pages 95 - 111. On page 95 we read:

“It was certainly a poor kind of armour in which I set out of Dessau. My mother, devoted as she was to me, had judged rightly that it was best for me to be with other boys and under the supervision of a man. I had been somewhat spoiled by her passionate love, and also by her passionate severity in correcting the ordinary naughtiness of a boy. So having risen from form to form in the school at Dessau, I was sent, at the age of twelve, to Leipzig, to live in the house of Professor Carus and attend the famous Nicolai-Schule with his son, who was of the same age as myself and who likewise wanted a companion. It was thought that there would be a certain emulation between us, and so, no doubt there was, though we always remained the best friends. The house in which we lived stood in a garden and was really an orthopaedic institution for girls.”

It is a radical break in Friedrich Maximilian’s early life. For the first time in his life, he lives in an affluent household. In the whole chapter, Max Müller does not give any account of the differences of his school life at Dessau and at Leipzig. He does not disclose the personal feelings of Friedrich Maximilian being away from his mother and sister in a new so far unknown household.

We do not know whether he makes friends in the new school or in the new locality. Had there been any financial arrangements between Professor Carus and his mother? Does he get pocket money? Does he maintain the same standard like Victor in all material aspects? We do not know. Max Müller does not tell us. Instead, he presents a rather academic lecture on public schools in Germany. We are inclined to put a question mark here. We have doubts whether Friedrich Maximilian would have given the same expressions as Max Müller lets us know in the “My Autobiography”. On page 97 we read:

“There were two good public schools at Leipzig, the Nicolai School and the Thomas School. There was plenty of espirt de corps in them and often when the boys met it showed itself not only in words but in blows, and the discussion on merits of their schools were often continued in later life. I was very fortunate in being sent to the Nicolai School, under Dr. Nobbe as head master. He was at the same time Professor at the University of Leipzig and is well known in England also as the editor of Cicero. He was very proud that his school counted Leibniz among its former pupils. He was a classical scholar of the old school. During the last three years of our school life we had to write plenty of Latin and Greek verse, and were taught to speak Latin. The speaking of Latin came readily enough, but the verses never attained a very high level. Besides Nobbe we had Forbiger, well known by his books on ancient geography, and Palm, editor of the same Greek Dictionary which, in the hands of Dr. Liddell, has reached the highest perfection. Then there was Funkhänel, known beyond Germany by his edition of the Orations of Demosthenes, and his studies on Greek orators.”

It continues just like this. Then on p. 99 and 100, we read:

“We certainly did very well in Greek and Latin, and read a number of classical texts, not only critically at school, but also cursorily at home, having to give a weekly account of what we had thus read by ourselves. I liked my classics, and yet I could not help feeling that there was a certain exaggeration in the way in which every one of them was spoken of by our teachers, nay, that as compared to German poets and prose writers they were somewhat overpraised. Still, it would have been very conceited not to admire what our masters admired, and as in duty bound we went into the usual raptures about Homer and Sophocles, about Horace and Cicero.”

Later on page 102, we encounter just a touch of a personal account. (highlighted by us):

“I enjoyed my work at school very much, and I seem to have passed rapidly from class to class. I frequently received prizes both in money and in books, but I see a warning attached to some of them that I ought not to be conceited, which probably meant no more than that I should not show when I was pleased with my successes. At least I do not know what I could have been conceited about. What I feel about my learning at school is that it was entirely passive. I acquired knowledge such as it was presented to me. I did not doubt whatever my teacher taught me, I did not, as far as I can recollect, work up any subject by myself. I find only one paper of mine of that early time, and, curiously enough, it was on mythology; but it contains no inkling of comparative mythology, but simply a chronological arrangement of the sources from which we draw our knowledge of Greek mythology. I see also from some old papers, that I began to write poetry and that twice or thrice I was chosen at great festivities to recite poems written by myself. In the year 1839 three hundred years had passed since Luther preached at Leipzig in the Church of St. Nicolai, and the tercentenary of this event was celebrated all over Germany. My poem was selected for recitation at a large meeting of the friends of our school and notables of the town, and I had to recite it, not without fear and trembling.I was then sixteen years of age.

In the next year, 1840, Leipzig celebrated the invention of printing in 1440. It was on this occasion that Mendelssohn wrote his famous Hymn of Praise. I formed part of the chorus, and I well remember the magnificent effect which the music produced in the Church of St. Thomas. Again a poem of mine was selected, and I had to recite it at a large gathering in the Nicolai Schule on July 18, 1840.”

Thereafter he gives a thorough account on Friedrich Maximilian’s talent and his desire to become a poet or a musician. He is often asked to recite his poems at many large gatherings. Max Müller does not disclose the type of gatherings, nor who else of his schoolmates recite or perform something else in those gatherings. We are supposed to take note of that Friedrich Maximilian’s poetries have been rich in qualities. We just have to note it and accept it! Then he leads his readers and us to the music scene at the then Leipzig writing the lines (p.104 ff):

“During my stay at Leipzig, first in the house of Professor Carus, and afterwards as a student at the University, my chief enjoyment was certainly music. I had plenty of it, perhaps too much, but I pity the man who has not known the charm of it.”

Leipzig was a centre of music in the sense that many young later celebrated artists and composers came in search of an opportunity to become a part of the famous “Gewandhaus Orchestra” and also meeting the local musicians like Felix Mendelssohn. It is remarkable that Max Müller writes a feuilleton piece on artists and composers at Leipzig and lets us know that at the house of Professor Carus Friedrich Maximilian meets many of them. He is often invited by them to participate in their performances also. Max Müller winds up this sub-aspect in his chapter on his school days at Leipzig with the words (p. 108-109):

“At that time my idea of devoting myself altogether to the study of music became very strong; and as Professor Carus married again, I proposed to leave Leipzig, and to enter the musical school of Schneider at Dessau. But nothing came of that, and I think on the whole it was as well.”

Only once, in this chapter Max Müller refers to his beloved mother (p. 109):

“While at school at Leipzig I had but little opportunity of travelling, for my mother was always anxious to have me home during holidays and I was equally anxious to be with her and to see my relations at Dessau.”

Only once the issue of poverty is indicated during Friedrich Maximilian’s stay of five years in an affluent household of Prof. Carus (p. 109):

“Generally I went in a wretched carriage from Leipzig to Dessau. It was only seven German miles (about thirty-five English miles), but it took a whole day to get there; and during part of the journey, when we had to cross the deep and desert-like sands, walking on foot was much more expeditious than sitting inside the carriage. But then we paid only one thaler for the whole journey, and sometimes, in order to save that, I walked on foot the whole way. That also took me a whole day; but when I tried it the first time, being then quite young and rather delicate in health, I had to give in about an hour before I came to Dessau, my legs refusing to go further, and my muscles being cramped and stiff from exertion, I had to sit down by the road.”

Rather casually, he reports of a praising letter to his mother from the school at Leipzig. The next paragraph begins (p.103-104):

“It was rather hard on me that I had to pass my examinations for admission to the University (Abiturienten-Examen) not at my school, but at Zerbst in Anhalt. This was necessary in order to enable me to obtain a scholarship from the Anhalt Government.”

This information is then followed by a small lecture on the differences between schools in Anhalt-Dessau and schools in Prussia. This is an effective technique to wrap up disadvantageous facts that cannot be concealed and lead the readers to an entertaining story whose factual validity will generally not be questioned and/or cannot be verified if the story is told plausibly and palatably.

In this chapter titled “School-days at Leipzig” in his autobiography Max Müller does tell us almost nothing on the “school-days” of Friedrich Maximilian at Leipzig. After all, he spends important years of his life ‘in the house of the Professor Carus’, which, no doubt, formed his later personality. And we do comprehend the structure of his personality that is wrapped around his narrations. The famous Nikolai-Schule does not change his basic personality remarkably. Nothing-unusual things have happened in that school that could change his basic personality.

Excepting for the remark we have just learnt between two consumable narrations that:

“It was rather hard on me that I had to pass my examinations for admission to the University (Abiturienten-Examen) not at my school, but at Zerbst in Anhalt. This was necessary in order to enable me to obtain a scholarship from the Anhalt Government.”

We recall his sufferings at Dessau due to poverty, negligence by both of the families, his social isolation, his social discriminations and the regular attacks of severe migraines. We recall also Adelheid’s ambitions, projected on her children, and her depressions. We recall the original words by Max Müller as well:

“My childhood at home was often very sad. My mother, who was left a widow at twenty-eight with two children, my sister and myself, was heart-broken.”

“My father was a rising poet, ... Contemporaries and friends of father, particularly Baron Simolin, a very intimate friend, who spent the Christmas of 1825 in our house, ...”

“Even the life insurance, which is obligatory on every civil servant, and the pension granted by the duke, gave my mother but a very small income, fabulously small, when one considers that she had to bring up two children on it. It has been a riddle to me ever since how she was able to do it.”

“The more I think about that distant, now very distant past, the more I feel how, without being aware of it, my whole character was formed by it.”

“On my mother’s side my relatives were more civilized, and they had but little social intercourse with my grandmother and her relatives.”

“... but for many years my mother never went into society, and our society consisted of members of our own family only. All I remember of my mother at that time was that she took her two children day after day to the beautiful Gottesacker (God’s Acre), where she stood for hours at our father’s grave, and sobbed and cried. ... At home the atmosphere was certainly depressing to a boy. I heard and thought more about death than about life, though I knew little of course of what life or death meant. I had but few pleasures, and my chief happiness was to be with my mother, I shared her grief without understanding much about it. She was passionately devoted to her children and I was passionately fond of her. What there was left of life to her, she gave it to us, she lived for us only, and tried very hard not to deprive our childhood of all brightness.”

“As far back as I can remember I was a martyr to headaches. No doctor could help me, no one seemed to know the cause. It was a migraine, and though I watched carefully I could not trace it to any fault of mine. The idea that it came from overwork was certainly untrue. It came and went, and if it was one day on the right side it was always the next time on the left, even though I was free from it sometimes for a week or a fortnight, or even longer. It was strange also that it seldom lasted beyond one day, and that I always felt particularly strong and well the day after I had been prostrate. For prostrate I was, and generally quite unable to do anything. I had to lie down and try to sleep. After a good sleep I was well, but when the pain had been very bad I found that sometimes the very skin of my forehead had peeled off. In this way I often lost two or three days in a week and as my work had to be done somehow, it was often done anyhow, and I was scolded and punished, really without any fault of mine own.”

All these aspects remain in this chapter un-referred to. We remember we have only one source of information. Stories written down by Max Müller, two years before he dies. In this Chapter of “My Autobiography” Max Müller actually proposes to remember back and to present phases of development of Friedrich Maximilian from his childhood to a young man; the development of an unfortunate morbid-depressive boy to young man. He does not do it in actuality. Instead, he writes a palatable chapter on general topics under the heading: “School-days at Leipzig”. He reports nicely that Friedrich Maximilian writes poetry and recites them in public gatherings while he went to Nicolai-Schule at Leipzig. Then he elaborates on his strong affinity for music.

Unless one has become sceptical one reads further without getting time to read an episode a second time and lured by another palatable episode. A critical review of the school days at Dessau is also called for. We cannot overlook that Max Müller did not even indicate that Friedrich Maximilian was developing strong affinity towards music and poetry in Dessau. We remember also that Wilhelm Müller wrote lyrics and Adelheid Müller was a good singer. Yet, he did not develop any special affinity towards music. But all on a sudden at Leipzig, we recall (p. 104 ff.):

“During my stay at Leipzig, first in the house of Professor Carus, and afterwards as a student at the university, my chief enjoyment was certainly music. I had plenty of it, perhaps too much, but I pity the man who has not known the charm of it. At that time Leipzig was really the centre of music in Germany. Felix Mendelssohn was there and most of the distinguished artists and composers of the day came there to spend some time with him and to assist at the famous Gewandhaus concerts. I find among my letters a few descriptions of concerts and other musical entertainments, which even at present may be of some interest. I was asked to be present at some concerts where quartets and other pieces were performed by Mendelssohn, Hiller, Kalliwoda, David and Eckart. Liszt also made his triumphant entry into Germany at Leipzig, ... . The house of Professor Carus was always open to musical geniuses, and many an evening men like Hiller, Mendelssohn, David, Eckert &c., came there to play, while Madame Carus sang, and sang most charmingly. I too was asked sometimes to play at these evening parties.”

Max Müller has evolved to a master in wrapping and covering of one simple but important fact. The childhood of Friedrich Maximilian at Dessau and his school-days at Leipzig were obviously not at all remarkable and noteworthy. And so far it had been a rather dull life without promising any successes. He has been in one of the best schools in Germany, Nicolai-Schule at Leipzig, since he was 12 years old. However, he is not merited enough to get his Abitur (school final) from the Nicolai-Schule:

“It was rather hard on me that I had to pass my examinations for admission to the University (Abiturienten-Examen) not at my school, but at Zerbst in Anhalt.”

First of all we must ascertain that “Zerbst in Anhalt”, to put it mildly, is absolutely wrong. Zerbst was an adjacent separate “province” in Prussia in the north of Anhalt-Dessau. Then: why at Zerbst and why not at Dessau? He does not explain. We look into his biographies. None of his later biographers takes note of this key-information in their writings. So, no one questions. And no questions, no answers. We won’t like to speculate. We raise this question and demand from the recent biographers of Max Müller a convincing answer. This is not the only question that arises in our mind. We shall take up the issue: “It was rather hard on me that I had to pass my examinations for admission to the University (Abiturienten-Examen) not at my school, but at Zerbst in Anhalt.” in a while in our next chapter.

Friedrich Maximilian does not try out his literary talent to become a celebrated poet. We do not know whether he has written poetries at all. Max Müller does not present those poetries composed by Friedrich Maximilian. The same thing holds regarding his talent for music. Liking music and having exampled talent are two different things. We leave poetry and music at that. Max Müller closes this chapter, “School-days at Leipzig” with a cute story (p. 109-111):

“A more ambitious journey I took in 1841 with a friend of mine, Baron von Hagedorn. He was a curious and somewhat mysterious character. He had been brought up by a great-aunt of mine, to whom he was entrusted as a baby. No one knew his parents, but they must have been rich, for he possessed a large fortune. He had a country place near Munich, and he spent the greater part of the year in travelling about and amusing himself. He had been brought up with my mother and other members of our family, and he took a very kind interest in me. ... Hagedorn, with all his love of mystery and occasional exaggeration, was certainly a good friend to me. He often gave me good advice, and was more of a father to me than a mere friend. He was a man of the world, and therefore his advice was not always what I wanted. He was also a great friend of my cousin who was married to a Prince of Dessau, and they had agreed among themselves that I should go to the Oriental Academy at Vienna, learn Oriental languages, and then enter the diplomatic service. As there were no children from the Prince’s marriage, I was to be adopted by him, and, as if the princely fortune was not enough to tempt me, I was told that even a wife had been chosen for me, and that I should have a new name and title, after being adopted by the Prince. To other young men this might have seemed irresistible. I at once said no. It seemed to interfere with my freedom, with my studies, with my ideal of a career in life; in fact, though everything was presented to me by my cousin as on a silver tray, I shook my head and remained true to my first love, Sanskrit and the rest. Hagedorn could not understand this; he thought a brilliant life preferable to the quiet life of a professor Not so I.”

This sentimental and tear-jerking story has obviously sold well. A lot has been written and fabricated on Max Müller and around him. No one has yet commented this story on his “first love, Sanskrit and the rest”. We are unable to buy this story. We have read this story more than once. And we have checked facts and facts behind facts. We read this story once more in the light of careful reading facts:

“A more ambitious journey I took in 1841 with a friend of mine, Baron von Hagedorn.

(Baron von Hagedorn? Barons are generally not titled with “von”. Being a German, Max Müller should have known this. That is not all. There is no mention of a “Baron Hagedorn” in reference books on nobles. A “Baron Hagedorn” has never existed. He is a creation of Max Müller. It is also remarkable that he has not disclosed the Christian (first) name of his “Hagedorn”.)

He was a curious and somewhat mysterious character. He had been brought up by a great-aunt of mine, to whom he was entrusted as a baby.

(“A great-aunt of Friedrich Maximilian”? From his father’s side? Well! There is nothing on record in the archives. We let it be without a comment. We know this lineage pretty good.

Who could be from his mother’s side? We recall. Adelheid’s grandfather was Johann Bernard Basedow, son of a barber/wigmaker in Hamburg. Nothing is handed down on his wife or on her parental family in the archives. Johann Bernard Basedow’s son, Ludwig Basedow, became Ludwig von Basedow in 1833. He did not have a sister. He had two sons, one daughter, Adelheid. The elder son succeeded his father as the administrator in the Duchy Dessau-Anhalt. He was not significant enough to be recorded in the annals. His first (Christian) name is not known. The younger son, Carl von Basedow is recorded in the annals of Medicine with the term Basedow’s disease in continental Europe, which otherwise seems to be known as Graves’ disease. Who could have been a great-aunt of Friedrich Maximilian? Then, by whom could she be entrusted to bring up an unknown baby later becoming “Baron Hagedorn”? On top of it, as already indicated, a “Baron Hagedorn” is not on any genealogical record. Internet search machines will refer to Max Müller’s autobiography only.)

No one knew his parents, but they must have been rich, for he possessed a large fortune.

(Even if we accepted that no one knew the parents of the baby and this “baby” possessed a large fortune, yet the question will have to be answered, how this baby should become a Baron.)

He had a country place near Munich, and he spent the greater part of the year in travelling about and amusing himself. He had been brought up with my mother and other members of our family, and he took a very kind interest in me. ... Hagedorn, with all his love of mystery and occasional exaggeration, was certainly a good friend to me. He often gave me good advice, and was more of a father to me than a mere friend. He was a man of the world, and therefore his advice was not always what I wanted.

(This part of the story does not need any commentary in our context.)

He was also a great friend of my cousin who was married to a Prince of Dessau, and they had agreed among themselves that I should go to the Oriental Academy at Vienna, learn Oriental languages, and then enter the diplomatic service. As there were no children from the Prince’s marriage, I was to be adopted by him, and, as if the princely fortune was not enough to tempt me, I was told that even a wife had been chosen for me, and that I should have a new name and title, after being adopted by the Prince.

We keep aside the lineage of his father. We remember, Wilhelm Müller was the sixth child of seven children of Christian Leopold and of Marie Leopoldine Müller. They lost all other children before Wilhelm Müller was three years old. Nothing else of this lineage is on records. Who could have been the cousin of of Friedrich Maximilian?

Carl von Basedow had daughters, but none of them was married to a “Prince of Dessau”.

On top of it, there had never been a “Prince of Dessau”. Leopold I, was a German prince of the House of Ascania and ruler of the principality of Anhalt-Dessau from 1693 to 1747. Leopold II Maximilian was a German prince of the House of Ascania and ruler of the principality of Anhalt-Dessau from 1747 to 1751. Leopold III Frederick Franz, Duke of Anhalt-Dessau, known as "Prince Franz", was a German prince of the House of Ascania. From 1751 until 1807, he was Reigning prince of the Principality of Anhalt-Dessau and in 1807, he became the first Duke of the Duchy of Anhalt-Dessau. Leopold IV Frederick, Duke of Anhalt was a German prince of the House of Ascania. From 1817 until 1853 he was ruler of the duchy of Anhalt-Dessau and from 1847 until 1853 also ruler of the duchy of Anhalt-Köthen. From 1853 until 1863 he was the ruler of the joined duchy of Anhalt-Dessau-Köthen and from 1863 the first ruler of the united duchy of Anhalt. All of them were married to nobles and had children.

There is a reference of one Waldemar Wilhelm von Anhalt-Dessau born on May 29, 1807 in Dessau, died 1864 in Vienna. He was a son of Prince Frederick von Anhalt-Dessau (1769-1814) from his marriage with Christiana Amalie (1774-1846), daughter of the Landgrave Frederick V of Hesse-Homburg. He married “morganatic” on 9 July 1840 Caroline Emilie (1812-1888), the daughter of a court musician, Karl Friedrich Klausnitzer, in Dessau. Caroline Emilie was raised to a “wife of a Baron” while Waldemar Wilhelm von Anhalt-Dessau lived incognito the life of a baron William Stolzenberg in Vienna, where he and his wife adopted in 1855, the daughter of his brother Georg, the Countess Helene von Reina (1835-1860).

We are left alone with these references. Even if we considered that Max Müller might have meant these two in Vienna, we cannot overcome one puzzle. The questions invariably arise, how Caroline Emilie at the age of 28, and Waldemar Wilhelm at the age of 33, could have known in 1840 (the year of their “morganatic” marriage) that they won’t have children in their marriage? Therefore they wanted to adopt the cousin-brother of Caroline Emilie, Friedrich Maximilian, who was then 17 years old and just passed his high school?

Apart from this puzzle, we also note that Caroline Emilie becomes the “wife of a Baron” in 1842. We recall that an offer was made to Friedrich Maximilian before he is admitted at the Leipzig University in 1841.

To other young men this might have seemed irresistible. I at once said no. It seemed to interfere with my freedom, with my studies, with my ideal of a career in life; in fact, though everything was presented to me by my cousin as on a silver tray, I shook my head and remained true to my first love, Sanskrit and the rest.

(Max Müller may tell his stories. But the fact is that Friedrich Maximilian could not have “remained true to my first love, Sanskrit and the rest” as Sanskrit and the rest were unknown at Dessau, Leipzig and Zerbst during his school days.)

Hagedorn could not understand this; he thought a brilliant life preferable to the quite life of a professor Not so I.”

CHAPTER 4

WHICH QUALIFICATIONS DOES

FRIEDRICH MAXIMILIAN ACQUIRE AT

LEIPZIG UNIVERSITY?

We are reconstructing the life of Friedrich Maximilian Müller as it was. We have done our research - we mean re-search – getting into the primary sources. We have searched for facts and for the facts behind the facts. All existing secondary sources are fed by the writings of Max Müller and by his British wife Georgina Max Müller. We are crosschecking now the stories told by Max Müller on the biography of Friedrich Maximilian Müller. Thereby we stick to working out hard facts only.

Friedrich Maximilian avails the privilege, when he is 12 years old, of staying in the affluent household of Professor Carus and of being taught in the famous Nikolai-Schule at Leipzig. We find absolutely no information on how Friedrich Maximilian fared in that famous school. We know from Max Müller that Friedrich Maximilian did not take his “Abiturienten-Examen” at the Nicolai school. He does not disclose the reason behind it. He simply states it was hard for him. What is behind this fact?

With “Abiturienten-Examen” (high school certificate) one earns in Germany the right to enter universities for higher studies. This rule is valid since centuries. The lower the marks, the fewer are the choice of subjects. This was the rule then and this is the rule this day as well. There were and are, of course, high schools maintaining different standards. Teachers of the Nicolai-Schule at Leipzig were fair enough suggesting Friedrich Maximilian to try his “Abiturienten-Examen” at a school where the standard was not as high as it is in the Nicolai-Schule. As a rule, such suggestions are given after the 11th class, i.e. two years before the “Abiturienten-Examen”.

This hard fact that Friedrich Maximilian was compelled to take refuge at a school having a lower standard and less reputation has not been noticed by any of his biographers or admirers yet. Max Müller packed it so elegantly and served so slyly in “My Autobiography” that the focus is shifted to the need of a “scholarship”. We recall the statement given by Max Müller on this issue two years before he expired:

“It was rather hard on me that I had to pass my examinations for admission to the University (Abiturienten-Examen) not at my school, but at Zerbst in Anhalt. This was necessary in order to enable me to obtain a scholarship from the Anhalt Government”.

We apologise to look a little ahead. Friedrich Maximilian will get a scholarship from the “Anhalt Government”. It was not a scholarship on merits, nor was it any school-bound. He got a scholarship for poor students belonging to the Anhalt-Dessau-Duchy. He would have got this scholarship even if he could have passed his “Abiturienten-Examen” in any other European country. Not to talk of his getting “Abiturienten-Examen” from the famous Nicolai School. This hard fact does not fit into a school career of a brilliant brain, of a to-be demigod, isn’t it?

We were also puzzled calculating the years exactly. Friedrich Maximilian had begun school in Dessau when he was six years old. He came under the guardianship of Professor Carus when he was 12 years old. At most, he could be admitted in the Nicolai School in the seventh of 13 classes needed for the “Abiturienten-Examen”. He would have stayed in the household of Professor Carus for seven years in the normal case. It is however mentioned that he stayed there for five years only. Where did he stay for two years of his school life? He must have stayed “at Zerbst in Anhalt” for two years to attend the school there. We pointed out in our last chapter that a “Zerbst in Anhalt” did never exist in the history. Zerbst was in Prussia.

There is another puzzle calculating the years. 13 classes plus 6 makes 19. Friedrich Maximilian was born in December 1823. He was admitted in Leipzig University in April 1841. He was then 17 and half years old only. He must have skipped one class. Where and how? On what basis?

Then, why did he not get back to his previous school at Dessau where his mother and all his relatives were residing? These questions remain unanswered. We wonder that Max Müller did not even mention the name of the school at Zerbst. None yet has wondered. Why? We think this aspect is important and we are reluctant to speculate. But our questions remain. There are more questions.

We take liberty repeating a small part from the beginning of our last chapter to be accurate rather than narrating. We wrote:

“The source Georgina Max Müller is inadequate. As referred in the last chapter she marries Friedrich Maximilian Müller 1859. She is then 24 years old. She belonged to a copper-smelter and merchant family in the British Kingdom. Her educational background is unknown. Both of her volumes include in the main letters written in German, translated into English. We are unable to ascertain whether she ever learnt German.

She devotes in her book approximately 6 pages to this life period of Friedrich Maximilian under headings: “Nicolai School Leipzig”, “Dr. Carus”, “Music”, “Letters to his Mother” and “Examination at Zerbst”. She does not care for chronology. She quotes letters without referring to dates. Amongst them, there are also six letters of Friedrich Maximilian to his mother. These letters are translated into English from German original. We do not know by whom. We know only that the diction, the style in English, is almost that of an English scholar and not of a schoolboy.

We take liberty to quote her only once. We refrain from our comments on Georgina Max Müller’s presentation, but presently parts are highlighted by us.

“Before leaving the house of Dr. Carus, Max writes to his mother :— Translation.

'When I remember the time that I first sent you my birthday greetings from Leipzig, and now see that this period of life is nearly over. I must gratefully acknowledge how good God has been to us in various ways, and has given us many compensations. But above all, how grateful we should be that God has preserved you, our dear mother, to us, to sweeten for us all that is bitter, to reward all effort. How I rejoice over next year, in which a new existence opens for me, a higher aim in life floats before me, and I shall have you both with me. I cannot tell you how I rejoice at the thought of this time, when I must take another step forwards, and shall again, at all events for a time, be with my own people.'”

It has not escaped our attention that this quoted letter did not carry a date. But we know by now that he was fifteen and half years old when he should have left the household of Professor Carus to join the school at Zerbst. How could it be “next year” that “I shall have you both with me”, unless we assume that his mother joined him at Zerbst in Prussia? There are more questions.

Why was it necessary for Max Müller to conceal this important information that Friedrich Maximilian was not merited enough to obtain his “Abiturienten-Examen” from the “Nicolai Schule” at Leipzig? Why did he pack his lack of “excellent merit” so slyly, very casually only?

“It was rather hard on me that I had to pass my examinations for admission to the University (Abiturienten-Examen) not at my school, but at Zerbst in Anhalt. This was necessary in order to enable me to obtain a scholarship from the Anhalt Government”.

The second sentence is more deceptive. It diverts attention to the need getting a scholarship. We have already dealt with this aspect. It comes even worse. He continues in the same paragraph with schools systems in Anhalt-Dessau and in Prussia and then returns to music. He informs that Friedrich Maximilian has just resisted the lure of music encountering in the household of Professor Carus. Quite a few pages have then been bestowed to music. Professors in those days were topping the list of all professions in terms of accorded social prestige. Musicians were glad being invited by professors in their social gatherings. There is no doubt that Friedrich Maximilian was exposed to music in the household of Professor Carus. Did Max Müller want us to assume that the real reason for Friedrich Maximilian’s leaving Leipzig was his exposure to music in the household of Professor Carus?

Well! The next issue is more important. Friedrich Maximilian comes back to Leipzig in 1841 and takes admission at Leipzig University. Why does he not get back to the household of Professor Carus? Why didn’t he stay with his friend Victor in the household of Professor Carus while both of them were admitted at Leipzig University? We could not get to the bottom to find an explanation. We are puzzled by another contradiction.

The fact is that mother Adelheide shifted to Leipzig with her daughter before Friedrich Maximilian got his school-final certificate at Zerbst in 1841. Therefore, the question did not arise that Friedrich Maximilian eventually stayed in the affluent household of Professor Carus and studied together with his friend Victor at Leipzig University. But why did she shift to Leipzig and robbed Friedrich Maximilian the chance to study at Leipzig University not in poverty again? No questions, no answers.

Instead we read on page 112 in the “My Autobiography” what Max Müller wanted us to believe: “In order to enable me to go to the University, my mother and sister moved to Leipzig and kept house for me during all the time I was there – that is two years a half”. This is another example of the wrapping-technique used by him that conceals facts, distorts facts. And the hard fact remains for our judgement of the situation: Friedrich Maximilian falls back to poverty.

We must refer back to the casual remark by Max Müller on pages 103-104 to comprehend his wrapping technique:

“It was rather hard on me that I had to pass my examinations for admission to the University (Abiturienten-Examen) not at my school, but at Zerbst in Anhalt. This was necessary in order to enable me to obtain a scholarship from the Anhalt Government.”

In the first sentence, he reports that Friedrich Maximilian had to pass his examinations for “admission to the University not at my school, but at Zerbst in Anhalt”. As if passing “Abiturienten-Examen” from his Nicolai School would have excluded him from “admission to the University”, which is absurd. For “admission to the LeipzigUniversity or to any other University” he by no means needed to go to Zerbst.

Now we look into the second sentence: “This was necessary in order to enable me to obtain a scholarship from the Anhalt Government.” We all know that Friedrich Maximilian is poor. University studies are a privilege of well-to-do people only. We all sympathetically note that passing his examinations at Zerbst enabled him “to obtain a scholarship from the Anhalt Government.” What should be wrong in this bypass? Who will care to know or will know that Zerbst had nothing to do with the “Anhalt Government”? And who will care to raise the simple question as we did? Was it “a scholarship” on merit? It was not on merit, as already mentioned.

Before we get into Friedrich Maximilian’s studies at the Leipzig University we must recall another obvious issue. On the pages 45 to 111 “The Rt. Hon. Professor F. Max Müller, K.M.” wanted us inform how the life of Friedrich Maximilian had been during the “schooldays at Dessau” as well as during the “schooldays in Leipzig”. We have put together all scattered information to get an adequate picture regarding the school life of Friedrich Maximilian. These are rather meagre.

What did Max Müller want us to believe? We are inclined to conclude that Max Müller wanted us to believe in the extraordinary brilliance of Friedrich Maximilian manifested already during his schooldays. That is why Max Müller has imported in these two chapters a lot of “scholarly” lectures of his own. On topics which were totally off the way for a boy as Friedrich Maximilian was up to 1841. Thus, Max Müller escaped his duty in an autobiography to deal with the schooldays of Friedrich Maximilian. An evaluation of his schooldays by Max Müller was not the purpose in those two chapters: “Childhood at Dessau” and “School-days at Leipzig”.

We are also inclined to conclude that the schooldays of Friedrich Maximilian had been extremely uneventful, dull and morbid. When he took his admission at Leipzig University, he was at best an average beginner of university studies. This is the hard fact that was to be veiled by those scattered facts in two chapters. Who will feel a need to recall the following deliberations by Max Müller scattered in the chapter: “Childhood at Dessau”:

“The more I think about that distant, now very distant past, the more I feel how, without being aware of it, my whole character was formed by it.”

“... but for many years my mother never went into society, and our society consisted of members of our own family only. All I remember of my mother at that time was that she took her two children day after day to the beautiful Gottesacker (God’s Acre), where she stood for hours at our father’s grave, and sobbed and cried. ... At home the atmosphere was certainly depressing to a boy. I heard and thought more about death than about life, though I knew little of course of what life or death meant. I had but few pleasures, and my chief happiness was to be with my mother, I shared her grief without understanding much about it. She was passionately devoted to her children and I was passionately fond of her. What there was left of life to her, she gave it to us, she lived for us only, and tried very hard not to deprive our childhood of all brightness.”

“As far back as I can remember I was a martyr to headaches. No doctor could help me, no one seemed to know the cause. It was a migraine, and though I watched carefully I could not trace it to any fault of mine. The idea that it came from overwork was certainly untrue. It came and went, and if it was one day on the right side it was always the next time on the left, even though I was free from it sometimes for a week or a fortnight, or even longer. It was strange also that it seldom lasted beyond one day, and that I always felt particularly strong and well the day after I had been prostrate. For prostrate I was, and generally quite unable to do anything. I had to lie down and try to sleep. After a good sleep I was well, but when the pain had been very bad I found that sometimes the very skin of my forehead had peeled off. In this way I often lost two or three days in a week and as my work had to be done somehow, it was often done anyhow, and I was scolded and punished, really without any fault of mine own.”

*****

Friedrich Maximilian begins his studies at Leipzig University in the summer semester of 1841. He is seventeen and a half years old. In Germany summer semester begins in April/May as ever. Friedrich Maximilian obtains a modest scholarship of 15 thaler per month from the Anhalt Government. Not for his studies at the Leipzig University, not as an encouragement for his merits. He obtains a scholarship for poor students for four years at most. This was a part of a general educational programme of the Anhalt-Dessau Government. Thus, Friedrich Maximilian avails a chance to take up university studies at Leipzig University. He gets matriculated there in “philology”.

Studying at Leipzig University is expensive in those days as it is in other German states as well. At every stage, one has to pay fees. The university teachers are not paid well. They raise their income by lecturing and examining. The more students are attracted, the more they earn. Attending to a lecture is not permitted without fees. Friedrich Maximilian faces a hard time. We shall come to this aspect in a little while.

The term Philology is a deceptive package. In real practice, it means, in term of hard facts, simply learning languages at a higher level. The “Nikolai Schule” offers classical education, which means along with general school subjects a good basic instruction in vernacular, in Greek and in Latin. Studies in Philology mean mere continuation of learning those two classical languages at the level of post-higher schools. Nothing less, nothing more. Studies in “philology” do not mean studies in sciences or in philosophy.

Leipzig University runs then four faculties: Theology, Law, Medicine and “Artisten” (Philosophy). The faculty of “Artisten” includes also the subjects: Mathematics and Natural sciences, Philology and Philosophy. In all subjects one can make his Bachelor, Master, and Doctorate. One has to go through a special post-doctoral examination called “Habilitation” to become a University teacher. This stipulation is basically valid also in the present German universities as ever.

Before one can acquire his “Magister artium” one has to complete at least six semesters passing through a tightly stipulated study-plan and has to complete his 21 years of age. Before one is permitted to the examinational formalities for “Magister artium” one must have acquired his first academic degree of “Baccalaureates”. The minimum stipulated time-period to obtain this first academic degree of “Baccalaureates” is completing three semesters. No age limit is stipulated to obtain this first academic degree of “Baccalaureates”.

It is on record that Friedrich Maximilian Müller from Dessau begins his studies in Philology at Leipzig University in the summer semester of 1841. Everything is new for him. He is not bright. He is not very fit. He suffers from regular severe headaches. He is not engaged in sport activities. He is poor. He does not have optimal beginning of his university studies.

Naturally, Friedrich Maximilian Müller is in search of finding out his interests in the new academic environment. He has to identify the right academic teachers corresponding to his interests. To begin with, he attends 12 lectures in SS 1841. He has not completed his eighteen years yet. Here is the list of lectures he attends:

1 The first book of Thucydides Gottfried Hermann

2 On Scenic Antiquities Gottfried Hermann

3 On Propertius P. M. Haupt

4 History of German Literature P. M. Haupt

5 The Ranae of Aristophanes Stallbaum

6 Disputatorium (in Latin) Nobbe

7 Aesthetics Weisse

8 Anthropology Lotze

9 System of Harmonic Composition Fink

10 Hebrew Grammar Fürst

11 Demosthenes Westermann

12 Psychology Heinroth

We read in the autobiography by Max Müller (p. 120): “It was enough for the summer half-year. Except Greek and Latin, the other subjects were entirely new to me, and what I wanted was to get an idea of what I should like to study.”

For the first time we get a glimpse of the mental disposition of Friedrich Maximilian. In the beginning semester he wanted “to get an idea of what (he) should like to study.” We are reading the page 120 of “My Autobiography” written by Max Müller. Here, we must confess, we are caught in that wonder some cute tear breaking story we read on pages 109 -111. We recall the story told of his “first love, Sanskrit and the rest”. We would like begin the story from the beginning of the paragraph and quote up to the last sentence of the chapter “School-days at Leipzig”, i.e. just before the beginning of the chapter “University”. The story begins with the lines on the page 109:

“While at school at Leipzig I had but little opportunity of travelling, for my mother was always anxious to have me home during the holidays, and I was equally anxious to be with her and see my relations at Dessau. ... (Then, details on the troublesome journeys to Dessau)

A more ambitious journey I took in 1841 with a friend of mine, Baron von Hagedorn. He was a curious and somewhat mysterious character. He had been brought up by a great-aunt of mine, to whom he was entrusted as a baby. No one knew his parents, but they must have been rich, for he possessed a large fortune. He had a country place near Munich, and he spent the greater part of the year in travelling about and amusing himself. He had been brought up with my mother and other members of our family, and he took a very kind interest in me. ... Hagedorn, with all his love of mystery and occasional exaggeration, was certainly a good friend to me. He often gave me good advice, and was more of a father to me than a mere friend. He was a man of the world, and therefore his advice was not always what I wanted. (Hagedorn is already introduced. We won’t repeat our comments mentioned in our chapter three.) He was also a great friend of my cousin who was married to a Prince of Dessau, and they had agreed among themselves that I should go to the Oriental Academy at Vienna, learn Oriental languages, and then enter the diplomatic service. As there were no children from the Prince’s marriage, I was to be adopted by him, and, as if the princely fortune was not enough to tempt me, I was told that even a wife had been chosen for me, and that I should have a new name and title, after being adopted by the Prince. (His only cousin Emilie is also introduced. We won’t repeat our comments in our chapter three.) To other young men this might have seemed irresistible. I at once said no. It seemed to interfere with my freedom, with my studies, with my ideal of a career in life; in fact, though everything was presented to me by my cousin as on a silver tray, I shook my head and remained true to my first love, Sanskrit and the rest. Hagedorn could not understand this; he thought a brilliant life preferable to the quite life of a professor Not so I. (Friedrich Maximilian with all his handicaps is only seventeen years old.) He little knew where true happiness was to be found, and he was often in a very melancholy mood. He did not live long, but I shall never forget how much I owed him. When I went to Paris, he allowed me to live in his rooms. They were, it is true, au cinquième, but they were in the best quarter of Paris, in the Rue Royale St. Honorè, opposite the Madeleine, and very prettily furnished. This kept me from living in dusty lodgings in the Quartier Latin, and the five flights of stairs may have strengthened my lungs. I well remember what it was when at the foot of the staircase I saw that I had forgotten my handkerchief and had to toll up again. But in those days one did not know what it meant to be tired. Whether my friends grumbled, I cannot tell, but I myself pitied some of them who were old and gouty when they arrived at my door out of breath.”

End of the chapter on page 111. A palatable account. Entertaining. Nicely written. We shall keep this account, his first love, Sanskrit and the rest, the friend Hagedorn and cousin Emilie in memory. The next chapter titled “University” begins on page 112 with the lines:

“In order to enable me to go to the University, my mother and sister moved to Leipzig and kept house for me during all the time I was there – that is two years a half”, ...”

*****

The first semester of orientation of Friedrich Maximilian is over. We apologise for taking a tiny break to look back. This was needed. There is no indication that he discusses with his mother also “to get an idea of what I should like to study.” After this Semester of orientation, he has started selecting his subjects and his academic teachers. In the Winter Semester 1841/42 he attends 10 lectures:

1 Aeschyli Persae Gottfried Hermann

2 On Criticism Gottfried Hermann

3 German Grammar P. M. Haupt

4 Walther von der Vogelweide P. M. Haupt

5 Latin Society P. M. Haupt

6 Tacitus, Agricola, and De Oratoribus P. M. Haupt

7 On Hegel Weisse

8 Disputatorium (in Latin) Nobbe

9 Modern History Wachsmuth

10 Sanskrit Grammar Hermann Brockhaus

Friedrich Maximilian continues with Greek and Latin and puts special weight on the German language, which is his vernacular, and on vernacular literature. Other subjects of his first semester he has deleted. Lectures on Aesthetics, Anthropology, Psychology and Hebrew Grammar he will not repeat at Leipzig University. Instead, he adds Modern History and Sanskrit Grammar.

We note that “Sanskrit Grammar” taught by Hermann Brockhaus in WS 1841/1842 is Friedrich Maximilian Müller’s first encounter with Sanskrit.

One year at Leipzig University has passed. Friedrich Maximilian Müller is presently 18 and half years old. There is no indication that he discusses any matters regarding the progress of his life as a student at the university with his mother or with anybody else. In his third semester (SS 1842), he has further selected his subjects. He attends the following seven lectures:

1 Pinder Gottfried Hermann

2 Nibelungen P. M. Haupt

3 Latin Society P. M. Haupt

4 Plauti Trinumus Becker

5 Arabic Grammar Fleischer

6 History of Oriental Literature Hermann Brockhaus

7 Nala Hermann Brockhaus

Obviously, Friedrich Maximilian Müller continues with Greek, Latin and German literature. He adds Arabic Grammar. Why does he add "Arabic Grammar”? Is this an indication that he has begun to develop an affinity towards “Orient” in general? “Hebrew Grammar” in his first semester we have noted. Obviously, he is not confident yet about which oriental language would suit to his interests. We raise this issue as a question because we do not get any indication from Max Müller in this regard.

Friedrich Maximilian does not know yet where “Orient” begins and how far it is stretched. It is not his personal deficiency. Europe does not know yet where “Orient” begins and how far it is stretched. Again, we apologise looking a little ahead. We shall deal with this issue in the next chapter. Moreover, how should he be able to differentiate at the age of just passed 18, if the only teacher for Sanskrit at Leipzig University, Hermann Brockhaus, mixes up “Oriental Literature” and “Sanskrit Literature”? Hermann Brockhaus does not include Arabic literature in his “Oriental Literature”. Arabic Grammar is taught, as indicated, by Professor Fleischer whose first name is not known to us. And Hermann Brockhaus does not know Arabic.

Hermann Brockhaus offers “History of Oriental Literature” and “Nala”. Nala is a tiny episode in the gigantic epic Mahabharata written in a language called Sanskrit, which was “deciphered” by the early European “Indologists” through plenty of available Arabic and Persian translations of Sanskrit literature. Hermann Brockhaus obviously uses this tiny Sanskrit Text as a follow up course of his lecture on Sanskrit Grammar.

We withdraw the term ‘early European “Indologists”’ as it might lead to misunderstandings. The term “Indology” is created in Germany only. There is no record that the language named Sanskrit has ever been taught in Europe before 1803. It was a private lesson in Paris then. Institutional teaching of the language named Sanskrit in Europe begins quite a few years later. Presently we write the year 1842. We shall deal with Sanskrit and “Indology” in separate chapters later in due course.

In our present context we put two strong marks of attention looking a little ahead. None of the protagonists teaching “Sanskrit” in Europe at the post-high school level has taken trouble to learn the Sanskrit language in India. This is number one. Secondly, none of them has ever an opportunity to hear the original sound of the language “called” Sanskrit. These “Indologists” have claimed to have learnt the language named Sanskrit all by their own self on the basis of hand written Sanskrit manuscripts only. These manuscripts were brought to Europe indiscriminately as part of the booties of European robbers in India. Is it comprehensible how it could have functioned to learn the Sanskrit language solely on the basis of these booties?

Hermann Brockhaus learnt Sanskrit from persons who believed that the ancient language called Sanskrit could be learnt by reading tiny simple episodes in Mahabharata like Nala with the help of available Arabic and Persian translations of Sanskrit texts. As already mentioned, we shall get into the language named “Sanskrit”, on “Indologists” and on Hermann Brockhaus who teaches “Sanskrit Grammar” and “Nala” at Leipzig University later in the next chapter. Here we just maintain that the knowledge of the language called Sanskrit of Hermann Brockhaus has been at best rudimentary.

Before Friedrich Maximilian Müller begins his 4th semester, i.e. WS 1842/1843, he does not try to earn his first academic degree of “Baccalaureates”. How could he? He is still in the phase of orientation. We recall here the stipulation of the then Leipzig University. The first academic degree of “Baccalaureates” can be earned after completing three semesters. No age limit is stipulated. An age limit is stipulated only for acquiring the academic degree of “Magister artium”. One has to complete his 21 years of age, at least six tightly organized semesters and having a “Baccalaureates” as the first academic degree.

It appears, however, that Friedrich Maximilian Müller intends to earn his first academic degree of “Baccalaureates” after completing his winter term. He almost doubles the number of lectures to be attended:

1 Aristophanes’ Vespac Gottfried Hermann

2 Plauti Rudens Gottfried Hermann

3 Greek Syntax Gottfried Hermann

4 Greek and Latin Seminary Hermann & Klotze

5 Latin Society P. M. Haupt

6 Juvenal Becker

7 Metaphysics and Logic Weisse

8 Philosophy of History Weisse

9 Philosophical Society Weisse

10 Philosophical Society Drobish

11 History of Indian Literature Hermann Brockhaus

12 Probodha Chandrodaya Hermann Brockhaus

Friedrich Maximilian Müller has obviously deleted his fancy for German Literature. He concentrates on Greek, Latin and Philosophy. He continues attending lectures offered by Hermann Brockhaus: History of Indian Literature and Probodha Chandrodaya. Probodha Chandrodaya is one of the dramas with allegories, originally written in the Sanskrit language, composed in a simple form, which arrived in Europe via British occupants rather accidently. When it arrived in England, it is already a translation, a translation and a translation of translations. Hermann Brockhaus gets hold of a translation done in 1812 by one J. Taylor, M.D, (Doctorate in Medicine).

This Dr.Taylor claimed to have made his translation from an original Sanskrit publication of this drama written by one Krishna Misri. And our search to find this Dr. J. Taylor and Krishna Misri in the web search engines does not lead us to anywhere. Instead, we are always referred back to Hermann Brockhaus. We are dumbfounded.

We write the WS 1842/1843. Hermann Brockhaus reads at Leipzig University “History of Indian Literature” and “Probodha Chandrodaya”. To judge what it means we must know about what is current in Europe as “History of Indian Literature” and how this knowledge on Indian literature has travelled from India to Europe. The same procedure is needed concerning “Probodha Chandrodaya”. We leave these issues here as planned items for the next chapter. Presently we take a note that Hermann Brockhaus knows English and we focus on Friedrich Maximilian Müller’s studies at Leipzig.

In the beginning of SS 1843 Friedrich Maximilian Müller is 19 and half years old. There is no indication in “My Autobiography”, nor is there a record at Leipzig University, that he sits in examinations to acquire his first academic degree of “Baccalaureates”. There is no indication whatsoever that he informs his mother that he has not tried even to acquire his first academic degree of “Baccalaureates”. We are apprehensive. What is happening with him? There is no indication whatsoever that he informs the Anhalt-Dessau government authorities on the progress of his studies. He is drawing a scholarship for poor students for a limited period. Has he developed exam anxieties or is he facing difficulties to choose his subjects for exam?

We continue to read in the 45 pages titled “University” in “My Autobiography” written by Max Müller. We remember his two major sufferings: Poverty and chronic headaches. There is not a word on his major handicaps while studying at Leipzig University. As it is in the previous chapters of his autobiography presented by Max Müller, essential and crucial facts about his real life at Leipzig University are almost concealed in the midst of general descriptions. We read, for example, an authentically vivid description that leads us directly to the German educational set up but only indirectly to Friedrich Maximilian as well (p.117-119, “My Autobiography”):

“It is in every respect a great jump from a German school to a German university. At school a boy, even in the highest form, has little choice. All his lessons are laid down for him; he has to learn what he is told, whether he likes it or not. Few only venture on books outside the prescribed curriculum. There is an examination at the end of every half-year, and a boy must pass it well to get into higher form. Boys at public school (gymnasium), if they cannot pass their examination at the proper time, are advised to go to another school, and to prepare for a career in which classical languages are less important.

I must say at once that when I matriculated at Leipzig, in the summer of 1841, I was still very young and very immature. I had determined to study philology, chiefly Greek and Latin, but the fare spread out by the professors was much too tempting. I read Greek and Latin without difficulty; I often read classical authors without ever attempting to translate them; I also wrote Latin easily. Some of the professors lectured in Latin, and at our academic societies Latin was always spoken. I soon became a member of the classical seminary under Gottfried Hermann, and of the Latin Society under Professor Haupt. ... I still have my Collegien-Buch, in which every professor has to attest what lectures one has attended. The number of lectures on various subjects which I attended is quite amazing, and I should have attended still more if the honorarium had not frightened me away. Every professor lectured publice and privatim, and for the more important courses, four lectures a week, he charged ten shillings, for more special courses less or nothing. This seems little but it was often too much for me; and if one added these honoraria to the salary of a popular professor, his income was considerable, and was more than the income of most public servants. I have known professors who had four or five hundred auditors. This gave them 250 Pounds twice a year, and that added to their salary, was considered a good income at that time.”

His sufferings due to poverty and the cute story of his “first love, Sanskrit and the rest” (p.109-111) is catching us up again. Now we read on page 112 in the “My Autobiography”. Highlights by us:

“In spite of the res angusta domi, I enjoyed my student-life thoroughly, while my home was made very agreeable by my mother and sister. My mother was full of resource, and she was wise enough not to interfere with my freedom. My sister, who was about two year older than myself, was most kind-hearted and devoted both to me and to our mother.”

We have read these lines more than once to get the basic trait of the character of Friedrich Maximilian as mediated to us by Max Müller and of course by his educational progress. He is pathologically egoistic. He enjoys his student-life thoroughly. He praises his mother who was full of resource, and she was wise enough not to interfere with his freedom. Does he, at least, report to the mother about the progress in his studies?

Then we read on page 113 in the autobiography: “Of society, in the ordinary sense of the word, I saw hardly anything. I am afraid I was rather a bear, and declined even to invest in evening dress. I joined a student club which formed part of the Burschenschaft, but which in order to escape prosecution adopted the title of Gemeinschaft. I went there in the evening to drink beer and smoke, and I made some delightful acquaintances and friendships.” Later we shall know that he smokes cigars only.

Friedrich Maximilian Müller has obviously raised himself to a master of suppressing things, if we trust Max Müller’s writings on him. We recall his 15 thalers scholarship for poor students and the small pension of his mother Adelheid. We take just one more example to comprehend how light heartedly he shows off. Members of a “Burschenschaft” wear ribbons to show their identity in public. Friedrich Maximilian Müller is once caught by the police wearing Ribbon. We read (p. 115-116, “My Autobiography”):

“I myself got a taste of prison life for the offence of wearing the ribbon of a club which the police regarded with disfavour. I cannot say that either the disagree or the discomfort of my two day’s durance vile weighed much with me, as my friends were allowed free access to me, and came and drank beer and smoked cigars in my cell – of course at my expense – but what I dreaded was the loss of my stipendium or scholarship, which alone enabled me to continue my studies at Leipzig, and which as a rule, was forfeited for political offences. On my release from prison I went to the Rector of the University and explained to him the circumstances of the case – how I had been arrested simply for membership of a suspected club, I assured him that I was innocent of any political propaganda, and the loss of my stipendium would entail my leaving the University.”

Friedrich Maximilian Müller lives his student life, as it is then common at Leipzig. Generally, students then were scions of wealthy people. He has joined a “Burschenschaft”. Members of a “Burschenschaft” learn also duelling. We read on page 116, Autobiography:

“Duelling was then, as it is now, a favourite pastime among students; and though not by nature a brawler, I find that my student days at Leipzig I fought three duels, of two of which I carry the marks to the present day.”

Scar marks on the face are prestigious visible signs of academicians in Germany even today. In the fifth semester, SS 1843, Friedrich Maximilian Müller reduces the numbers of lectures attended to nine. What does it indicate? Resignations? These lectures are:

1 Greek and Latin Seminary Hermann & Klotze

2 History of Greeks and Romans Wachsmuth

3 History of Civilization Wachsmuth

4 History after the Fifteenth Century Flathe

5 History of Ancient Philosophy Niedner

6 Philosophical Society Weisse

7 Philosophical Society Drobish

8 Soma-Deva Hermann Brockhaus

9 Hitopadesa Hermann Brockhaus

“Soma-Deva” is the name of a writer who has retold Indian legends, fairy tales and folk tales originally handed down in the Sanskrit language. “Hitopadesha” is a collection of episodic pieces in the Sanskrit language written in the early centuries. Translations in Arabic, Persian and English are available since the 16th century. We are unable to comprehend how university lectures on publications like these can teach a language like Sanskrit.

For all practical purposes, Friedrich Maximilian Müller has left Leipzig University before the winter term 1843/44 begins. He wished initially to attend only three lectures. We mention them.

1 Greek and Latin Seminary Hermann & Klotze

2 Elementa Persica Fleischer

3 Rig-veda Hermann Brockhaus

Obviously, Friedrich Maximilian Müller is still indecisive. He tends to learn Persian also. Keeping the “cute story” in mind (“first love, Sanskrit and the rest”) we are informed by Max Müller. We read in the autobiography, pages 122 ff:

“Here my Collegien Buch breaks off, the fact being that I was preparing to go to Berlin to hear the lectures of Bopp and Schelling.

It will be clear from the above list (he refers to the list of all lectures he has attended at Leipzig University) that I certainly attempted too much. I ought either to have devoted all my time to classical studies exclusively, or carried on my philosophical studies more systematically. I confess that, delighted as I was with Gottfried Hermann and Haupt as my guides and teachers in classics, I found little that could rouse my enthusiasm for Greek and Latin literature, and I always required a dose of that to make me work hard. Everything seemed to me to have been done, and there was no virgin soil left to the plough, no ruins on which to try one’s own spade. Hermann and Haupt gave me work to do, but it was all in the critical line – the genealogical relation of various MSS, or, again the peculiarities of certain poets, ... ”

A lengthy lecture follows on classical languages, on literature, on philosophers and on philosophy with lots of platitudes and clichés up to the end of the page 141 ff in the autobiography. Thereafter we read:

“For a time I thought of becoming a philosopher, and that sounded so grand that the idea of preparing for a mere schoolmaster, teaching Greek and Latin, seemed to me more and more too narrow a sphere. Soon, however, while dreaming of a chair of philosophy at a German University, I began to feel that I must know something special, something that no other philosopher knew, and that induced me to learn Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian. (...) It was a fortunate coincidence that at that very time, in the winter of 1841, a new professorship was founded at Leipzig and given to Professor Brockhaus. Uncertain as I was about the course I had to follow in my studies, I determined to see what there was to be learnt in Sanskrit. There was a charm in the unknown, and, I must confess, a charm also in studying something which my friends and fellow students did not know.”

It does not sound like a “love for Sanskrit”. Does it? We are again caught up with the cute story of Friedrich Maximilian Müller’s “first love, Sanskrit and the rest” (p.109-111). Anyway, one can read lectures delivered by Max Müller on languages, on Sanskrit, on etymology of words, on ancient gods, on Aryans, and what not. Obviously Friedrich Maximilian Müller could have known nothing of all these from Hermann Brockhaus. We shall have to know how Hermann Brockhaus had learnt his Sanskrit and where and from whom and for how long.

We keep this in our mind. After reading the lecture delivered by Max Müller on languages, on Sanskrit, on etymology of words, on ancient gods, on Aryans, and what not, we reach the page 152 and read:

“He (Professor Gottfried Hermann) by no means discouraged me, nay, he was sorry to lose me, when in my third year I went to Berlin. He showed me great kindness on several occasions, and when the time came to take my degree of M.A. and Ph.D., he, as Dean of the faculty, invited me to return to Leipzig, offering me an exhibition to cover the expenses of the Degree.”

At that time, it was a must to celebrate getting an academic degree. The customs in terms of dress and entertainments are fixed. It is quite expensive. These are documented in the annals of the German universities; Leipzig University included.

Georgina Max Müller quoted in her book a letter written by Friedrich Maximilian Müller to one of his friends who became a known writer in course of time. Theodor Fontane. It is being translated from German. We have not seen the original. We do not know who translated this letter (p. 19). We take it as it is. It is dated September 1843 only, i.e. much before the WS 1843/1884 begins:

“Dear Fontane,—I can well imagine that you have often cursed me not a little as I gave no sign of life for such a long time; but Morbus excusat hominejti, and I will add, Nisi homo excusat morbum I I hope you have carried on your Latin studies so far as to comprehend the deep meaning of these words; and if a human heart still beats in your breast, you must pity me, poor wretch, for having spent nearly the whole vacation in a nervous fever, so that I must stay almost the whole of next term here in Leipzig. It is ill-luck, you will agree. Well, one could almost despair, but where's the good of it? I have quietly unpacked my books and things again, and sit in Reichel's Garden, up three flights, up which I have to climb with many gasps. I am in Leipzig incognito, for I had already paid my farewell visits everywhere, and altogether feel no inclination for society.”

Friedrich Maximilian Müller leaves Leipzig University when he is twenty. He has studied unsystematically different subjects for only two and half years. He does not even try to take an academic degree. He even does not care to take a testified University leaving certificate. We wonder how he could have explained to his mother that he leaves Leipzig University without trying to take a single academic degree. Or did he belie his mother all together?

In SS 1844, he takes admission at the Royal Frederick William University in Berlin, as a student in the Faculty of Theology. Yes, Theology. It is documented. As “the student Friedrich Maximilian Müller”. What does it mean?

We ascertain, Friedrich Maximilian Müller does not acquire any qualification in any subject at the Leipzig University that could be assessed even as average achievement. He misused the scholarship of the Anhalt-Dessau Government for poor students. We are unable to relate his meagrely acquired knowledge to his deliberations of our first Chapter. In our search, we can leave Leipzig behind us. Our attention is focussed now at the Royal Frederick William University in Berlin. He is in search of “virgin soil”. We recall:

“I found little that could rouse my enthusiasm for Greek and Latin literature, and I always required a dose of that to make me work hard. Everything seemed to me to have been done, and there was no virgin soil left to the plough, no ruins on which to try one’s own spade.”

We recall also: “I began to feel that I must know something special, something that no other philosopher knew, and that induced me to learn Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian.”

Well. Apprehensively we raise, to begin with, the question whether there had been facilities to learn “Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian” in Europe in general and at Leipzig in particular. Then we raise the question whether Friedrich Maximilian Müller does learn “Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian” to understand philosophical literatures in these languages at Leipzig University.

As regard to the Sanskrit language, he could not have learnt more than Hermann Brockhaus knew. We leave these two questions unanswered. We leave them here as issues, as noted items, to think about. We shall get back to these questions later.

Presently we just fail to comprehend how modern scholars in Europe always assume and claim that they do learn and gain command over classical languages like Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian in a few months. Why do they fail to remember the years that they needed to learn their Vernacular, their Greek and their Latin? The question remains here again unanswered. We shall not deepen this aspect just here.

It would be beyond our competence to deal with Arabic and Persian. We simply focus on the Sanskrit language. Unless we know more about the language called Sanskrit, how it arrives in Europe, how and when it spreads in Germany and in Europe, we will not be able to assess and judge all those fantastic stories narrated by Max Müller in particular and by “Indologists” and modern scholars in general. Moreover, we will not be able to judge and evaluate what Friedrich Maximilian Müller has factually learnt in general and what kind of Sanskrit language he has learnt in particular. We take a necessary aside after this Chapter: “What does Friedrich Maximilian Müller learn at Leipzig University?” and look into what kind of Sanskrit he could have learnt so far.

CHAPTER 5

LEARNING SANSKRIT
IN GERMANY IN GENERAL AND
AT LEIPZIG IN PARTICULAR

All students, bright or less bright need orientation in the beginning at universities identifying subjects of interest and identifying sympathetic teachers. The phase of orientation may take even two semesters. In his second semester, Friedrich Maximilian Müller comes to know that Hermann Brockhaus, a new professor at Leipzig, offers Sanskrit Grammar for the very first time at Leipzig University. Before he decides upon his preferences, he attends Hermann Brockhaus as well out of curiosity. Orient, Oriental literature and Oriental languages are progressively becoming attractive not only in Germany. With general “philology”, i.e. Greek and Latin languages, and with German literature he is more or less familiar.

In fact, Friedrich Maximilian Müller could learn only that much of Sanskrit Grammar that Hermann Brockhaus knew and could teach in three months. We did not check whether Hermann Brockhaus ever continued with his grammar course in the following semesters. We know for sure that Friedrich Maximilian Müller’s knowledge of Sanskrit Grammar was restricted to this three-months-course given by Hermann Brockhaus. How many grammar courses do we need learning our vernacular?

From his 3rd. Semester onwards Friedrich Maximilian Müller attended, as dealt in details in the Chapter 4, the following five semester-courses offered by Hermann Brockhaus:

1 Nala Hermann Brockhaus

2 Probodha Chandrodaya Hermann Brockhaus

3 History of Indian Literature Hermann Brockhaus

4 Soma-Deva Hermann Brockhaus

5 Hitopadesa Hermann Brockhaus

It goes without saying that these courses were on narrated episodes and on secondary literature in the Sanskrit language. These courses were at best based on Hermann Brockhaus‘s three-months-grammar-course. And he lectured in the German language. After completing these courses Friedrich Maximilian Müller comes to the conclusion that Hermann Brockhaus’s knowledge was exhausted. In addition, he felt, that was not enough for him. Therefore, he decides to go to Berlin and learn more of the Sanskrit language and more of Sanskrit literature. Franz Bopp happened then to be the topmost Sanskrit scholar, not only in Germany.

Whatever else Max Müller narrates in his autobiography regarding Friedrich Maximilian Müller’s Sanskrit knowledge and love for Sanskrit does not correspond to facts. Moreover, Max Müller contradicts himself. We recall:

“I found little that could rouse my enthusiasm for Greek and Latin literature, and I always required a dose of that to make me work hard. Everything seemed to me to have been done, and there was no virgin soil left to the plough, no ruins on which to try one’s own spade.”

We recall also: “I began to feel that I must know something special, something that no other philosopher knew, and that induced me to learn Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian.”

All this does not sound like a love for the Sanskrit language. Does it? We are caught up again with the cute story presented by Max Müller regarding Friedrich Maximilian Müller’s “first love, Sanskrit and the rest” (p. 109-111). Friedrich Maximilian could not have “remained true to (his) first love, Sanskrit and the rest” before he ended his third semester for the simple reason that Hermann Brockhaus dealt with a Sanskrit text in Summer 1842 only. And whatever Friedrich Maximilian could know about “Sanskrit and the rest”, it has come to him through Hermann Brockhaus.

In the chapter “University” in “My Autobiography” by Max Müller one can read lectures delivered by Max Müller on languages, on Sanskrit, on etymology of words, on ancient gods, on Aryans, and what not. Obviously Friedrich Maximilian could have known nothing of all these from Hermann Brockhaus. The reason is rather simple. We apologise for looking a little ahead. Hermann Brockhaus himself could not have known all these topics, as we shall know in a while.

We get into the biography of Hermann Brockhaus to trace when, where, from whom and for how long he had learnt his Sanskrit language. He was born in 1806 in Amsterdam. He studied “Oriental languages” at the Universities of Leipzig, Göttingen and Bonn. The Universities of Leipzig and Göttingen did not teach the Sanskrit language at that time. In Bonn he was a student of August Wilhelm von Schlegel (1767–1835), who was holding a professorship for European Literature. Later he was celebrated as the founder of “German Indology”, who is also said to have known the Sanskrit language. Therefore, we shall have to apply the same method as we applied in the previous case. Whatever Hermann Brockhaus could know about “Sanskrit and the rest”, it came to him through August Wilhelm von Schlegel only. We extend our search to check now the ability of teaching the Sanskrit language of Hermann Brockaus’s teacher. There is no other way out.

August Wilhelm von Schlegel is the elder of the Schlegel brothers. He came to Paris while Franz Bopp was learning “Sanskrit” there. It is handed down that Franz Bopp and August Wilhelm von Schlegel learnt the Sanskrit language together in Paris. We look now into his vita.

August Wilhelm von Schlegel is educated at the Hannover Gymnasium and studies philology at the Göttingen University. As a philologist, he gets engaged in an “ardent study of Dante, Petrarch and Shakespeare”. From 1791 to 1795, he is tutor in a Dutch banker's family at Amsterdam. In 1796, soon after his return to Germany, he settles down in Jena, following an invitation of the German poet Friedrich Schiller. He is now 29 years old.

In Jena, he makes critical contributions to Schiller's journal for literature “Horen”. He translates also from Dante and Shakespeare. These works establish his literary reputation and gain for him an “extraordinary professorship” at the University of Jena in 1798 at the age of 31. With his younger brother Friedrich von Schlegel (1772–1829), he founds Athenaeum, the organ of the Romantic School of literature in Germany.

After divorcing his wife Karoline, in 1804, he is now 37, he travels with Madame de Staël as adviser in her literary work in France, Germany, Italy and other countries and as tutor to her sons as well. Until he is 46 years old, he remains adviser to her and tutor to her sons. From 1813 to 1817, he acts as secretary of the Crown Prince of Sweden, through whose influence his family gets back the title “von Schlegel”. In 1817, he is 50 years old.

He joins again the household of Mme. de Staël as advisor until her death in the same year. Thereafter he gets a professorship for Literature at the University of Bonn in 1818, and during the remainder of his life, he is occupied chiefly with oriental studies. So it is said. He happens also to be the founder of a “special printing office for Sanskrit” at Bonn. So it is handed down. We assume that he is credited to have created the first facilities in Germany to print texts in Sanskrit letters. We take liberty to look ahead a little in our documentary narration and assert here that printing facilities of Sanskrit texts were available in Kolkata with the British Kingdom represented by the East India Company even before the end of the 18th century. In addition, August Wilhelm von Schlegel was proficient in English.

As mentioned, it is handed down that Franz Bopp guided August Wilhelm von Schlegel to the study of Sanskrit in Paris. We recall what we have read in the autobiography of Max Müller, p. 122: “Here my Collegien Buch breaks off, the fact being that I was preparing to go to Berlin to hear the lectures of Bopp and Schelling.” This “Bopp” is Franz Bopp who went to Paris to learn “Sanskrit” in 1812.

Why to Paris? For how long does Franz Bopp stay in Paris? From whom does he learn Sanskrit and when does he guide August Wilhelm von Schlegel to the study of the Sanskrit language? It must have been before August Wilhelm von Schlegel starts acting as the secretary of the crown prince of Sweden in 1813. So, August Wilhelm von Schlegel could have learnt the Sanskrit language in Paris together with Franz Bopp at best for months only, between 1812 and 1813. Thereafter he had no opportunity to learn Sanskrit. Now we shall have to see how and how much Sanskrit Franz Bopp could have learnt before 1813 ended and then evaluate the quality of his guidance for August Wilhelm von Schlegel. In addition, we have to ascertain to whom Franz Bopp could have guided August Wilhelm von Schlegel to learn the Sanskrit language. Who was the teacher in Paris? Therefore, we are compelled to focus now on Franz Bopp.

*****

For a few years (1808–1814) Aschaffenburg was seat of a university, though not with all faculties, but with history, philology and philosophy. At the age of eighteen, Franz Bopp took up the two years’ “philology course” in 1808 at the Karls–University in Aschaffenburg. This was mainly a study of languages: the Greek, Latin, English, French and Italian. He was said to have been good in his studies, but not good enough. Though at the end of this two years’ “philology course” in 1810 he stood once first and once second in the class, he was unable to earn a “doctor’s degree”. He stood twice as “Defendant” (defender of his dissertation), but the doctor’s degree in philosophy was denied to him finally, unlike the later bishop of Speyer and Augsburg, Richarz, as it is documented. Does it sound like the beginning of an outstanding “scholar”?

His academic teacher Carl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann, a professor of philosophy and history, encouraged his son and Franz Bopp to study “linguistics” at some other University, whatever “linguistics” might then have been. In our simplicity of mind, we first assumed that “linguistics” is a science-based post-philology discipline. Then we looked into the eventual meaning of the word to comprehend that “linguistics” has to do with languages only. Then why cover it with a Latin word? Is it also a deceptive package like “philology”?

Then we started consulting books of reference. The result is enlightening for us. It is a relatively new deceptive package. We won’t go deep into it just now. Only this much here. It is rooted, so it is maintained, in the Sanskrit language and its grammar. Modern scholars of languages have discovered relatively recently that sound and meaning of words are interrelated. The demigods of this discovery are William Jones, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Franz Bopp, Noam Chomsky, etc.. We shall have to deal with the first three demigods later in due course because of their claims of knowing the Sanskrit language.

Now we get back to Carl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann and to his advising Franz Bopp to study “linguistics” after he failed finally to earn the doctor’s degree at the University of Aschaffenburg. Probably Professor Windischmann was fulfilling his dreams projected in the next generation. Why his dreams? Almost 80 years later Salomon Lefmann (1831–1912), professor of Indology at Heidelberg University, is to hit the nail on the head describing the spirit of that time, which had led to dreams, writing these lines in his book “Franz Bopp, his life and his science, Berlin 1891–1897", (p. 11–12):

“While princes and peoples anxiously following the current events were directing their eyes to France, where a powerful war lord, having taken possession of the inheritance of the revolution, had thence seized power over Germany and Europe, the philosophers and scholars were looking at a Far East and at a far away past. All wisdom and all sciences, all art and culture, had emerged there, there in the Orient, where the cradle of mankind had been. One had to take up oriental issues, study oriental antiquity, oriental philosophy, oriental languages – Hebrew, Arabic, Persian and – was anything impossible – the culture of Egypt, the language and literature of ancient India.

Beside the wonderland Egypt, brought nearer through Napoleon’s campaign, its mysterious priestly wisdom and picture scripts, indeed even more than this and more than any other country of the world India captured the fantasy. What one knew was little, the more what one did believe, both was, however, enough to push the devote enthusiasm of that time and of people to a climax. With the light of dawn, which had then just risen there, a cheerful morning was already shining to them promising the fulfilment of the most beautiful dreams and sentiments.

Since hardly two decades the English people had established their rule in India, had started their pioneering works there. The first reports of the Calcuttan society were received with true enthusiasm; everything that came from there was accepted with faithful reverence, and new revelations about the ‘oldest’ language and wisdom of mankind with boundless longing. A language ‘more perfect than Greek, more copious than Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either’, as Sir William Jones said, and yet in near kinship with both...”

As promised, we shall deal with Sir William Jones later. We have read, yes, we had to read repeatedly these lines written by Salomon Lefmann in 1881. Not because of his remarkable style of expressions like: ‘with faithful reverence’ or ‘with boundless longing’. No. We are also not criticising that Salomon Lefmann, as a religious Jew, for his failure to realise that Hebrew and anything Jewish had been excluded from the blond-blue-eyed-white-Christian culture more than half a century earlier. We criticise solely this culture that produced and produce not only “anti-Semitism” but “Salomon Lefmanns” as well.

Even in Carl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann’s and in Franz Bopp’s lifetime one could have known how cruelly the successors of Columbus had committed genocide and how beastly the massacres in the land of “new revelations about the ‘oldest’ language and wisdom of mankind” performed by the “Vasco da Gamas”, by Portuguese, by Britons, by Dutch and by French heirs. There was no dearth of reports given by eyewitnesses.

How much perversion did it require to write a sentence like: ‘Since hardly two decades the English people had established their rule in India, started their pioneering works there’? And how should one evaluate the fact that this sentence or sentences like this has not been criticised and corrected by even one single renowned poet, writer, theologian, philosopher, scientist belonging to “the wonder that was” this culture prevailing up to our days?

It is absolutely not the case that Salomon Lefmann wasn’t able to formulate critical sentences. What did he write referring to Napoleon? ‘While princes and peoples anxiously following the current events were directing their eyes to France, where a powerful war lord, having taken possession of the inheritance of the revolution, had thence seized power over Germany and Europe, the philosophers and scholars were looking at a Far East and at a far away past.’

We do not wish to raise such questions like: Did people, ordinary people, live in the Orient in those days? Or did anything else exist in the Orient besides riches, ancient wisdom–culture–language, other booties and “the fulfilment of the most beautiful dreams and presentiments” as well? Or, for that matter what is the implicit message in Lefmann’s lines? Does it not imply, rather plainly that without the ‘pioneering works...of the Calcuttan society', without ‘new revelations’ by a William Jones all cultural assets in “India” would have been lost for mankind? Do the cultural assets actually belong to their “discoverers”? Yes?

We are not discussing here all these questions. We don’t wish the descendants of Salomon Lefmann to make him a scapegoat for the intellectual lapses within this culture. We are conscious that scions of this culture have learnt to deny, every responsibility for their atrocities: Crusade, Inquisition, war, genocide in two continents, slave trade, robbery, exploitation, cultural genocide, “anti-Semitism”, annihilation of European Jews, dropping atom bombs, breaking up Palestine, defoliation in Vietnam by dioxin (agent orange), destruction of ancient memorials in Iraq, in Libya and the recent “crusades”. Sorry. Not crusades. The recent moves are “campaigns for democracy”, “campaigns for humanism” of the “civilised international community”. Saturation bombing to prevent “humanitarian disasters” included. Just to indicate the peaks of their criminal activities. The “civilised international community” deny vehemently every responsibility as a matter of principle.

*****

We presently get back to Friedrich Maximilian Müller, to Hermann Brockhaus, to August Wilhelm von Schlegel and to Franz Bopp. The academic mentor, Carl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann, of the young Franz Bopp, has read the book published by Friedrich von Schlegel, the younger of the Schlegel brothers in 1808: Ueber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (On the language and wisdom of the “Indier”). This is the very first “Indological” publication in the German language. The German Orientalists celebrated it like ‘a new gospel’. Before that, Germany knew nothing about a language called Sanskrit.

Friedrich von Schlegel acquires his knowledge of the Sanskrit language in Paris as well, as it is handed down. We shall deal with him a little later. But there is one question we must raise here and now. Why did nobody at Aschaffenburg consider sending Franz Bopp, first to Friedrich von Schlegel? Where was he in 1812? What has been known about his knowledge of the Sanskrit language? Was Friedrich von Schlegel’s knowledge of Sanskrit not good enough? If it were so, how could he write the book Ueber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier? We shall have to check the quality of his knowledge of “Sanskrit” as well.

Our method of checking, as already stated, is straightforward and simple. We just find out, where, when, from whom and for how long a person has learnt “Sanskrit”, if he claims to have acquired the qualifications of teaching that language called Sanskrit to others.

First we return to Franz Bopp’s vita. Life then is as unpredictable as it is today for the “geniuses”, who are as prone to human follies as they are today. Whilst Franz Bopp realises that there would be no future for him in Aschaffenburg, he meets rather accidentally a restless Orient enthusiast, a young lady called Helmine de Chézy (1783–1856). About this meeting, she is quoted in the Brockhaus encyclopaedia in 1858:

“I found Aschaffenburg in 1812 (unlike 1811) very depressing. Karl von Dalberg was also away; after some time he returned. He was not cheerful. ...There was little intellectual stimulation in Aschaffenburg. Therefore, the acquaintance with Franz Bopp was very welcome to me. He was about to go to Paris in order to learn Persian and Sanskrit from Chézy. In the meantime I taught him to read Persian and many verbs and nouns. Chézy with his flaming heart received him like a father. He opened for him the gates of science and gave his pupil all of his interior treasures.”

In 1812 Franz Bopp is just 21, Helmine de Chézy 29 and Antoine Léonard de Chézy 39. The Chézys are already divorced since 1810. Well! Helmine is actually Wilhelmine von Klenke. Her father a military officer and her mother a poetess. They were divorced early. Wilhelmine grows up ‘under unregulated circumstances’, whatever that might mean. In 1799 she marries Gustav Freiherr von Hastfer at the age of sixteen and divorces after a year. The countess de Genlis invites her in 1801 to Paris. From 1803 to 1807 she edits the journal “französische Miscellen” (French Miscellanea). In 1805 she marries at the age of twenty-two Antoine Léonard de Chézy, a known Orientalist in Paris. He will start teaching Persian in 1807 and later, in 1816, he will become the first Sanskrit professor at the Collège de France at the age of thirty-three, the very first Sanskrit professorship in Europe. We have taken a note of this.

In 1810 she gets separated from Antoine Léonard de Chézy, retains his name, stumbles from one relationship to another, works as a journalist and leads the life of a “liberated women” of that time. She recommends young Franz Bopp to go to Paris, especially because her ex-husband, Antoine Léonard de Chézy, has mastered Sanskrit. But how did 115Antoine Léonard de Chézy learn Sanskrit and from whom? We shall deal with him a little later as well.

*****

Whatever could have happened, but did not, also tells stories; stories about the limited horizon, about the intellectual attitudes of the protagonists of that time, about the patterns of communication, about communication channels and all that goes with it. We must however now stick to Franz Bopp’s facilities of learning the Sanskrit language in Paris of 1812.

The French occupants and missionaries also have plundered indiscriminately in India including manuscripts, books and artefacts without being able to understand their significance. Finally, these booties landed either in the royal library or in the royal museum in Paris. They were somehow sorted and catalogued without knowing what was done. There was none to identify them. There was none to be able to read and discriminate them. France has dragged out more cultural assets from Egypt than from India. A collection of manuscripts and of artefacts in a library generally becomes a watering ground for enthusiasts of all kind, especially if the curator is such a charming “contact-exchange” like Louis Mathieu Langlès (1765 - 1824).

There is an interesting obituary on him by A.J. Mahul in the Annuaire nécrologique, volume VI, 1821– 26. “As an officer’s son Louis Mathieu Langlès gets the job of his father in the Watch-house of the Tribunal of the Marshals of France in Péronne near Mont Didier, in the Picardie on August 23, 1765 after finishing school. Aspiring for a more advantageous career in the colonial service in India he wants to study oriental languages. He is permitted to attend lectures of Caussin de Perceval on Arabic and of Ruffin on Persian at the Collège de France. When he publishes a French translation of Political and military institutions of Tamerlan’ – from an English translation by major Davy – at the age of 22, Marshal de Richelieu, the then dean of the Tribunal of the Marshals of France, sponsors him. He is glad to ensure that the 25 years old “young scholar” of him got one of the twelve scholarships.”

Louis Mathieu Langlès is enthusiastic all right. He does not hesitate to claim to have reconstructed the alphabets of the Tartaric language and cast them in letters for printing. When he publishes them he is accused of plagiarism, because Michel-Ange-André Le Roux’s “Deshauterayes” had already published the same 20 years earlier in the Encyclopédie. Well, Louis Mathieu Langlès could have also got away with it! Isn’t it? Unfortunately for him that someone did have a memory of 20 years.

Louis Mathieu Langlès tries the same exercise with other languages of the orient too. He loves these languages, celebrates them on all occasions, inserts words or characters into his books to draw attention of his readers by the bizarre appearance of those exotic forms, and publishes oriental texts. He contributes to popularise Arabic, Turkish and Persian in France. No one ever wanted to know when, where and from whom he could have learnt those languages.

He submits several memorandums to the National Assembly between 1790 and 1794, ultimately resulting in the setting up of the École des langues orientales vivantes (School for contemporary oriental languages) at the national library in Paris. He is appointed the president and professor for Persian and Malaysian at the age of twenty-nine. But he does not teach these languages there. Why does he not teach these languages there or at all? The reason is not difficult to comprehend. He just does not know them.

In 1792 Louis Mathieu Langlès becomes none the less the curator of the oriental manuscripts at the national library at Paris. Nothing “oriental” is then on in France without him. He publishes a lot. These are translations from English into French. A genuine “Oriental Langlès”. Among the orators at his burial in 1824 is also a representative of the “Asiatick Society” in Kolkata, founded by “Oriental Jones”, i.e. by Sir William Jones.

At the École of the langues orientales vivantes Baron Antoine Issac Silvestre de Sacy (1758–1838) is appointed as the first teacher for “Contemporary Oriental Languages”. This is rather a highflying term because in 1795 only Arabic is taught there. From 1806 on Antoine Issac Silvestre de Sacy teaches also Persian. As far as “Oriental Matters” are concerned, nothing else is available there when Franz Bopp arrives in Paris.

We get to know from his first letter from Paris dated January 1, 1813, to his “most honourable friend” Karl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann (highlighted by us):

“...ever since I am here I am busy only with Arabic, because I was advised to acquire some skill in it before I go for other oriental languages. After gaining some skill in the Arabic I shall begin with Persian, so I hope after 14 days to be able to read light prose in this language; ...Only the Indian languages are not taught here, and nobody studies them. I shall be the only one in the summer, who is engaged with them. I think indeed to begin with Persian and Sanskrit at the same time during the summer. ...Soon I hope to send you some blossoms of Persian and Indian poets in translation, if only my fate be so favourable as to let me be in Paris long enough. Chézy will be able to afford me good services when I begin the Sanskrit. He is the only one, as I hear, who engages in this language here.”

We fail to understand why Franz Bopp does not begin with Sanskrit immediately. The fact that he is advised to learn Arabic first reveals actually the ignorance prevailing in Paris in 1812/1813. Obviously it is assumed that Arabic and Sanskrit are related to each other. We remember it is handed down that Franz Bopp guided August Wilhelm von Schlegel to the study of the Sanskrit language in Paris. How Franz Bopp could do it? He does let us know neither that had he known the Sanskrit language, nor that there were facilities to learn the Sanskrit language in Paris until the summer 1813. We must conclude that August Wilhelm von Schlegel never had an opportunity to learn the Sanskrit language. At most, Franz Bopp had talked to him about “Sanskrit”, after others had talked to him. Therefore, Hermann Brockhaus could have learnt only what August Wilhelm von Schlegel knew from others about and on “Sanskrit”, but definitely not the Sanskrit language. Thus it is comprehensible that Friedrich Maximilian Müller went to Berlin to learn the Sanskrit language.

After this tiny aside, we get back to Franz Bopp in Paris. The following episode is interesting and revealing. In his reply on March 14, 1813 Karl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann had announced to him:

“I am glad of being able to tell you something pleasant this time: Prof. Othmar Frank, author of “Das Licht vom Orient (The Light from the Orient) & the Commentatio de lingua persica (Comments on Persian) – a man full of deep knowledge wrote to me recently that he will be travelling to Paris on a grant of the Bavarian king to avail himself of the oriental treasures there. The thought came to me as a flash to get the two of you in touch, because you could be useful to each other to the good cause. I wrote therefore to him about you & he will look out for you in the library, where you could also introduce him to M. de Chezy.”

Here is the reaction of Franz Bopp (highlighted by us):

“Don’t you have any news from Frank? He told me he would try to go to England. I cannot assess Frank's knowledge in oriental languages; nevertheless, they do not seem to me to be profound. He did not disclose much in this regard and was anyway very secretive. He started to learn Sanskrit here with me approximately at the same time. He bought the printed Ramayana for the library in Munich on my repeated suggestion, and afterwards he concealed it from me. He also concealed from me that he had got manuscripts from the imperial library. He let me feel altogether a petty jealousy.”

We are at a complete loss for words. But not of our ability to reckon. On March 14, 1813, Othmar Frank was announced. Franz Bopp began to learn Sanskrit approximately simultaneously with him. This could have been in summer 1813 only. Franz Bopp’s next letter we cite to his academic mentor is dated April 29, 1814 is revealing (highlighted by us).

“...I have overcome the first hurdles of the language of Indian wisdom. I see now, to my delight, that I am able to master thoroughly the most beautiful, most important, presumably also one of the most difficult languages of the Orient without any help from others. ... I find that the similarity of Sanskrit with Latin and Greek is very large. This can be extended further than Schlegel (Friedrich von) has done. ...If we had had a great prince or would get one now, I could cherish the hope to get princely support to travel to India, if I succeeded with a smart translation.”

Franz Bopp has developed quite well in his 22 years of age. He claims in the same letter to have already read ‘Bhagawatgita, a small piece with plenty of deep philosophical content, translated by Wilkins into English’. How did he do it? From summer 1813 to the End of April? Was it 10 or just 8 months? The main thing is that he didn’t disclose to his academic teacher who actually was his Sanskrit teacher. His academic teacher didn’t enquire either. Therefore, we too cannot find out who the teacher was.

The reply of his academic mentor of July 22, 1814 is full of congratulations for his “dear friend”. He would also like to get “the catalogue of the Indian manuscripts by Langlès and Hamilton”, so that he could “more exactly indicate” what his pupil “should look into more closely”. He informs him also that he would ask “first our Royal Bavarian Commissioner Freiherr von Aretin, and later the king himself” that Franz Bopp should be given the opportunity “first to go to England and then presumably also to India”. For some years Othmar Frank was not to be mentioned. Remarkable academic morals! Is it any different nowadays? The quality of Franz Bopp’s mobbing appears to be remarkably modern.

We must rummage through the correspondence to put together all the bits of a puzzle to gain a clear picture of how Franz Bopp turns into a Sanskrit scholar. Even before he starts learning the Sanskrit language he already knew: “The German language is so very much suitable to render faithfully the original Indian thoughts. And I want to contribute my utmost that it (Ramayana) can be read in German language. I am already now capable to translate the first part, available in English translation. The second part is said also to appear soon. ... Without a translation, even if it were a very free one, I am unable to translate any Indian manuscript yet, Chézy, either, hardly can, although he is engaged in that 6 years longer.” We note the date July 27, 1814. Accordingly, Antoine Léonard de Chézy must have begun to learn Sanskrit in 1808. But how and from whom? We shall find out in a while.

Franz Bopp comes to Paris in 1812 to learn Sanskrit from Antoine Léonard de Chézy only. Until summer 1813, he doesn’t learn any other language but Arabic. Why? We remember also, the handed-down information in the European scholarly literature is just false that Franz Bopp guided August Wilhelm von Schlegel in Paris to learn Sanskrit. Uncorrected yet. What does it mean? Does it tell any story? We are too simple to understand these inconstancies.

In July 1814 Franz Bopp reports to his academic mentor Windischmann also that he cannot learn Sanskrit from Antoine Léonard de Chézy. But why not? Didn’t he know Sanskrit? Instead of indicating a reason, Franz Bopp maintains that he doesn’t require any teacher for learning the Sanskrit language. Since (highlighted by us):

“Indeed I think, ...when I shall have penetrated well into everything which has been written on Indian mythology in European languages, and if I will then be able to proceed further and to draw from the sources (and what did the others do?), when I shall have become conversant with the philosophical systems of India as well as with that of our fatherland (Vaterland) and that of the Greek, then, dear friend, I will be ready to understand Indian literature without any translation and, if necessary, also without a dictionary.” How revealing!

Franz Bopp has come to know that the Englishmen from Kolkata were planning to bring out a Sanskrit-English-Dictionary in two years. But did he really need it? According to his claims, he mastered Sanskrit characters and their sounds (“their sounds”? How?) so well that he is already thinking of “occupying” them in his own way. How? What did he mean? Well, on July 27, 1814 he explains it to his academic mentor Windischmann:

“...I have worked out an alphabet by which one can reproduce the system of Sanskrit alphabetic characters in a pure form, ... Before I write the grammar, I presumably should make my system of characters known and for this purpose I want to take the Bhagawatgita, the most beautiful parts of which you already know from Schlegel’s (Friedrich von) translation, and publish the (original) text with a very literal translation in Latin, and my brother will probably make the Dewanagari alphabetic characters for a few pages.”

Franz Bopp discloses also his motive behind this undertaking. We read in the same letter dated July 27, 1814:

“Whatever is printed in Calcutta in its original text is so expensive that hardly any individual, who is not very rich, can acquire several volumes without great sacrifices. The 1st volume of Ramayana costs here 160 Francs, the grammar of Carey 280 Francs etc.”

He is concerned about the “price”. He wants to print the original texts so cheap that many Germans could afford them. And in order to fulfil this missionary zeal he wants to “occupy” Sanskrit, take “possession” of Sanskrit, in his own way. He not only feels fit for this purpose, he formulates even his own claim, also on July 27. He establishes his claim basing just upon invented facts:

“One writes the Sanskrit in more than 10 different ways. Every different nation in India has adapted its system of alphabetic characters to the Dewanagari or to the actual Sanskrit system of alphabetic characters, and writes its Sanskrit accordingly. Why shouldn’t we Europeans, whose languages do actually originate from Sanskrit, also adapt our alphabet to that, in order to spread the precious writings of the “Indier” all the more?”

Well why shouldn’t the Europeans even write their own “Sanskrit-literature“ in the next step? This is not just a sarcastic question. We take a note for our memory. This is also a reminder for modern scholars.

Franz Bopp has repeatedly emphasised that he has learnt Sanskrit without any help. All on his own. Absolutely self-taught. But this could only have meant, “Help” from persons as teachers. By this time about half a dozen Sanskrit “grammar guides” were available in Paris. All in English and Franz Bopp knows English, – a grammar by the missionary William Carey (this he himself has referred to), A grammar of the Sungscrit language, Serampore 1804, by Henry Thomas Colebrooke, A grammar of the Sanscrit language, Calcutta 1805, by Charles Wilkins, A grammar of the Sanskrita language, London 1808, and An essay on the principles of Sanskrit grammar. Part I, Calcutta 1810, by “Senior Merchant on the Bengal establishment” H. P. Forster. How was their quality? Our question is more rhetorical. These were the first ventures by persons with little educational training and with questionable intellectual abilities. The quick sequence of the publishing dates indicates not only haste. We shall deal with all these persons in due time.

From a letter of recommendation by Professor Windischmann in 1814 to the Commissioner of the Bavarian government, Baron Aretin, we get also some more information about the period of Franz Bopp’s apprenticeship in Paris:

“I led him by instructions to the myth systems and exquisitely in the large and meaningful teachings of the Indian philosophy (as far as they are known to us from thorough translations) to a better understanding of what he needs to do in order to become most thoroughly acquainted with the language. Now there was no halt; he asked for the sources, and it was no trouble to prompt his father (having six children) to support him, as far as possible, for a few years in Paris. There he has been learning first the difficult Sanskrit language since nearly two years, under instructions of M. Chezy, then Arabic and Persian under the instructions of M. Sylvestre de Sacy to the extent that especially in the first one, only a few will be found in Germany and France equal to him (How should he be able to judge this?). Chezy also felt this soon from this progress of the young man and became a little jealous (How should he be able to ascertain this?); but he did not allow himself to be put off by that. Moreover, when some difficulties were put in his way in the further lending out of books and manuscripts he has copied himself what he needed for his current work in Dewanayhavi (!) letters (which letters?) in the most arduous way to carry on his work without interruption. He was thus forced by need to put together by himself a whole grammar which he ultimately worked through with so much zeal and success that he will be able to publish his own grammar for the general benefit within a year, combined with a collection of the most beautiful spots of Indian poems and teachings; and all these he will get printed in accordance with the Indian text in his own skilfully developed European alphabet system corresponding to the Indian pronunciation (Indian pronunciation? Something like ‘Dewanayhavi’? How should he be able to pronounce any word? He does not get an opportunity of listening to the sounds of the alphabets and of the words.), because Sanskrit letters are so expensive. He has also given me specimens of his translations from the Sanskrit, exactly in the verse measures of the original of the great Indian poem "Ramayana" (of the great Indian poem "Ramayana"?), which bears the same accuracy in dealing with the inner sense and expression as Friedrich Schlegel’s (up to now the only person in Germany who presumably understands Sanskrit).

Much can be expected from such a talent for thorough knowledge of the language and literature which becomes day by day more important for the history of mankind, for the knowledge about the oldest religions, laws and teachings and we Germans should neglect them the less, the more in England great progress is made and professorship is being established in the universities all over (professorship is being established in the universities all over?).

Since the domestic circumstances of the tireless young man do not suffice, however, to support him up to the maturity in this profession and now His Majesty has been pleased to sanction most graciously an adequate grant to meet the needs, so I appeal on behalf of Mr. Bopp that Your Excellency may most kindly take up this matter and lead it to the end, so that our true Indians might soon enjoy the paternal grace of our beloved king and be thus incited to accomplish his work, already begun, with increased zeal and cheerfulness. As far as his actual needs are concerned, these are not considerable. He lived up to now parsimoniously and meagrely and tried to earn what he needed additionally whenever the time allowed him by some extra work. However, as he is hindered by his scarce resources to acquire by his own means the necessary helps for his studies, already available in printed form, having lost far too much time with arduous copying, it is now primarily to be seen to it that he can dedicate his energy undivided to the big objects of his profession and be able to procure himself the necessary aids, among which as the most urgent yet, for example, the edition of Ramayana appeared in Calcutta (in which language?), which, to begin with, he wants to translate completely, then the Sanskrit Chrestomathy by Carrie (by whom?) etc. etc., costing 180 and 140 francs, so I believe un-authoritatively, that, all brought into most precise estimate, 600 guilders would be not too much, to support him during his still necessary stay in Paris. His later transfer to England will then ask for further grace by our sovereign in accordance with the higher prices in that country. Besides this grace the firmest support by the Royal Legation might be necessary to warrant a more free use of the sources. Recommending the whole matter to your favour, I remain in deepest reverence Your Excellency’s most obedient servant Windischmann.”

This document alone, kept in Würzburg-state-archive, manifests the then academic culture in all facets of its factitiousness, as well as of the privileged section of the society. In 1816 in Frankfurt Franz Bopp publishes his book: Über das Konjugationssystem der Sanskritsprache in Vergleichung mit jenen der griechischen, lateinischen, persischen und germanischen Sprache. Nebst Episoden des Ramayan und Mahabharat in genauen metrischen Übersetzungen aus dem Originaltext und einigen Abschnitten aus den Vedas (On the conjugation system of the Sanskrit language in comparison with that the Greek, Latin, Persian and Germanic language. With episodes of Ramayan and Mahabharat in precise metric translations from the original text and with some sections from the Vedas). Edited and prefaced by K. J. Windischmann. This book would have appeared – this is just our impression – also without Franz Bopp’s meeting Antoine Léonard de Chézy. But the issue is: how does Franz Bopp come to know all this between 1812 and 1816? Fantasies? Revelations? And what is right and what is wrong in this book? Who could and who should have checked? There had never been questions like these. And we know: no questions, no answers. This is the wonder that is this culture.

Franz Bopp is now 24 years old. He gets the scholarship. Carl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann could not have had personal knowledge of anything he has written down as “expert opinion” in his argumentation. He had to believe in the contents of those letters written by Franz Bopp from Paris. We refrain from a comment at this place. We read instead in Franz Bopp’s application in 1816 to get a scholarship for England:

“Royal high commissioner's office! During a four-year stay in Paris I have dedicated myself to the study of oriental languages and literature, particularly the Sanskrit, to the best of my ability, with uninterrupted eagerness. The first two years I covered my maintenance at the expense of my father, a Servant of the Bavarian king, who did not shun the greatest sacrifices to support me, to my best, in order to make me useful for the state and the science regardless of his limited means and humble circumstances. For the last two years His Royal Majesty had gracefully been pleased to grant me highly magnanimously a benefit payment of 600 guilders annually. Though this sum did not suffice to cover the complete costs of my stay in Paris, I considered this most gracious help as the highest luck, because it had enabled me to approach my scientific goals aided by a small support from my father and my consequent austerity and renunciation.

In a book published recently in Frankfurt I sought to show how much my arduous attempts might have been successful. This publication will show the aspect from which I set out to my studies of languages in general and at the same time perhaps also an evidence of the importance of the Sanskrit language and convince of the truth about the great benefit the philologist could draw from the exact knowledge of the same for the scientific understanding of the inner architecture and organism of the languages of the classical antiquity as well as of the still living ones. Which additional benefits might otherwise originate through the knowledge of the treasure of Indian Literature is generally known. Through the knowledge I have been able to acquire painstakingly I feel fit to contribute towards publishing these so far unused sources, if I had the privilege of availing myself furthermore of the big collections of this kind in Paris or even better in London.

A stay of several years in London would be necessary to complete my already started and partly published comparison of languages and to carry out at all my plan to show all languages about which some information is obtainable in regard to their possible kinship with or dissimilarity from each other, to show their inner spirit and essential character and thus to set up a scientifically based system of the general linguistics: an endeavour linked with most important results for the scholars of language and history.”

Instead of 2000 guilders annually for the first two years 1000 guilders were granted on September 30, 1817. For the academic year 1819/1820 Crown Prince Ludwig personally added an allowance of another 1000 guilders. The scholarship was extended for another year.

The stay in London is only a step and was supposed to be a transitional station. He is already dreaming of a stay in India. Of course receiving a grant of Crown Prince Ludwig. Accordingly he writes on August 24, 1815 to Carl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann:

“In view of the enormous range of the Indian literary works it is difficult to come to some epitome of Indian literature. The poems are like the Egyptian obelisks. The first part of Mahabharata does not reach up to the actual beginning of the poem, it contains as a whole little noteworthy. The year that I shall still stay here I will now completely dedicate to Indian literature, and read so much as possible, in order to know in advance about which issues I shall have to ask Brahmins for advice when I go to India, and I shall be able to do a lot there in a short time.”

His dream is not fulfilled. We do not know whether that Prof. Othmar Frank played a role, who is by now well integrated in the Munich-clique. Franz Bopp, however, was to become a “Pope of Sanskrit” even without ever being in India and before he ever had an opportunity to hearing the sound of the Sanskrit language. In the annals we find him also as the founder of “vergleichende Sprachwissenschaften” (comparative language-sciences). Again, we must confess, we are too simple to understand the difference between comparative language-sciences and Linguistics.

Antoine Léonard de Chézy became in 1816 the first professor for Sanskrit in continental Europe at the age of 33. August Wilhelm von Schlegel, as already mentioned becomes a professor for European Literature in 1818 in Bonn at the age of 53, later claiming to be a professor for Sanskrit as well. The first one in Germany. In 1825, Franz Bopp becomes professor for Sanskrit in Berlin at the age of 34. He was to spread Sanskrit in Europe. He is the same Franz Bopp who saw no future for himself as an academician in 1810.

After becoming professor for Sanskrit in Berlin, he has enriched the wonder that is this culture further as the founder of so-called linguistic science. How does he do it? No questions, no answers. He even publishes six volumes under the title: Vergleichende Grammatik des Sanskrit, Zend, Griechischen, Lateinischen, Litthauischen, Altslawischen, Gotischen und Deutschen (Comparative Grammar of Sanskrit, Zend (Avestan), Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Old Slavonic, Gothic and German).

As simple-minded straightforward persons we do not comprehend the benefit for human knowledge comparing languages and their grammars. On top of it Franz Bopp did not know quite a few of these languages. Did he not evolve to a first class swindler? Should we withdraw our question? Do we have to withdraw our question? Whatsoever. We add a remark: Linguistics is going strong since Franz Franz Bopp’s invention.

*****

For the present, however, we must continue our search finding out how the Sanskrit language arrived in Europe. Franz Bopp has claimed to have learnt the Sanskrit language all by himself. No one knows how. The question has not been raised yet. We raise this issue along with a polemic question. Was the knowledge of Sanskrit “revealed” to him while he practised spelling mentally (he had no chance hearing any sound from written letters or words in Sanskrit how it was pronounced) the many robbed Sanskrit manuscripts again and again in the Royal Library in Paris? Whatsoever. We go on with our evaluation of the available documents.

Franz Bopp invents his own grammar and translates Sanskrit texts. At that time in Paris there was only a single person, as reported, who claimed to have known Sanskrit: Antoine Léonard de Chézy. He also claimed to have taught himself. How? How can we know? His Sanskrit was, however, not up to the mark, as reported by Franz Bopp. This was the reason why Franz Bopp had to invent his own learning method. But we have detected two other references: Friedrich von Schlegel and Alexander Hamilton. They were engaged with Sanskrit in Paris even before Antoine Léonard de Chézy.

Getting into these two references we come across documents telling incredible stories. Antoine Léonard de Chézy works in the Egyptian department of the Royal Museum in Paris. The administrators of the artefacts from colonial booty were entitled to “study tours” to Egypt. When in 1803 such a trip is due Antoine Léonard de Chézy falls ill. As luck would have it, however, Louis Mathieu Langlès was there, that “news pool” for “Orient enthusiasts” in Paris. We remember him. So, Antoine Léonard de Chézy learns from the young German Helmine von Hastfer (we remember her too), a friend of Dorothea and Friedrich von Schlegel, who were living temporarily in Paris, that Friedrich von Schlegel takes lessons in Sanskrit from an interned Englishman called Alexander Hamilton.

Friedrich von Schlegel puts it on record that he has learnt Sanskrit from Alexander Hamilton. We shall deal with the quality of the lessons a little later. There is also evidence that Alexander Hamilton and Antoine Léonard de Chézy meet each other in Paris rather frequently. Antoine Léonard de Chézy himself maintains repeatedly that he was not interested in Sanskrit at all and knew nothing about Sanskrit before he met Alexander Hamilton. He was an Egyptologist only.

Hereafter there are two different versions of this small (hi)story within history. One version has it that the great misfortune of missing the study tour to Egypt due to sudden illness was more than compensated by the opportunity to learn Sanskrit from Alexander Hamilton. The other version says the meetings with Alexander Hamilton made him curious about Sanskrit. He learnt the language, however, “secretly” and “by teaching himself” and definitely after Alexander Hamilton had left France.

We remember Franz Bopp’s report to Professor Windischmann according to which Antoine Léonard de Chézy has been engaged with Sanskrit since 1808. But does it really matter? Swindles remain swindles, isn’t it? Even with the best of our efforts, we are unable to understand how a Frenchman in Paris could have learnt a perfectly developed language like the Sanskrit without a teacher, without a grammar and without any help whatsoever. But why complain! “Modern historians” and Indologists have not had and do not have any difficulty so far, in putting up with these incredible stories. They just believe in them. One must develop in this culture the ability to believe and forget the necessity of knowing. Why knowing?

*****

We are now compelled to extend our search. Who is this Alexander Hamilton who brought Franz Bopp, at least indirectly, to Sanskrit and thus contributed to the spread of Sanskrit in Europe? Our search leads us ultimately to the original document and there we read the following lines: “In 1795 (wasn’t it in 1794?) the government of the French Republic founded the École des Langues Orientales Vivantes, and there Alexander Hamilton (1762–1824), one of the founding members of Asiatic Society of Bengal, held prisoner on parole in France at the end of the Peace of Amiens in 1803, became the first person to teach Sanskrit in Europe.”

Arthur Llewellyn Basham (1914–1986) handed down these lines to the posterity in his best-known book The Wonder that was India, London 1954, p. 6. He wasn’t just an anybody. He wrote quite a few books on the “British colonial period” in India. He was a professor for oriental studies at the university in London, a Mecca for many Indians studying “history” abroad. His senior students occupy almost all leading positions at Indian universities and research institutions for the study of ancient history of Bharatavarsa at present. In return, these disciples have ensured that the “scientific spirit” of Arthur Llewellyn Basham is adhered to in the Republic of India even today.

Arthur Llewellyn Basham does not tell us whether he checked scrupulously the source of his information about Alexander Hamilton. After all, he was writing about a man who lived almost 200 years ago. Obviously he did not check meticulously enough. This is not necessary whenever the information, gathered indiscriminately, serves a useful purpose. Why should he waste time in a meticulous check of sources? Is it not enough, especially after he has made an outstanding career as a “scientist” in the in the blond-blue-eyed-white-Christian culture?

We will rather be busy with Arthur Llewellyn Basham. Nevertheless, there are many others who are out to make career in this “scientific” field. They are prompted by their alpha wolves to detect flaws in the writings of great “scholars” of the past. This is part of a game, called “research in modern science” in this wonder that is this culture.

We came across a publication of the “American Oriental Society”, volume 51 titled “Hamilton Alexander (1762–1824). A Chapter in the early History of Sanskrit Philology, New Haven, Connecticut 1968”. Fourteen years after Arthur Llewellyn Basham published his book: The Wonder that was India, London 1954. A Belgian lady called Rosane Rocher proves that the version about Alexander Hamilton circulated worldwide by Arthur Llewellyn Basham is wrong in some facets. She has written in the “Introduction” of her book:

“It is true that various biographical dictionaries do contain notices about Hamilton, but they often offer erroneous information, as will be seen on more than one occasion below. The reference works about the history of Oriental Studies again and again reproduce the same errors; moreover, they are mainly interested in Hamilton as far as his stay in Paris is concerned; apart from his catalogue of the Sanskrit manuscripts of the Imperial Library, they essentially refer to him in connection with an apparently more important Orientalist, namely the one who became Hamilton’s most famous student in Paris – Friedrich Schlegel.”

We shall deal with the “wrong facets” in a while. Rosane Rocher starts properly her investigations to trace the origin of Arthur Llewellyn Basham’s error and reports that Theodor Benfey (1809–1881) in his “opus” Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft und orientalischen Philologie in Deutschland seit dem Anfange des 19. Jahrhunderts mit einem Rückblick auf die Früheren Zeiten (History of linguistics and oriental philology in Germany since the beginning of the 19th century with a retrospect into earlier periods), Munich 1869, pp. 357–361, was responsible for this red herring.

All “scholars” thereafter had just copied Theodor Benfey. After Rosane Rocher made this discovery, she runs out of breath. Or, even worse, she is not interested in finding out how and why Theodor Benfey did write it. She could have asked – we think it is necessary – if it was an “accidental” error. But a scientific discipline and its ethics in this culture did not motivate her enough to look further, to find out how frequent such errors were, whether they were intentional (“malice of intent”) or caused by pressure of work – the rush to publish in a hurry. Therefore, we are still in the dark as to why the German Indologist Theodor Benfey did spread wrong information about Alexander Hamilton. Let us wait and see. We are on look out.

Hadn’t it been so far removed from our search, we would have pursued the matter. Besides, it is not our purpose presently to examine the reliability of sources of current “historical research”, but to describe this wonder-some culture and the way in which celebrated “modern scientists” deal with handed-down sources, secondary sources. Therefore, we must leave this issue unresolved here but also have to admit that we could not suppress a smile seeing this common copy-and-paste practice in all “scientific” books. We apologise for smiling.

We have to deal in depth with Alexander Hamilton because there is no reference that anybody else gave Sanskrit lessons anywhere in Europe before 1803. He was apparently the pioneer in this field. Who is he? How does he acquire his knowledge of the Sanskrit language? How good could have been his lessons actually? Here too, we stick to our simple experience of life: it is more important to know the ‘who’ of the person vis–a–vis is, what he does, by whom he is kept, than to get involved with what he is telling or what others are saying about him.

We are astonished that such an apparently important personality is almost a blank page in books or documents. It is not even on record as to where he died on December 30, 1824, not to talk about the place of his birth. This date of his death is found as an obituary notice in “Gentleman’s Magazine” in England.

As a rule, the importance and the extent of fame of contemporary personalities can be derived from documented references. Does anybody depart from life the way Alexander Hamilton did if he had been such an important personality as late-born “historians” and “Indologists” want to make us believe? Why do they do it? We just cannot accept that Alexander Hamilton was an important personality of his time. In all probability, he is made to be an important personality. But why? What was the necessity? We have to investigate.

As narrated by Helmine de Chézy and Friedrich and Dorothea von SchlegeI Alexander Hamilton was born in a Scottish village. Name unknown. Nothing else is known about his childhood, or anything about his education. They had often been together in Paris, they were friends, in fact, and they had shared a flat and lived as a “commune” for some time. They must have known much more about Alexander Hamilton than they have handed-down to posterity in writing.

Why didn’t they tell us more about him? The most probable explanation is that there was nothing worthwhile narrating about his parents, his childhood, his school days, his upbringing, and his education. He apparently didn’t have a college degree. He doesn’t appear on any Graduate list of the colleges in Great Britain.

The earliest record about him is found in the alphabetical list of all members of the Indian army of 1783. Accordingly, he is recruited as a cadet for the “Bengal Army” in England. The date of his birth is missing, which was not usual. This could be an indication that either his parents died early or that he did not know the exact date of his birth. It is also not known when he comes to Kolkata. This was uncustomary too.

At that time, only a few ships sailed to Kolkata. Usually passenger lists were prepared and filed. Nevertheless, there were passengers and lesser passengers presumably also at that time. He however appears on a list in Kolkata in February 1785 as an ensign of the infantry, the lowest rank of a would be officer in the infantry, and not as a naval officer, as Franz Bopp, Salomon Lefmann, Ernst Windisch (1844–1918) and others have handed-down. Who would like to know how they came to “Naval Officer” and which wishful wrong information they had copied. It was definitely not accidental to vendor wrong information. Naturally, this wrong information is diligently created and spread. Doesn’t “Naval Officer” sound more dignified than an “infantry ensign”? Well!”

This list of February 1785 indicates that Alexander Hamilton arrived in Kolkata not before the 4th quarter of 1784. According to the “Bengal Calendar” on February 22, 1785 and according to the “Calcutta Monthly Register” on March 13, 1785 he joins the infantry. From 1785–1790 he remains a “supernumerary” in the infantry, i.e. the lowest grade in the career to an officer. On February 15, 1790, he becomes permanent: “Ensign Supernumerary to the Establishment, to be brought from the 15th February 1790, on Full Pay and Posted to Corps.”

He couldn’t have been a big shot at that time. His financial means were modest up to February 15, 1790. The “Asiatick Society” was founded on January 15, 1784. It publishes in the first volume of Asiatick Researches a list of all members of the “Asiatick Society” for the first time on January 15, 1789. We shall deal with this Society and all that goes with in later in a separate chapter. On this list he is listed as a lieutenant. How could he be “Lieut. Alexander Hamilton” on January 15, 1789 if he was “Ensign Supernumerary to the Establishment, to be brought from the 15th February 1790, on Full Pay and Posted to Corps?” Is it because an ensign supernumerary was too low in standard for the high honourable society of “colonial scholars” and he was therefore just upgraded?

This list might have tempted Theodor Benfey to promote Alexander Hamilton to a founder member of the “Asiatick Society”. “Founder-members” carry more weight, don’t they? The fact is that he couldn’t be a founder member because he landed in Kolkata approximately a year after the “Asiatick Society” was founded. “Modern historians” and “Indologists” are obviously just carried away to palatability when they narrate and thus becoming swindlers. Who is going to check once it was printed? We know already that celebrities like Arthur Llewellyn Basham didn’t care more about checking before copying former printed products and did not hesitate to tamper documents to transport great visions.

Since 1785, its founder, Sir William Jones, celebrates the “Asiatick Society” at the beginning of every year. He invites all non-Asians in and around Kolkata and those posted elsewhere to his annual “discourses”. He encourages and puts pressure on every “Tom, Dick and Harry” to write field reports. Only non-Asiatic “Tom, Dick and Harry”, of course. He edits and publishes them as learned investigation reports.

Since 1789 the Asiatick Researches comes out annually and are circulated in Great Britain. And from there to the whole of Europe. In none of these volumes is there a mention of Alexander Hamilton. Not to speak about an “enthusiastic Sanskritist” or “Orientalist” Alexander Hamilton. And there is absolutely no indication in later publications that anybody in Kolkata had ever taken notice of Alexander Hamilton. Quite remarkable, isn’t it?

We have taken notice of Alexander Hamilton whilst we rummaged through available documents. On March 4, 1790, Alexander Hamilton submitted an application to the governor general Lord Cornwallis. This application was detected later among Lord Cornwallis’ personal correspondence. We take a note that the application was in the file of personal correspondence. This is the first specimen of the writing quality of Alexander Hamilton. We quote this application here in full:

“My lord.

I beg leave to submit in the most respectful manner to your Lordship’s consideration, a request which I flatter myself will not be deemed unreasonable, when the motives upon which it is founded are considered. A sense of the utility which might be derived from a knowledge of the Sungscrit language, its importance to the political interests of England in this country, and the conviction of that importance discovered by the Court of Directors in their approbation of the ample salary granted to Mr. Wilkins during the crisis of last war to enable him to prosecute that study, as well as in the letter from their Chairman, congratulating that Gentleman on so extraordinary an attainment, encouraged me to engage in a pursuit, where my own inclination was stimulated by so flattering a precedent. The liberal and enlightened policy of the Honble Court could not fail to suggest to them the difficulty of governing a nation, without an intimate acquaintance with its language, religion, laws, manners and customs: and that with respect to the Hindus who constitute the great body of the people, and who from their superiority in mental endowments as well as in industry and number, merit the first consideration, that knowledge is chiefly to be expected from the development of the science contained in their Sacred Language. Whether these, or motives more cogent influenced the Court of Directors I shall not presume to determine; it is sufficient for my purpose to shew by a respectful reference to that document, that it was their wish to encourage the study, and that such a resolution was founded on the wisest principles of policy. A due regard for your Lordship's time will not permit me to encroach on it so far as would be requisite to prove how essentially the knowledge, to which those researches ultimately tend, is connected with the happiness of the subject and the security of property. The importance of the Sungscrit in a political view requires no elucidation, it being the only language universally diffused over every part of Hindustan, by means of which the Bramins of Bengal, Mysore, Guzerat or the Punjab possess a common medium of communication and intercourse, and from which the vernacular dialects of the Provinces do not materially differ. If those observations which I have purposely compressed convince your Lordship of the superior utility of my present pursuits, I may flatter myself I shall experience no difficulty in obtaining a dispensation from military duty at least whilst I continue supernumerary to the Army Establishment. The routine of Garrison duty being altogether incompatible with similar pursuits I may urge my request on different grounds, as the convenience it affords me of indulging my inclination in the research, is my chief if not my sole motive for continuing in a Service, where I have no prospect of attaining beyond the situation of a Subaltern. Should the exemption I most humbly solicit still appear objectionable, I may yet hope your Lordship will not class this application with those which motives of interest or pecuniary convenience may have produced from others. – I have the honour to be. My Lord. Your Lordships most obedt and very humble Servt

A. Hamilton

Calcutta 4th March 1790

P.S. It appears totally superfluous to add that my request does not extend to an exemption from real service, but to the ordinary routine of Garrison duty exclusively.

To

Earl Cornwallis. K. G.”

There is no indication that his application had ever been officially dealt with. From “The Bengal Calendar” and “The Calcutta Monthly Register” of October 1790 we know that:

“Ensign Alexander Hamilton, having received permission to resign the service, at his own request, his name is struck off the list of the army.”

At the end of 1790, the 2nd volume of Asiatick Researches came out. Therein, also the 2nd membership list of the “Asiatic Society”. Instead of “Lieut. Alexander Hamilton” we read now “Alexander Hamilton. Esq.”. Once again, we take the note that he couldn’t have become a Lieutenant if he was permitted to resign the service later as “Ensign Alexander Hamilton”. But these are in fact trifles and still venial sins of “modern history” as a science, as we shall see. “The Bengal Calendar and Almanac” of 1792 did not include, quite logically, the name Alexander Hamilton any more on the list of the military. On the list of the British “civilians”, there is no Alexander Hamilton. What can be concluded from these facts? Anything else than that he had left Bengal? The modern history as a science is however more imaginative.

The language in the application reveals that Alexander Hamilton is shaky, grammatically insufficient and weak in expressions. Where and when could Alexander Hamilton have learned good writing? In the beginning of the 1780s, he is about 20 years old. Probably he has only a simple school education. He does not have any profession yet. Young people with good professional training didn’t generally join the colonial army. It was then sufficiently known that soldiers died early in subtropical India, if they did not die on the voyage itself. They generally didn’t return rich, if they did return at all.

In all probability, Alexander Hamilton does not have much of a choice in Kolkata. Being an ensign, he learns the craft of a soldier who is generally more used to getting orders than to express himself in talking, not to mention in writing. At the end of 1784 he lands in Bengal, doesn’t earn full pay for five long years and remains an ensign.

The life of a soldier doesn’t suit him. He doesn’t see a future in the army. As an ensign, he has to deal with locally recruited mercenaries. He is a mediator between non-English speaking ordinary soldiers and the British officers. Five years in this position might have enabled him to acquire the language of the local soldiers a little more than officers needed it.

Doing this job, he might have discovered his affinity to the local language more than to his duty of an ensign. By 1790, he becomes aware that even with full pay he would continue to be just a ‘Subaltern’ in the infantry. In view of this despairing perspective, he looks out for a “more civilian” work. “Historians” and biographers should have taken note of the real situation. How could an ensign – who was not even on his full salary – afford an Indian “Pandit” (learned persons) to learn the Sanskrit language? Besides, doesn’t the shaky simple English with grammatical and syntactic errors in his application speak for itself?

We have read his application repeatedly in order to be fair to Alexander Hamilton. He doesn’t show off, he is not a cheat, he is not a swindler. In his simplicity, he just becomes a victim of “gossips” on and about Charles Wilkins, that he made a remarkable career only because he had learned the Sanskrit language. And on ‘ample Salary', of course. Europeans in India were money obsessed. So, all those on top there would draw ‚ample Salary’.

We shall deal also with Charles Wilkins in due course. Alexander Hamilton couldn’t possibly have known Charles Wilkins personally in Kolkata. Otherwise he wouldn’t have referred to him wrongly, nor repeatedly referred to ‘court of Directors’, ‘ample Salary’, ‘crisis of last war’, ‘enable him to prosecute that study’, ‘letter from their Chairman’ ,‘congratulating that gentleman’ in connection with Charles Wilkins. These were rather rumours in the air after Charles Wilkins had left Kolkata in 1786.

It is indeed remarkable that Alexander Hamilton did not apply for “funds” for his study of “Sanskrit” – learning the Sanskrit language without private teachers (Pandits) was not feasible – and, applied only to be freed from ordinary routine service. He wanted to take the burden of the private teacher himself. Or he didn’t know yet that he needed a private teacher to learn the Sanskrit language. Does that mean something? What does it mean?

In October 1790, he leaves the army. We are unable to judge whether his decision to leave the army was desperate or courageous or triggered by some realistic desire for a “more civilian” life. The resignation meant also no regular earnings. What does he do? What could he do?

It is certain that he does not get a job as a “writer”, nor works for a business subsidiary in Bengal. In such a case, his name would have been listed in one of the various “registers” in Kolkata. It is beyond doubt that he had not been a regular resident of Kolkata since 1792. If he stayed in India, he would have appeared in one of the “registers” for sure. This is not the case. The other issue is that there is no evidence showing that he returned to England. Does that mean something? What does it mean?

*****

Helmine von Hastfer, we remember her, lived in 1803 in the house of Dorothea and Friedrich von Schlegel in Paris. Alexander Hamilton lived there too. Rosane Rocher, the only biographer of Alexander Hamilton, has tried to establish with the help of two quotations by Helmine de Chèzy that Alexander Hamilton was married in Kolkata (p. 10):

“In an often quoted passage from her autobiography (p. 270, 2nd volume, Leipzig 1858), she says: ‘The famous Indianist Hamilton who lived many years long in East India and had a native woman as wife and a hopeful son there.’ But she gives much more detailed information in one of her other writings, which is less known (p.86, Freihafen III, 4, 1840): ‘His heart had remained in India, where tender, holy bond made him happy for thirteen years long, he had taken a native for marriage, and a son of her, often he spoke of his bond with this sweet creature, with that, I would like to say, ashamedly emotion and tenderness, which was like an emblem of authenticity of a deep feeling.’”

Rosane Rocher takes these two quotations to construct that Alexander Hamilton was married for 13 years, before he left India. Then she applies her skill and art of reckoning. He could not have reached India before the end of 1783, she maintains. Thereafter he needed some time to marry an Indian woman, so Rosane Rocher. Then she concludes with her inimitable precision that he could not have left India before 1797. We could better quote Rosane Rocher than arouse suspicions that we are distorting her writing (p. 10):

”The important element in this passage is that, according to Helmine von Chezy, Hamilton would have been married for thirteen years before he left India. Assuming that he could not have come to India before the end of 1783 (Why 1783? What should he have done in Kolkata without resources before he became ensign at the beginning of 1785? She does not put these or similar questions.), and allowing some time before he decided to marry an Indian woman, one may conclude that he cannot have left India before the year 1797. It is the more interesting to arrive at the year 1797 as the terminus post quem for his departure from India, because the year 1797 at the same time is the terminus post quem given by another source for his arrival in Edinburgh. Indeed, according to a statement of Lord Cockburn: ‘In particular, between 1797 and 1800, some conspicuous young men had come to Edinburgh, to whom, being strangers, the merits of Jeffrey were more apparent than they hitherto had been to many of those among whom he dwelt. Some of these have been already named in mentioning the Speculative Society ... In addition to these were Lord Webb Seymour, Mr. Sydney Smith and Mr. Hamilton, also strangers.’”

We don’t feel an urge to raise here our standard question whether Rosane Rocher cared to check how Lord Cockburn arrived at this conclusion in 1852. However, we must confess that we are dumbfounded by these acrobatics. We read the quotations of Helmine de Chézy again and again to find the alleged statement that Alexander Hamilton had lived together with his Indian wife for thirteen years and had left behind a grown up son. It may be, we don’t possess enough fantasy not to read again and again the simple statement: Alexander Hamilton missed his native wife and his son also after 13 years and he kept them in memory. Accordingly, he, most probably, had to leave behind his “wife” and son in 1791 or 1792 in India. This wouldn’t be a singular case. It was a question of material survival. The left–behinds did get a name too, the “Anglo-Indians”. Rosane Rocher could also have wondered as we do, why Alexander Hamilton didn’t call his family to Great Britain after he became a “great and famous scholar”.

We are also astonished to note how insolently “history” is being forged. Rosane Rocher completed this “reconstruction” in the first ten pages of her book of 128 pages. Then on pages 11–33 under the subtitle: “Great Britain: The first publications” she ascribed to Alexander Hamilton as many anonymous articles published in the Edinburgh Review and in Asiatic Annual Register as she needed to make in a learned way a great and famous scholar out of him. In the following pages wondrous metamorphoses occur. All shaky speculations and forgeries connected with his biography become hard facts. Not only for Rosane Rocher who dealt in the pages 11 ff. with “facts” only.

That was just what other “historiographers” were waiting for. A classic example of how (hi)stories are “made” in the “wonder that is” modern scientific culture. We mean example and not a singular case of making “scholar extraordinary”.

Hard to believe, but unfortunately true. We read on page 33 of that well-known book that appeared in 1997 in the University of California Press, Berkeley / Los Angeles / London. Title: Aryans and British India. Author: Thomas R. Trautmann, a professor at the University of Michigan, a favourite pupil of the renowned “historian” Arthur Llewellyn Basham (highlighted by us):

“...the Orientalist Alexander Hamilton reviews A journey from Madras, through the countries Mysore, Canara and Malabar, whose author, Francis Buchanan, ‘possessed no means of communication with the natives but through an interpreter’ ...”

On page 110: “Several of the new Orientalists, such as Alexander Hamilton and Sir John Shore, had Indian wives, and it cannot but have helped them to develop a fluency, if not in Sanskrit or Persian, at least in Hindustani and other modern languages.”

Sir John Shore hasn’t mentioned Alexander Hamilton at all in his 13 volumes on Sir William Jones published in 1804. We continue reading Thomas R. Trautmann, a favourite pupil of the renowned “historian” Arthur Llewellyn Basham. Page 115:

“Alexander Hamilton, member of the, Asiatic Society and retired officer of the East India Company’s army, became, by virtue of his appointment to the East India College, the first Sanskritist to hold a professorship in an institution of higher learning in Europe.”

On page 138–139: “Alexander Hamilton, the first Sanskrit professor in Britain (at the East India College), became the conduit by which knowledge of Sanskrit passed from Calcutta to Paris and thence to Germany. Hamilton, who had served as an officer in the army of the East India Company, learned Sanskrit in Calcutta and became a member of the Asiatic Society (did he learn Sanskrit before he became a member?); in 1790 he had petitioned the government for facilities to study Sanskrit. He resigned his commission and returned to Britain in 1796, where he lived off the proceeds of journalism, writing for the Monthly Review for a time, and then for the Edinburgh Review, of which he was one of the founders (Thomas R. Trautmann is capable of wondrous fantasies, isn’t he?). By the peace of Amiens (25. March 1802) hostilities between Britain and Napoleonic France were suspended, and Hamilton like many other Britons, took the opportunity to travel to France, only to become a prisoner of war by the decree of 23 May 1803, when war resumed. Hamilton was however treated most liberally by the French authorities, being allowed to live wherever he liked in Paris and to move about freely. He spent the time in the company of Orientalists, especially Louis Mathieu Langlès, with whom he collaborated in cataloguing the Indian manuscripts in the Bibliothèque Nationale, which service was probably the reason of his liberty. He also taught Sanskrit to a few students, of whom the most notable was Friedrich Schlegel, whose Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier” (On the language and wisdom of the Indians, 1808) had a vast effect in fomenting German Indomania and Sanskrit study. Schlegel’s brother August Wilhelm Schlegel later repaired to Paris to study Sanskrit, going on to become the first professor of Sanskrit in Germany (1818), and his student (Thomas R. Trautmann’s wonder-some discovery!) Franz Bopp also went to Paris for Sanskrit study, as did Friedrich Max Mueller somewhat later.”

Why do we meet swindlers only? A forgery of history par excellence. We are not dealing with singular cases. In this area, we are yet to find a singular case of academic correctness and honesty. We assume that our findings are only a peak of the general dirty morass.

We are still dealing with the same Alexander Hamilton who wrote that application. Thomas R. Trautmann doesn’t run any risk spreading eloquently false (hi)stories. After all, he is a “renowned historian” with “profound knowledge” in anthropology too. Anthropology is that branch of “science” which followed the “philology” to which we owe “racism”.

And if the false presentations get exposed, nothing will happen to Thomas R. Trautmann. Because here he makes a footnote to shun off his responsibility. Though, this is his first remark relating to Alexander Hamilton: “For the information in this paragraph I rely on Rosane Rocher’s biography (1968) and article (1970) on Hamilton, and on Jane Rendall’s work on the Scottish Enlightenment.” A fine state of affairs, isn’t it?

Later on page 148–149 he quotes Alexander Hamilton more than once. These are quotes from Edinburgh Review, from articles ascribed to him by Rosane Rocher. Here are a few samples of how nicely they are presented:

“Hamilton embraced Colebrooke’s (We shall deal with Colebrooke also, but in due course in a later chapter.) unity of origin theory and deployed it in his Edinburgh Review piece...

He believed it not improbable that the Brahmins entered India as conquerors...

He thought however that the Paiśāci or demons’ language spoken of by the ancient Indian grammarians was totally distinct from the Sanskrit in its origin...that one great nation formerly peopled Hindustan, and were driven, by invaders, to those hilly countries which they still occupy. (Hamilton 1808:93).”

Statements of this category are, leniently spoken, products at best of sick fantasy. Again extremely leniently spoken, such statements express cultural prejudices of the writers of their culture rather than the chronicler reports of a Megasthenes. However, for the “scholars” like “Thomas R. Trautmanns” any printed word in the Edinburgh Review or anywhere else is a “reliable” source. And it is a rather cheap trick when he just refers to quotations in brackets like: (Hamilton 1808:93). In this case, it is a no-named article in the Edinburgh Review. What do these “Thomas R. Trautmanns” and “Arthur Llewellyn Bashams” do when they do not find the needed printed words for their “scholarly” deliberations? We leave this question unanswered, but keep it in memory.

Thomas R. Trautmann continues (p. 149)

“Jones, in his eighth discourse, had spoken of the Indian mountaineers as ‘many races of wild people with more or less of that pristine ferocity, which induced their ancestors to secede from the civilised inhabitants of the plains and valleys.’ He thought they sprang from the old Indian stem, although some of them soon intermixed ‘with the first ramblers from Tartary, whose language seems to have been the basis of that now spoken by the Moguls’ (Jones 1807, 3:172–173). Hamiltons proposal of the unitary language and aboriginal character of all the ‘mountaineers’ goes considerably further than this. But taken all together, the testimony of Jones, Colebrooke and Hamilton is that British belief in the ethnological and linguistic unity of India was never complete.”

How did Sir William Jones come to know all these? Sources? Is there any need ask for sources? Is there any need of sources? Are not ‘Jones, Colebrooke and Hamilton’ enough? We are dumbfounded, indeed.

Thomas R. Trautmann has decorated his book Aryans and British India with a dedication: “In memory of A. L. Basham, British Sanskritist, historian of India, guru, friend”. We remember the blessings Arthur Llewellyn Basham brought us at the beginning of this chapter:

“In 1795 the government of the French Republic founded the École des Langues Orientales Vivantes, and there Alexander Hamilton (1762- 1824), one of the founding members of Asiatic Society of Bengal, held prisoner on parole in France at the end of the Peace of Amiens in 1803, became the first person to teach Sanskrit in Europe.”

*****

The whole scenario of these celebrated scholars seems to be a dirty morass of darkness, dishonesty and deception. Recent “scholars” attribute Alexander Hamilton the lofty height of powerful language like that of Francis Jefferey, Sydney Smith and Henry Brougham. However, there is not a single essay bearing his name. We recall his application dated March 4, 1790. Our imaginative capacity fails absolutely to grasp how and where he could have improved the quality of his writing. Was he not battling for physical survival, compelled to desert his wife and son?

It just doesn’t enter into our head why Alexander Hamilton didn’t write a single “scholarly discourse” after he ascended as an expert on oriental questions to the editorial team of the Edinburgh Review? Not even after having become a “Professor of Sanskrit” (Sorry. There is no document in the archives on his being a “Professor of Sanskrit”.). He published merely his Terms of Sanskrit Grammar in 1814. Charles Wilkins published in 1815 The Radicals of the Sanskrita Language. Scholarly pieces? Both of them were rather copying intermediaries. In the style of beginners.

Alexander Hamilton’s involuntary Parisian intermezzo tells also many stories like his application of March 4, 1790. It is remarkable that some stories went round in Paris, which was unknown in Edinburgh. Lord Cockburn only knew that: "Mr. Hamilton was a Scot, was in India, an easy to get along with person of small stature, excellent in the conversation and great expert of oriental literature.” Or that in the inner circle he was also called“Sanskrit Hamilton” or “Pandit”.

In Paris remarkable stories went round. Alexander Hamilton had lived long years in India and was the master of oriental languages including Sanskrit. He belonged to the excellent scholar group of Sir William Jones. He had lived long in Bengal with Brahmins. As a Sanskrit scholar, he ranked equally with Charles Wilkins and William Jones and so forth. Who did have have these stories to do the rounds in Paris? Obviously, Alexander Hamilton had lost his innocence of March 4, 1790. In Paris, he seized the opportunity and placed himself in the centre of Orientalists who knew not much more beyond Egypt but did hear a lot about Sanskrit literature from India.

For his “career” in Paris Louis Mathieu Langlès was the key figure. We remember. Louis Mathieu Langlès is in charge of the oriental manuscripts in the royal library. He published a lot, yet is not regarded as a scholar. His original contributions are restricted to footnotes. Mainly he translates English texts into French. How he came to know Alexander Hamilton is not known. But the fact remains that he marketed Alexander Hamilton quite effectively in Paris and thereby himself as well. It is said that he always discussed his translations of oriental manuscripts from English to French with Alexander Hamilton. But the strange thing is that Alexander Hamilton does not speak any French. Louis Mathieu Langlès never forgets to immortalise his footnotes by reference to his discussions with the great scholar Alexander Hamilton. He is keen to get those “Bengali” and“Sanskrit” manuscripts (We do not know how the great Orient fan could discriminate these two languages) from India under his administration into a “systematic” catalogue organised by Alexander Hamilton.

This does happen. Alexander Hamilton sorts out the manuscripts, provides explanatory notes in English and Louis Mathieu Langlès makes the French version. He writes in the catalogue:

“I translated it into French and added to a large number of essays more or less extensive remarks. Some of these remarks were provided by Alexander Hamilton himself, the others resulted from ‘Recherches Asiatiques’, from my own footnotes to the French translation of the first two volumes of this erudite collection, (i.e.) the works of Mr Jones, the English translation of Indian laws by Mr Colebrooke, from the works of padre Paulinus a Sancto Bartholomeo and from other oriental manuscripts of the Imperial Library.” (Translated from original French.)

Well, once again, the crux of the matter is that Louis Mathieu Langlès was unable to judge the quality of Alexander Hamilton’s work. In fact, no one in Europe could. And Alexander Hamilton could not read French. Louis Mathieu Langlès was not interested in learning Indian languages, but he propagated Alexander Hamilton in Parisian parlours. He made it possible for Alexander Hamilton to teach “Sanskrit” in Paris. As life would have it, Dorothea and Friedrich von Schlegel lived there for a short while, because Friedrich von Schlegel, 32 years old, wanted to learn oriental languages. Why in Paris? “... because the richest collections of literature in oriental languages are stored there.”

How this collection was connected with the learning of oriental languages? We have raised this question. We are enormously surprised. It goes like this:

Take a translated version and the original book. It doesn’t matter whether this translated version is also a translation from a translated version. It can be a repeatedly translated version. The main thing is that one has some vague ideas about the contents of the original book. Now the guessing acrobatics begin. To put it mildly: This was the time of literate acrobats and salespeople.

“The Schlegels” had rented a large floor at a reasonable price. They didn’t have enough money. They had planned to sublet furnished rooms. On January 15, 1803, Friedrich writes to his elder brother August Wilhelm (We remember him. He taught Hermann Brockhaus Sanskrit in Bonn, so it is said.): “The grammar of the ordinary Indian languages (Which ones? How should he know them?) I have acquired already (how?); but the Sanskrit I shall be able to begin in the spring only. Because the libraries are not being heated.”

Isn’t it interesting? Friedrich von Schlegel also gets inkling about the collection in the royal library in Paris, as did Alexander Hamilton. On May 15, 1803, he reports to his brother on a lucky coincidence:

“I am perfectly fine. Because I learnt much, very much. I have not only made progress in Persian, but I am also nearing my great objective, that I master Sanskrit. I will be able to read the Sakontala within four months in its original text, though I will presumably still need the translation. Enormous effort was required because of a great complication and I had to develop my own method of guessing (Divinierens); since I had to learn the elements without elementary books. I was finally fortunate that an Englishman called Hamilton, the only one in Europe except for Wilkins who knows, and very thoroughly knows, could at least help me with advice.”

We couldn’t have described this adventurous method of learning the Sanskrit language more vividly. Friedrich invents this wonder-some method to learn this classical ancient language. And in just three months, on August 14, 1803, Friedrich lets his brother August Wilhelm know:

“I worked through Sanskrit uninterruptedly and now I have achieved a sound fundament. I have by now at least a hand high Manuscripts there which I copied. Now I am occupied in copying the 2nd encyclopaedia. Writing Sanskrit daily for 3–4 hours and another one or two hours to work through with Hamilton; and whenever in the evening I felt like it, I had still work for 2–3 hours.”

We try to understand the procedure. Friedrich von Schlegel made handwritten copies of Sanskrit texts and worked them through with Alexander Hamilton who seemingly knew the characters a little better. How did it function? How could it function? “Scholars” of our time do not explain it to us. They just assert.

*****

As already said, the Schlegels had to sublet furnished rooms. Thus, something like a “flat sharing community” emerged. And Alexander Hamilton was there. This is just imponderability of life! We know, again from a letter of Friedrich to his brother August Wilhelm dated November 26, 1803:

“I live now quite pleasantly here – as pleasant as it can be abroad. Since several months Hamilton lives with me, who was my teacher for Sanskrit; also Hagemann, a young Hanoverian, who is not only proficient in Greek and Arabic, but also knows a lot of and very thoroughly Persian, is our house mate. In addition there are three young men from Cologne taking private lessons from me. Thus I have a pleasant society in the house.”

The three inhabitants from Cologne were: Sulpiz and Melchior Boisserée as well as Johann Baptist Bertram. “From the Schlegel–circle” there is also a mention in the autobiography of Sulpiz Boisserée:

“The house community at Schlegel’s included, beside the great expert of Sanskrit, A. Hamilton, a small German colony; to which belonged the ten years old son of Mrs. Schlegel, Phillip Veit, a young philologist Hagemann from Hanover who studied Sanskrit too, we three friends from Cologne and Mrs. von Hastfer from Berlin who had come to Paris with Mrs. von Genlis and was editing the French Miscellanea for Cotta in Tuebingen. Usually only Hagemann and Mrs. von Hastfer joined us at the table.”

Friedrich von Schlegel was learning Persian from Antoine Léonard de Chèzy. Louis Mathieu Langlès brings Alexander Hamilton and the Schlegels together. Alexander Hamilton starts living with the Schlegels. Helmine von Hastfer lives there also. Soon she was to marry Antoine Léonard de Chézy. Friedrich von Schlegel learns Sanskrit from Alexander Hamilton from May to November 1803. The Schlegels leave Paris at the end of April 1804. Friedrich von Schlegel publishes the book: On the language and the wisdom of the Indians, Heidelberg 1808. Our impression is, he would have written this book even if he had not met Alexander Hamilton. This book will remain his only contribution to “Indology”. However a significant one. Alexander Hamilton became famous because of this book. His brother August Wilhelm (1767–1845) was also inspired by it.

*****

And: Those who actually had spread Sanskrit in Europe, Antoine Léonard de Chézy and Franz Bopp claimed to have mastered the Sanskrit language without ever listening to the original sound of the language, without ever seeing the original gestures of the people while reciting the texts. On top of it, they also said that they taught the Sanskrit language themselves – who knows how. These two persons, who are known to have spread a language named Sanskrit, could at best learn the alphabets and composition of the letters in words and only on papers in writing. They did not care nor had any opportunity to be in India. The only person who got an opportunity to listen to the sound of Sanskrit, under the assumption Alexander Hamilton could pronounce the words in “Sanskrit”, was Friedrich von Schlegel, he writes a book in 1808 and then exits from the scene. He does not teach anybody “Sanskrit”.

These “scholars” want us to believe that they just turned to Sanskrit texts and could read and understand. The characters were still unknown to them. These “scholars” must have been suffering from dementia or even worse. They did not remember their laborious efforts of learning their own vernacular.

But, as we mentioned earlier, the first four Sanskrit grammar guides in English were available in Paris: by missionary William Carey (1804), by Henry Thomas Colebrooke (1805), by Charles Wilkins (1808) and by senior merchant H. P. Forster (1810). Now we know how a language called Sanskrit, is brought to and spread in Europe. Is it still the original Sanskrit and not a kind of “Pidgin Sanskrit”? We must admit that we are extremely confused. “Pidgin Sanskrit” would mean just badly articulated Sanskrit. We understand that it was much worse.

*****

Now we come down from Alexander Hamiltion, Friedrich von Schlegel, Antoine Léonard de Chézy, Franz Bopp, August Wilhelm von Schlegel, Hermann Brockhaus to Friedrich Maximilian Müller. None of them had learnt the Sanskrit language. We come down to those wonder-some years from 1803 to 1844. How much “Sanskrit” Friedrich Maximilian Müller could have learnt from Hermann Brockhaus at Leipzig? He attended courses only up to the end of the summer term, i.e., till July 1843.

The alphabets of the language called Sanskrit, some Texts in Sanskrit original, their translated versions Persian, Arabic and English, a few rudimentary grammar books were available in Germany. Nothing more. For Friedrich Maximilian Müller it was less. He did not have access to the English language. He might have read Friedrich von Schlegel’s book: On the language and the wisdom of the Indians, Heidelberg 1808. He did not mention to have read this book.

Friedrich Maximilian Müller is done at Leipzig University. He goes to Berlin: “My wish to go to Berlin arose partly from a desire to hear Bopp, but yet more from a desire to make the acquaintances of Schelling.” Franz Bopp is considered to be the pope of Sanskrit in Europe.

In this chapter we have documented our first run to ascertain how much of “Sanskrit” was available in Germany that could be learnt at most by Friedrich Maximilian Müller. We shall have to continue our search to find out how, when, by whom the Sanskrit language is brought to Europe and which Sanskrit language does actually arrive to Europe in our later chapters in due course.

Looking a little ahead, we have also dealt with “scholars” of our time who wanted us to believe that Alexander Hamilton brings Sanskrit from India to Paris in 1803. We know by now whatever these “scholars” wanted us to believe on, about and of the Sanskrit language does not corresponds to facts. These are just myths. No, it is worse. These are just deliberate lies.

As logical continuation of our search, we shall have to accompany Friedrich Maximilian Müller to Berlin in his quest to learn the Sanskrit language. We must ascertain here that he does not acquire any of the qualifications at Leipzig University that will justify his deliberations in his book published in 1859: A HISTORY OF ANCIENT SANSKRIT LITERATURE SO FAR AS IT ILLUSTRATES THE PRIMITIVE RELIGION OF THE BRAHMINS.

We can wait and watch where and how Friedrich Maximilian Müller acquires those qualifications.

CHAPTER 6

WHAT DOES FRIEDRICH MAXIMILIAN

LEARN AT BERLIN UNIVERSITY?

For reasons we do not know yet Friedrich Maximilian Müller is unable to continue his studies at Leipzig University after the end of SS 1843, i.e. after July 1843. We recall his letter to Theodor Fontane dated September, 1843, reproduced by Georgina Max Müller without giving us the day:

“Dear Fontane,—I can well imagine that you have often cursed me not a little as I gave no sign of life for such a long time; but Morbus excusat hominem, and I will add, Nisi homo excusat morbum I hope you have carried on your Latin studies so far as to comprehend the deep meaning of these words; and if a human heart still beats in your breast, you must pity me, poor wretch, for having spent nearly the whole vacation in a nervous fever, so that I must stay almost the whole of next term here in Leipzig. It is ill-luck, you will agree. Well, one could almost despair, but where's the good of it? I have quietly unpacked my books and things again, and sit in Reichel's Garden, up three flights, up which I have to climb with many gasps. I am in Leipzig incognito, for I had already paid my farewell visits everywhere, and altogether feel no inclination for society.”

In his heart, Friedrich Maximilian Müller is already on the way to Berlin. In “My Autobiography” Max Müller lets us know on page 153 (highlighted by us):

“My wish to go to Berlin arose partly from a desire to hear Bopp, but yet more from a desire to make the acquaintances of Schelling. My inclination towards philosophy had become stronger and stronger; I had my own ideas about the mythological as a necessary form of ancient philosophy, and when I saw that old philosopher had advertised his lectures or lecture on mythology, I could not resist, and went to Berlin in 1844.”

We are too simple-minded to be able to overlook the contradiction in these lines. Is he in love with “Sanskrit”, or has he fallen in love with philosophical discourses, or more so in mythology? We remember the lines as well in “My Autobiography” by Max Müller (highlighted by us):

“For a time I thought of becoming a philosopher, and that sounded so grand that the idea of preparing for a mere schoolmaster, teaching Greek and Latin, seemed to me more and more too narrow a sphere. Soon, however, while dreaming of a chair of philosophy at a German University, I began to feel that I must know something special, something that no other philosopher knew, and that induced me to learn Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian”.

Therefore we are unable to accept the assertion of Max Müller that Friedrich Maximilian Müller was “in love with Sanskrit”, at least not before his arrival in Berlin. Not to talk about before he began his university studies. We find indications that Friedrich Maximilian Müller gradually developed a distance to classical “philology” and was in search of other “philological” areas like Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian and not English, French, Italian and Spanish, if we trust Max Müller. We shall keep our eyes wide open to identify indications leading to the conclusion that he had decided to study thoroughly “Sanskrit” only. For that purpose, he was yet to start learning the Sanskrit language thoroughly. We must ascertain that he had not really begun learning the Sanskrit language at Leipzig.

We know also, he could not have learnt the Sanskrit language at Leipzig University. We refer to our last chapter. We know that as late as 1844 Friedrich Maximilian Müller could not have inhaled much more than a scent of “Sanskrit” from Hermann Brockhaus at Leipzig. Therefore, he goes to Berlin. In logical continuation of our search, we shall have to accompany Friedrich Maximilian Müller to Berlin in his quest to learn. We can wait and watch.

As simple-minded searchers for facts we try to put ourselves in the situation of Friedrich Maximilian Müller, who comes to the city of Berlin for the first time in his young life. He fails to acquire any academic degree in philology at Leipzig University though he officially studied there for six semesters. His scholarship for poor students gets almost exhausted. He takes admission at the Royal Frederick William University in Berlin as a student of theology. We are genuinely puzzled. Why in the Faculty of Theology?

Max Müller told us that Friedrich Maximilian Müller went to Berlin as he desired “to make the acquaintances of “Schelling”. This “Schelling” is none else than Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775 –1854), 69 years old in 1844 and he does not teach in the faculty of theology. He teaches in the faculty of philosophy. He had and has nothing to do with “Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian”. We are just dumfounded.

In the summer term of 1844 Friedrich Maximilian Müller is 20 and half years old. How should he have developed “a desire to make the acquaintances of Schelling”? A remarkable choice of words, isn’t it? There is no indication that he reads in Schelling’s books while passing his last six months at Leipzig: “I am in Leipzig incognito, for I had already paid my farewell visits everywhere, and altogether feel no inclination for society.” We remember also his “Collegien Buch”. He wished initially to attend only three lectures in SS 1844 at Leipzig:

1 Greek and Latin Seminary Hermann & Klotze

2 Elementa Persica Fleischer

3 Rig-veda Hermann Brockhaus

No lecture on philosophy was envisaged! No indication in his letter to Theodor Fontane that he is engaged reading Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling. It is difficult to discern as well why Friedrich Maximilian Müller has been in hurry to leave Leipzig. It has remained in darkness.

*****

No questions so far in this regard, no answers. We review a few hard facts that have built Friedrich Maximilian’s character and personality. It begins at Anhalt-Dessau:

1. Wilhelm Müller is 27 years old in 1821 when he enters into a love-match marriage with Adelheid Basedow, who is then 21 years old. She belongs to a more prominent family than these “Müllers” in Anhalt-Dessau. Wilhelm Müller is far below the social standing of the family Basedow. The Basedows do not approve this marriage. Relative social isolation follows for the newly married couple, later also for the two kids, Auguste, and Friedrich Maximilian.

2. Wilhelm Müller dies suddenly. Adelheide depends on a meagre pension. The Duke of Anhalt-Dessau grants the widow the yearly sum of 100 thalers as long as she remains a widow and till her son has completed his twenty-first year, and thereafter for her life the sum of 50 thalers. Adelheide has to rear up the kids shifting to a ground-floor-flat in a tiny house.

3. The childhood of Friedrich Maximilian is hard, sad, uneventful, marked by poverty. He suffers from severe chronic headaches from his early childhood. We remember: “My childhood at home was often very sad. My mother, who was left a widow at twenty-eight with two children, my sister and myself, was heart-broken.”...“As far back as I can remember I was a martyr to headaches. No doctor could help me, no one seemed to know the cause. It was a migraine, and though I watched carefully I could not trace it to any fault of mine. The idea that it came from overwork was certainly untrue. It came and went, and if it was one day on the right side it was always the next time on the left, even though I was free from it sometimes for a week or a fortnight, or even longer. It was strange also that it seldom lasted beyond one day, and that I always felt particularly strong and well the day after I had been prostrate. For prostrate I was, and generally quite unable to do anything. I had to lie down and try to sleep. After a good sleep I was well, but when the pain had been very bad I found that sometimes the very skin of my forehead had peeled off. In this way I often lost two or three days in a week and as my work had to be done somehow, it was often done anyhow, and I was scolded and punished, really without any fault of mine own.”

4. A radical positive break comes in his life however when he is 12 years old. A friend of late Wilhelm Müller, one Professor Carus at Leipzig, is ready to take care for him. His son Victor is of the same age. Max Müller writes, we remember: “It was certainly a poor kind of armour in which I set out of Dessau. My mother, devoted as she was to me, had judged rightly that it was best for me to be with other boys and under the supervision of a man. I had been somewhat spoiled by her passionate love, and also by her passionate severity in correcting the ordinary naughtiness of a boy. So having risen from form to form in the school at Dessau, I was sent, at the age of twelve, to Leipzig, to live in the house of Professor Carus and attend the famous Nicolai-Schule with his son, who was of the same age as myself and who likewise wanted a companion. It was thought that there would be a certain emulation between us, and so, no doubt there was, though we always remained the best friends.”

5. He leaves, however, the affluent household of Prof. Carus, because: “It was rather hard on me that I had to pass my examinations for admission to the University (Abiturienten-Examen) not at my school, but at Zerbst in Anhalt. This was necessary in order to enable me to obtain a scholarship from the Anhalt Government.” He does not get back to the household of Professor Carus. It is just not a temporary move to Zerbst to pass his school final. It must have been prefixed. Mother Adelheide had shifted to Leipzig with her daughter before Friedrich Maximilian gets his school final at Zerbst in 1841. Friedrich Maximilian will get a scholarship for poor students of monthly 15 thalers for four years. We have not found any reasons for why he did not return and stayed with his friend Victor. Whatsoever.

6. We recall Max Müller’s statement on page 112 in the autobiography: “In order to enable me to go to the University, my mother and sister moved to Leipzig and kept house for me during all the time I was there – that is two years a half”, distorts facts. It is not important to find out the causes, but to ascertain that Friedrich Maximilian falls back in poverty. Staying in the household of Professor Carus and studying together with Victor Carus would have given additional chances to learn than only on the basis of his scholarship. Georgina Max Müller offers on her page 17 rather unconvincing explanations: “During his time at the University, Max saw but little of his old friend Victor Carus. Dr. Carus had married again, and his house was in a part of Leipzig distant from that where Max Müller lived, and as the friends were studying totally different subjects they never met in the lecture-rooms.“

7. He is poverty stricken again when he begins at Leipzig University. He is unable to attend many lectures. “The number of lectures on various subjects which I attended is quite amazing, and I should have attended still more if the honorarium had not frightened me away.”

8. We remember as well Max Müller reporting: “I must say at once that when I matriculated at Leipzig, in the summer of 1841, I was still very young and very immature. I had determined to study philology, chiefly Greek and Latin, but the fare spread out by the professors was much too tempting.” But soon he withstands and we come to know: “I found little that could rouse my enthusiasm for Greek and Latin literature, and I always required a dose of that to make me work hard. Everything seemed to me to have been done, and there was no virgin soil left to the plough, no ruins on which to try one’s own spade.”

9. He develops an interest in philosophy also. He concludes that: “I began to feel that I must know something special, something that no other philosopher knew, and that induced me to learn Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian.” He does not see any scope to continue to learn these languages at Leipzig University, which is not a centre for learning “oriental” languages and even less to learn the Sanskrit language.

10. In September 1843, Friedrich Maximilian Müller is almost completing his 20 years of age. He is out of his studies at Leipzig since the end of the summer term in 1843. “...you must pity me, poor wretch, for having spent nearly the whole vacation in a nervous fever, so that I must stay almost the whole of next term here in Leipzig. It is ill-luck, you will agree”, he writes to his friend Theodor Fontane.

11. Obviously, Friedrich Maximilian Müller is done with Leipzig University. There he is unable to earn an academic degree. He is still in search of an academic field suiting his interests. What is he really after? Does he explain his running away from Leipzig to his mother? Or does he just belie his mother about his mental indecisiveness regarding his studies?

12. Max Müller has written a chapter titled “University” covering Leipzig. He refers a lot to Sanskrit. But he does not refer to the available Sanskrit grammars in English since 1804, or to the first Sanskrit-English-dictionary published at Kolkata by Horace Hayman Wilson in 1819. The reason is simple. Friedrich Maximilian Müller doesn’t read English. The Nicolai-Schule teaches Latin, Greek and vernacular only. The so-called modern languages were not taught at Leipzig University. He can only read books written by Friedrich von Schlegel and by Franz Bopp in German on and about the Sanskrit language. As we know, Franz Bopp, August Wilhelm von Schlegel, Hermann Brockhaus knew English.

*****

These hard facts enable us to understand the mental disposition of Friedrich Maximilian at Leipzig in 1843/1844. He does not find much sense to try for an academic degree at Leipzig University. There he saw “no ruins (left) on which to try one’s own spade.” He hopes to find “virgin soil left to the plough” somewhere: “I began to feel that I must know something special, something that no other philosopher knew, and that induced me to learn Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian”.

Moving to Berlin in search of “virgin soil left to the plough,” is rather a desperate adventure. Berlin is far more expensive than Leipzig. He will have to look after himself and and live on his 15 thalers a month. Adelheid and Auguste would not be there as it was in 1841. We read Georgina Max Müller on her page 16: “Max Müller joined the University of Leipzig in the Summer Term, 1841; his mother and sister left Dessau and moved to Leipzig to make a home for him and lessen expenses.”

At Leipzig Adelheid, Auguste and Friedrich Maximilian managed the household with 15 + 8 thalers a month. The situation has now changed. Auguste gets married in February 1844 to (We read the version of Max Müller, page112, “My Autobiography”):

“My sister enjoyed what little there was of society, whereas I kept sternly aloof from it. She was much admired, and soon became engaged to a young doctor, Dr. A. Krug, the son of the famous Professor of philosophy at Leipzig, whose works, particularly his Dictionary of Philosophy, hold a distinguished place in the history of German philosophy.”

We do not miss the diction with “Dr”. and “Professor” and “distinguished”. Auguste moves with her husband to Chemnitz. If Friedrich Maximilian would continue at Leipzig University, there would be a financial improvement for Friedrich Maximilian and his mother. But he decides for Berlin. What can Adelheid Müller do alone at Leipzig? We remember the terms of Adelheid Müller’s small pension: “The yearly sum of 100 thalers as long as she remains a widow till her son has completed his twenty-first year, and thereafter for her life the sum of fifty thalers.”

Friedrich Maximilian has developed a selfish character. He might have calculated, when he is 21, Adelheid’s pension will be reduced to 50 thalers. Then he will have to assist her. Especially, after those four years of his scholarship for poor students of the Anhalt-government come to an end. Whatsoever, it has been agreed upon that mother Adelheid will live with the young couple at Chemnitz, while Friedrich Maximilian will try to manage with 15 thalers up to the end of 1844 in Berlin. So there is no future prospective that Adelheid and Friedrich Maximilian to move together to Berlin. To live in the household of newly married daughter and the son-in-law is not very pleasant for Adelheid. But there is obviously no other way out.

Friedrich Maximilian Müller will have to manage his stay in Berlin solely on his monthly scholarship of 15 thalers, unless he earns extra money offering private lessons. He never thought of giving private lessons at Leipzig. He preferred to enjoy his student life drinking beer and smoking cigars in the “Burschenschaft” with the scions of well-to-do people. This significant fact we keep in mind. Max Müller does never refer to it. Georgina Max Müller does and put it in a different context. On page 20 of her book we read:

“Max had long felt an ardent wish to go for a year to Berlin to study Sanskrit under Bopp, but more especially Philosophy under Schelling. He wanted also to examine the collection of Sanskrit MSS. which the King of Prussia had just bought in England from the executors of Robert Chambers. … Max Müller had his scholarship for one year more. … How Max Müller, when away from his mother, was able to live, is certainly a puzzle, but living then in Germany was extraordinarily cheap.”

Our attention is drawn to the second sentence of Georgina Max Müller: “He wanted also to examine the collection of Sanskrit MSS. which the King of Prussia had just bought in England from the executors of Robert Chambers.” Examine the collection of Sanskrit Manuscripts? What does it mean? What exactly should this sentence communicate?

We recall that Friedrich Maximilian attended at Leipzig University one grammar-course each for Hebrew, Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian. These are three months courses. How many years are needed to learn the grammar of vernacular, Latin and Greek? Well, we apologise for looking ahead and withdraw our question for the time being.

He also attended four seminars offered by Hermann Brockhaus on texts originally written in Sanskrit then translated in many languages. At most, Hermann Brockhaus could teach him the Sanskrit alphabets, rudiments of Sanskrit grammar and discuss a few translated stories. He himself was unable to read the Sanskrit language, neither his teachers. So, how should Friedrich Maximilian “examine the collection of Sanskrit MSS. which the King of Prussia had just bought in England from the executors of Robert Chambers”? Max Müller does not mention this “desire” in his “My Autobiography”. We leave this issue for the time being with a simple question: How could Georgina Max Müller come to know: “He wanted also to examine the collection of Sanskrit MSS. which the King of Prussia had just bought in England from the executors of Robert Chambers”?

Friedrich Maximilian Müller hears from Hermann Brockhaus that Franz Bopp was not only the German pioneer in “Sanskrit”. Franz Bopp was recognized in the whole of Europe as the topmost expert in “Sanskrit”. He founded also “sciences of language”. Friedrich Maximilian Müller must have felt that all he could have learnt from Hermann Brockhaus he had already learnt. That was not enough. Therefore, he moves to Berlin to learn more of Sanskrit from Franz Bopp. But why does he get enrolled in the faculty of theology? Why all on a sudden theology?

Max Müller did not tell us what Friedrich Maximilian does learn at the Royal Frederick William University in Berlin. Surprisingly there is no chapter on Friedrich Maximilian Müller’s stay at Berlin in “My Autobiography” by Max Müller. This indicates that the stay in Berlin was considered by Max Müller to have been absolutely useless. The Fourth Chapter was titled: University. There we read on pages 152/53, “My Autobiography”these few lines (highlighted by us):

“My wish to go to Berlin arose partly from a desire to hear Bopp, but yet more from a desire to make acquaintance of Schelling. My inclination towards philosophy had become stronger and stronger; I had my own ideas about the mythological as a necessary form of ancient philosophy, and when I saw that the old philosopher had advertised his lectures or lecture on mythology, I could not resist, and went to Berlin in 1844. I must say at once that Professor Bopp, though he was extremely kind to me, was at that time, if not old – he was only fifty-three – very i firm (infirm?). In his lectures he simply read his Comparative Grammar with a magnifying glass, and added very little that was new. He lent me some manuscripts which he had copied in Latin in his younger days, but I could not get much help from him when I came to really difficult passages. This, I confess, puzzled me at this time, for I looked on every professor as omniscient. The time comes, however, when we learn that even at fifty-three a man may have forgotten certain things, nay, may have let many books and new discoveries even in his own subject pass by, because he has plenty to do with his own studies.”

As usual, these lines are followed by a lecture ending with the lines on page 156: “We must judge a man by what he has done – by his own original work. There are many scholars, and very useful they are in their own way, but if their books are examined, one easily finds the stores from which they borrowed their materials. They may add some notes of their own and even some corrections of the author from whom they have borrowed most ; but at the end where is the fresh ore that they have raised ; where is the gold they have extracted and coined? There are cases where the original worker is quite forgotten, whereas the realities flourish. Well, facts are facts, whether known or not known, and the triumphal chariot of truth has to be dragged along by many hands and many shoulders.”

This is all what has been communicated by Max Müller regarding Franz Bopp in this context. We must confess, it is tough to control our temptation to comment these lines here and now. Instead, we first ascertain that all these could not have been formulated by Friedrich Maximilian Müller at Berlin. Secondly, we must ascertain that he fails to add anything to his rudimentary knowledge of the Sanskrit language at Berlin. Thirdly, we must refer to the beginning of the said lecture by Max Müller on page 153:

“We remember the old story of the professor who, charged by a young and rather impertinent student with not knowing this or that, replied: ‘Sir, I have forgotten more than you ever knew.’ And so it is indeed. Human nature and human memory are very strong during youth and manhood, but even at fifty there is with many people a certain decline of mental vigour that tell chiefly on the memory. Things are not exactly forgotten, but they do not turn up at the right time. They just leave a certain knowledge of where the missing information can be found ; they have also a kind of feeling that the ground is not quite safe and that we must no longer trust entirely to our memory. In one respect this feeling is very useful, for instead of writing down anything, trusting to our memory as we used to do, we feel it necessary to verify many things which formerly were perfectly clear and certain in our memory without such reference to books.

“I remember being struck with the same thing in the case of Professor Wilson, the well –known Oxford Professor of Sanskrit. He was kind enough to read with me, and I certainly was often puzzled, not only by what he knew, but also by what he had forgotten.”

Friedrich Maximilian Müller’s encounter with Franz Bopp must have been extremely disappointing, if we trust Max Müller. There is no mention of his encounter with the philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling in “My Autobiography”, nor in his Auld Lang Syne, published also by Longmans, Green, and Co., London and Bombay in 1898. What had happened? We shall deal with “Professor Wilson”, he is Horace Hayman Wilson, the compiler of the first Sanskrit-English dictionary, in due course. On page 157 Max Müller begins his Fifth Chapter titled “Paris”.

*****

We are through with Max Müller’s memories of Berlin, but not with the life of Friedrich Maximilian Müller at Berlin. At this stage, we get access to another source of authentic documents, his letters to his mother, written in German handwriting. These are kept as a “special collection” in the Bodleian Library, Oxford University. Adelheid Müller had kept the letters of her son out of sheer affections. She did not know that these letters would become important to setting parts of the “history” right.

These letters in German handwriting kept by an affectionate mother who lived in Chemnitz should have been kept in the archives in Germany, in Dessau or in Chemnitz or in Leipzig. The archives in Germany do not keep even copies of this “special collection” in the Bodleian Library, Oxford University.

Friedrich Maximilian Müller did not care to keep the letters of his affectionate mother to him. He has kept so many other letters of much less dear persons. On the other hand, Adelheid Müller did care to preserve the letters written by her son. What does it indicate? We refrain from drawing conclusions for others.

We are apprehensive whether this “special collection” is a complete collection of letters written by Friedrich Maximilian to his mother. Let it be how it is. Presently we try to put together the scattered information on: What does Friedrich Maximilian learn at Berlin University? In addition, we consult the writings of Georgina Max Müller as well, which are naturally less authentic and thus less reliable.

Friedrich Maximilian Müller has a tight budget for his stay in Berlin. Being at Berlin, he feels urged to communicate with his mother as often as possible. She is the only trustworthy person in the world of Friedrich Maximilian. He knows also all about her affections, her hopes and her aspiration concerning him of her financial hardships as well.

We are surprised to note that he often posts his letters to her without putting on stamps, which costs for the mother at the other end a little more. Occasionally she sends stamps or money for him along with her letter. His financial hardship in different facets is an issue in every letter of him. At his age, he knows exactly that his mother’s budget is tighter than his own. We take a note of this aspect. We feel that Friedrich Maximilian does not consider his mother’s financial predicament.

On the covering envelop he writes either to “Ihrer hochwohlgeborenen, der Frau Hofräthin Müller, geborene von Basedow“, or to “Frau Hofräthin A. Müller, geborene von Basedow”. Both modes of addressing throw strange lights on the character of Friedrich Maximilian.

A literal translation of “hochwohlgeborene” would be “high well born”. We translate the term rather as “born aristocratic”. The title “Hofräthin” indicates either she holds herself an honorary title for civil servants or the wife of a person who holds that title for civil servants. We recall that father Wilhelm Müller became the Librarian in the small Duchy Anhalt-Dessau and as such also a “Hofrat”. These two exaggerations are eventually excusable as trifles.

It is absolutely unusual to mention the maiden name of the mother or of any female person on a letter-envelope. Why does he do it? As mentioned earlier, “Müller” is a very ordinary name in Germany. Does he do it to upgrade the social status of his mother being a simple Frau (Mrs.) Adelheid Müller? Hardly likely! Being grownup and having academic experience he knows, addressing letters to his mother in this manner can only impress the postal worker. So, why does he address letters to his mother in this manner?

We apologise looking a little ahead. All along his life, Friedrich Maximilian Müller suffers because of his humble and poverty-stricken social background. We remember also his childhood. He has to develop strategies to compensate his own inferiority complex. However, it does not appear to us to be sufficient of an excuse. To write on a letter-envelope “A. Müller, geborene von Basedow” cannot be neglected by some psychological hypothesis. It is definitely an accountable swindle as it with his “Doktor Max Müller”, which we shall come across.

In previous chapters, we couldn’t ascertain whether Max Müller was unable to differentiate between fantasy and reality or Friedrich Maximilian had evolved to swindler as Max Müller. Now we get another indication that Friedrich Maximilian was at least evolving to a swindler. In our second chapter, we quoted an exemplary paragraph on the family background of Max Müller that has remained undisputed until today. We recall:

“Max Müller's mother was Adelheid, elder daughter of President von Basedow, Prime Minister of the Duchy of Dessau. She was very small, but very beautiful, clever and lively, and had a fine contralto voice; and it was from her that Max Müller inherited his intense love of music. Frau Hofrathin Muller was a highly cultivated woman, understanding English, French, and Italian perfectly. She was a woman of an eager, even passionate temperament, and her children evidently suffered early from this, as Wilhelm Müller's letters are full of warnings to her not to punish too severely, and not to expect too much from her children (babies of four and five when their father died). Her father, President von Basedow, was himself the son of a man famous in Germany in his day, the pedagogue Basedow, the forerunner of Pestalozzi and Fröbel.”

This is the second paragraph of the very first chapter written by Georgina Max Müller in: THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE FRIEDRICH MAX MÜLLER, EDITED BY HIS WIFE, in two volumes, here in volume I, Longmans, Green, and Co., 39 Parternoster Row, London, New York and Bombay 1902. We recall, Georgina Adelaide Grenfell, born 1835, married Friedrich Maximilian Müller in 1859.

*****

We apologise again to looking a little ahead. Friedrich Maximilian studied philology for several semesters at a university. Surprisingly is the style and his choice of words in the letters of to her mother are very ordinary containing many stereotyped flat phrases. The diction is childish, and the contents, often enough, scatter-brained. His handwriting is acceptably formed. He makes most extensive use of space on letter-papers. He begins in a normal way. When the page is full, he uses all empty spaces on the page rather unsystematically. It is a clear and comprehensible sign of his poverty-stricken budget. But it indicates also carelessness and a disorderly mind.

In the beginning he writes frequently. At a later phase, he writes even less than monthly. In his first letter from Berlin dated April 15, 1844, he announces his arrival and reports about his activities and on his experiences after he left Chemnitz. He was in Dessau and had taken many troubles to get a scholarship for his studies at Berlin. He stayed there for days. That is why he hurried to write to his mother even before he had rented a room for his stay at Berlin.

He describes how awfully he was “kept day after day” waiting there. Though he writes “everything was very pleasant at Dessau”, nothing was really pleasant there for him. He spent a lot of time to meeting “various people at home”. He could then meet the “Chamberlain”, from whom he hoped to hear something definite as to the “Leopold Stipendium”. A chamberlain is a title associated with the household of the sovereign. Unfortunately thechamberlain gave him no hope, nor did “Herr Bernhorst”, nor Herr “Morgenstern”. We are not familiar with these names. They must have been important officials in the administration of the Duchy Anhalt-Dessau.

We stumbled over a sentence in between, rather out of way: “They were all very kind and accepted the Hitopadesha”. What was it, “Hitopadesha”? We shall explain our mishap and try to answer all that goes with it in a little while. Immediately thereafter, he continues his report to the mother narrating about his exercises and experiences in Dessau.

“Bernhorst came personally to me and informed me that the Duke knew that I was in town and that he would receive me.” He went to meet the Duke, but was received by Anhalt-Dessau’s Pater Patriae, “who talked to me for a long time, but of the “Stipendium” or of any other financial helps not a syllable.” Then he went to Fraulein Rath, who told him that he was to see the Duchess the next day. “She (Fraulein Rath) too was very gracious and kind, enquired why I did not go to England. I told her everything most frankly but it produced no result.” He does not write what “everything most frankly” meant. Therefore, we do not know either.

Then he met Advocate Richter, who gave him the “very disheartening” news that most probably the payment of his scholarship for poor students from Anhalt-Dessau-Government will be stopped after the current semester. However, he was to be informed officially in due course. Advocate Richter did not pass any remark about his precarious financial predicament.

All these he writes to his mother to convince her that he has tried his most and that he spared himself no pains. Unfortunately, totally unsuccessfully. We wonder that he did not meet his first-grade uncle who was the “Prime Minister” of Anhalt-Dessau as Max Müller repeatedly mentioned in his “My Autobiography”. Friedrich Maximilian obviously does not even try to meet his uncle who was then head of the administration of the Duchy. What does it mean? Does it mean that the biography of Friedrich Maximilian Müller and the “My Autobiography” written by Max Müller are two different things? We shall keep watch on this aspect.

All these experiences he discloses to his mother, who is helpless as well, and states in the letter that he must see now how he can help himself. “I have drawn fifty thalers from the savings bank. Then I left Anhalt-Dessau at two o'clock, and arrived in Berlin at about seven.” He went directly to “uncle and aunt Hake” who offered him to stay with them as long as he liked, whilst he looks for a nice room at Berlin. He assures his mother again that he has done all that he could do and that he did it most conscientiously.

Next, he is busy looking for a suitable room “yesterday and today” and he sees “at least forty”. He is then “very tired with all this running about, and longing for a quiet, settled life”. He does not want to pay any visits until he was settled, “but when will that be”?

This is the beginning of his stay at Berlin in deep frustration and large helplessness.

*****

We have read his letter more than once. We must confess that this letter raises our expectation to be able to find authentic answers to many of our queries concerning the life of Friedrich Maximilian Müller. This letter is a document. It is not just a narrated account by whomsoever.

We miss three important aspects in this letter to comprehend the mental disposition of Friedrich Maximilian. In material terms, he finds himself in a hopeless situation in Berlin unless he gets financial support from somewhere. He meets several intermediary persons belonging to the administration at Anhalt-Dessau, but he does not get access to the Duke, to the Duchess, to his uncle. Does he try to explain himself why it was so? This is the first aspect.

Does he offer certificates and recommendations of his academic mentors belonging to Leipzig University to all those persons he met in support of his plea for a new scholarship, that “Leopold Stipendium”? There is no mention. This is the second aspect.

Does he ever analyse his failure in studies at Leipzig University? This is the third aspect. He does not even touch these aspects in his first letter to his mother from Berlin in April 1844.

We must consider these aspects for our judgement. We have not found any indication so far that Friedrich Maximilian learnt self-reflection and self-criticism. It was not his “fault” what happened in his early childhood. This was precarious. But he was fortunate enough to get a chance, getting the privilege of being in one of the best schools in Germany, the “Nicolai Schule” at Leipzig. We are unable to judge whether he just missed his chance by negligence or by his intellectual ability. The fact remains, he was unable to make use of this privilege. We remember also that he had to take his school final certificate from a school in Zerbst. He however obtained a scholarship for poor students. He could not earn a scholarship on merit.

We are apprehensive whether Friedrich Maximilian ever reflected over what all these meant? A scholarship for poor students demands from the holder to focus solely on his academic studies, on acquiring qualifications and on earning certificates for future occupational career. And not indulging in the usual academic life of privileged people. For whatever reasons, Friedrich Maximilian did not acquire enough knowledge to sit for any academic exam. He failed to earn a single academic degree at Leipzig. Was it due to lack of interest? Was it due to his inability to learn systematically? We do not know. He just escapes from Leipzig University after consuming the most of his scholarship for poor students and then makes a pilgrimage to Berlin in search of salvation.

His hope to be considered for a “Leopold Stipendium” remains unfulfilled. He is unable to prove his scholarship. He is unable to offer recommendations from any of his academic teachers of Leipzig University whilst trying to get that “Leopold Stipendium” for poor scholars. Instead he offered something which is expressed in that one almost fleeting sentence in the letter to his mother: “They were all very kind, and accepted the Hitopadesha.” So, he offered “Hitopadesha” as an adequate substitute of academic certificates and recommendations as support to obtain “Leopold Stipendium for poor scholars”. Irrespective of the possibility that this sentence was just to console his mother, we have to deal with “Hitopadesha” and what goes with it.

*****

“Hitopadesha” is an ancient collection of short episodes referring to real life, carrying universal social values and massages for all human kinds. It is a short version of Panchatantra, which was widely circulated in ancient Bharatavarsa. Bharatavarsa was a cultural entity, much larger than today’s borders of India. Panchatantra means practical application of acquired knowledge in five chapters. Ancient sages compiled their knowledge in the Vedas. In the beginning Panchatantra is a spoken version. Even the Vedic letters were not yet created.

Vedas are books on science. The scholars belonging to the prevailing culture have distorted the Vedas. Did they do it ignorantly or deliberately? It does not matter. To deepen this aspect we recommend the book “Before the Beginning and after the End. Beyond the Universe of Physics. Rediscovering Ancient Insights”, 568 pages, ISBN 81-7167-450-X, Rupa & Co., New Delhi 2000, by Rishi Kumar Mishra, a scholar who also belonged to the Vedic culture. His other three volumes also deal with the Vedas.

We get back to the knowledge stored in the Vedas. Later this knowledge has been stored in many different media for the forthcoming generations. The scripts have been one of the major transport media after Vedic letters were created. In written modus, Panchatantra has been recorded in many different versions, in many languages and it becomes known in the whole world. We won‘t get into dating acrobatics. Panchatantra is handed down since time immemorial and it has been translated in numerous “non-Indian” languages.

It is said that Panchatantra had reached Europe via Spain in the eleventh century thanks to the Arabs. Versions of Panchatantra existed definitely in Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, German, English, Old Slavonic, Czech, and perhaps in other Slavonic languages before 1600. Its range has been from Java to Iceland. The same is valid for Hitopadesa, which was translated in the 6th century AD in Persian. Thereafter Hitopadesa has been translated many times under many different names also in different European languages. The Fables of Pilpai is factually Hitopadesa. So it is with The Moral Philosophy of Doni, published in 1570. For those who are not accustomed to remote periods, here is one less remote reference: Hitopadesha (sanskrit-bengali-english) by Lakhshami Narayan Nyayalankar. Published in Kolkata in 1830, printed in “shastra prakasha press, calcutta”.

The episodes in Hitopadesha have always been recognized, also in the “modern times” as priceless treasures of morality and knowledge. These are narrated in a logical and clear way. They do not propagate moral behind the episodes. Moral is just revealed by simplicity and by logic to young and old, to children and to parents. Sages of Bharatavarsa, scientists who “saw” processes in nature and societies, in macro and micro cosmos, seer-scientists, did not have any urge to sell their acquired knowledge. For them knowledge belonged to humanity. For them knowledge was never a commodity. They were not “intellectual prostitutes”.

British colonizers began selling ancient knowledge of Bharatavarsa as their own “discovery” and started claiming “copyrights”. Thieves and plunderers like Sir William Jones have founded a culture of theft, of stealing, of plundering unscrupulously. Plagiarism is a minor folly. We shall deal with “intellectual prostitutes” and Sir William Jones later in due course.

*****

It is sheer unbelievable but true that Friedrich Maximilian Müller claimed to have translated “Hitopadesha” from Sanskrit original before 1844. And his claim was not contradicted by Hermann Brockhaus, which reflects what it meant at that time “knowing the Sanskrit language”. On top of it, he helped Friedrich Maximilian Müller to get this German version of “Hitopadesha” published at Leipzig. Hermann Brockhaus was the son of the owner of the publishing house “Brockhaus” at Leipzig and at Amsterdam. “Brockhaus” is a good address amongst European publishers. This booklet is available in the library at Leipzig University. It has been devoted “to his fatherly friend Professor Carus” and dedicated to Hermann Brockhaus as he owed him everything.

We being simple-minded cannot afford to have a short memory. We have not forgotten that in the 3rd semester at the Leipzig University Friedrich Maximilian attended a lecture offered by Hermann Brockhaus under the title: Hitopadesa. This contradiction has not yet been ascertained by any modern scholar belonging to, as we have characterized, the blond-blue-eyed-white-Christian culture. As mentioned earlier, we do not belong to the community of modern scholars.

This is an example showing vividly how for whatever purpose “scholars” are produced in “the wonder that is this culture”. Hermann Brockhaus does not know the Sanskrit language simply because his academic teacher for Sanskrit, August Wilhelm von Schlegel, did not learn the Sanskrit language. We recall, August Wilhelm von Schlegel had had an opportunity to stay in Paris for a short while in 1813. Paris was then the only place in Europe where the Sanskrit language could be learnt, so it is said. There he was guided by Franz Bopp to learn the Sanskrit language from Antoine Léonard de Chézy together with him, so it is handed down. We know by now that neither Franz Bopp nor Antoine Léonard de Chézy learnt the Sanskrit language. We cannot get further back than to Antoine Léonard de Chézy again for the simple reason that he didn’t have a teacher at all to teach him the Sanskrit language. He claimed to have learnt the all by himself. The episode with Alexander Hamiltion and Friedrich von Schlegel we can put aside in the present context. We refer to our previous chapter.

We remember, in Paris Franz Bopp stopped going to Antoine Léonard de Chézy because de Chézy was then able to teach the Persian language only. Therefore Franz Bopp had also to learn the Sanskrit language all by himself as he claimed and he, nonetheless, “occupied” the language to spread it not only in Germany as “Sanskrit”. So, two questions inevitably arise as consequence: Which Sanskrit-language August Wilhelm von Schlegel believed to have learnt together with Franz Bopp from Antoine Léonard de Chézy, and which Sanskrit-language could he teach Hermann Brockhaus?

Keeping this whole panorama in mind we try to solve the riddle, how Friedrich Maximilian Müller could have translated “Hitopadesha” from the Sanskrit original. As a matter of fact, it is not a riddle at all if we simply delete his claim: “from original Sanskrit”. It is a deliberate swindle. “Scholars” in this culture generally practice lies of this quality. We did get a vivid taste of it in our last chapter. And if we are permitted here to take an aside and to look a little ahead we shall get ample examples of swindles of this quality. We would like to introduce a German proverb characterizing not only the German academic culture: “Wer schreibt, der bleibt.” A literary English translation could be: He who writes, remains. It may not sound well. But the fact prevails. We would rather prefer: Get it printed to get it imprinted. Lies or not, once you get it printed, it is accepted as fact by contemporary and by later born “scholars” belonging to “the wonder that is” this culture.

We get back to Friedrich Maximilian Müller, 1844, at Berlin. He has followed the common practice prevailing in this culture. You take a printed copy of a Sanskrit text, at best, in “devanagri letters”, buy available translations in vernacular or in other languages to which you have access, copy them indiscriminately, collate right or wrong, and get it published as your own translation from the original source. Once printed, who could challenge your claim? This is how “rights” are established. We have challenged Friedrich Maximilian Müller proving that he was unable to read Sanskrit texts. He has swindled.

We take a note that Friedrich Maximilian Müller did evolve to a swindler par excellence quite young. His claim translating Hitopadesa from the Sanskrit original is a presumptuous presentation of his first “master piece” in notorious charlatanry.

*****

We continue sticking to hard facts. Friedrich Maximilian arrives at Berlin on April 15, 1844. He can stay with a distant aunt, Julie Hake to begin with. He gets admission at the Royal Frederick William University in Berlin as a student of theology. He finds soon a room not far away from the university. For the room he has to pay 6 (six) thalers a month. He will have to manage his student life in Berlin with 9 (nine) thalers only. It is not just maintaining his living. Attending courses at the university also costs money. He has to pay for any and every lectures offered by whomsoever at the University. Berlin is a much larger city than Leipzig. To visit people one has either to walk long distances consuming time or take a carriage that costs money. A day has 24 hours.

These are factors that we have to take into considerations when we read his letters to his mother or when we read Georgina Max Müller on Friedrich Maximilian. We admit, we have cited examples that have made us apprehensive about the correctness of the presentation of Friedrich Maximilian by Georgina Max Müller.

We asked for all letters, kept as “special collection” in the Bodleian Library, Oxford University, written by Friedrich Maximilian to his mother up to 1850. We have not found those letters to his mother, which has been presented by Georgina Max Müller earlier. In her book, she refers also to a diary of Friedrich Maximilian and reports on his life at Berlin. On page 22 we read:

“It is evident from his letters to his mother and his Diary that the early part of his time at Berlin was most agreeable. He went into society more than he had done at Leipzig, and was fortunate in having the entree of several very pleasant houses, chief among which was the house of Hensel the artist, married to Mendelssohn's favourite sister Fanny. The Krügers, connexions of his own (he was also an artist), were very kind to the young student, and he dined there every Sunday, unless he had any other invitation. His aunt, Julie Hake, also had him to dinner every week. At Berlin, Max Müller began keeping a journal, and continued it fairly regularly till August. He seems to have dined, when not asked out, at a restaurant, where he paid sixpence for his dinner, which he reports as good. He matriculated as a theologian!

Soon after, he writes:

‘Worked early, but could not concentrate myself; and adds the same evening, ‘Dreaming’, and a little poetry, and a very little work. I must work more in future.’ A few days later he paid his first visit to the Library in search of Sanskrit MSS., which he seems to have been unable to see owing to the absence of the head librarian.”

Let us accept this report though the sources are beyond our reach. Obviously, “his first visit to the Library in search of Sanskrit MSS.” was more important to Friedrich Maximilian than attending to lectures in theology at the university. Georgina Max Müller presents a letter to his mother that is only approximately dated. Immediately thereafter, she quotes two letters dated May 22nd and May 28th suggesting that the first letter must have been written sometime before May 22, 1844. Let us read the first letter first with her introduction:

“The following letters give his mother a pleasant account of his life: — Translation. May, 1844.

“Hensel's house is a delightful resort to me, and she is especially friendly. I go there oftener than I can really spare the time; they are always sending me invitations. I was there last Saturday, and they asked me to dinner the next day. I went at twelve, for a large musical matinee; they sang the choruses of the Antigone. Then I stayed in the garden with the tutor, and we played with Hensel a sort of ninepins; then came dinner, and they asked me to return in the evening, as Oehlenschlager, the German poet, was coming to them, so I spent nearly the whole day there. I have not played there yet, as she has not asked me to do so, but when I told her I wanted to hire a piano, cheap but not bad, she offered to lend me an English one, on which she used to play. He too is most friendly, and has given himself a great deal of trouble to get leave from the Minister for me to have the MSS. to use in my own room, which I hope will soon be granted. The Hakes too are very kind, and I can always dine there, Mondays and Thursdays. I have called besides on Bopp; Professor Hofer, who will review my Hitopadesa; Dr. Kuhn, another Sanskritist, to whom Brockhaus recommended me ; Professor Petermann, whose lectures on the history of Oriental Literature I attend; Professor Schott, with whom I learn Persian; and I think everything will go well. I am also going to Schelling, from which my purse suffers. I have not had time to call again on “Bettina.” As friends I have Vogel and Fontane, whom I seldom see except at dinner. At home I only have bread and butter. I drink coffee without milk or sugar. I have just received ten copies of the Griechenlieder; they are very well printed. So you see I do very well here, and nothing is wanting but my dear little mother. Now write soon, but don't say again you do not like Chemnitz; a contented spirit is happy anywhere. In the Hitopadesa it says: To the man who has leather shoes on, the whole world is covered with leather.”

Doesn’t this version of the letter communicate in a well ordered sophisticated style that after reaching Berlin mid-April Friedrich Maximilian gives an account to his mother how nicely he is settling down in Berlin? Optimistic, pleasant and satisfactory? It was not so! This letter is more of a fake.

It is correct that Friedrich Maximilian has written in May 1844 three letters. One in the first half of May, then on 22nd and on 28th. The information given in the faked version presented by Georgina Max Müller is scattered in these three letters. Not at all in a well ordered sophisticated English style. We shall read his original together in a little while.

The deliberate manipulation as presented on pages 22-25 in Georgina Max Müller’s book becomes more perfidious in this context. First, she reports in her own words without referring to sources. Between her report and the faked letter, she places two other letters without dates, without indicating sources. One allegedly written by Theodor Fontane praising Friedrich Maximilian’s very lively activities as a Sanskrit scholar in Berlin to the skies and a translation of a letter allegedly written by Friedrich Maximilian to his mother also without a date. We skip Theodor Fontane’s letter praising Friedrich Maximilian as a Sanskrit scholar in Berlin to the skies that he was not and quote only this second letter along with her introduction that is definitely a fake:

“Max Müller had expected great things from Schelling, and in a letter to his mother thus describes his first visit to the great philosopher:— Translation

' I went to announce myself. He receives people at four o'clock. I had not expected much, for I had heard how he had dismissed Jellinick, but I was more fortunate. I asked him if he would continue to lecture next term on the Philosophy of Revelation, He said he could not decide yet, therefore probably only a private lecture again. Then I spoke to him of my time in Leipzig, of Weiss and Brockhaus, and then we came round to Indian Philosophy. Here he allowed me to tell him a good deal. I especially dwelt on the likeness between Sankhya and his own system, and remarked how an inclination to the Vedanta showed itself. He asked what we must understand by Vedanta, how the existence of God was proved, how God created the world, whether it had reality. He has been much occupied with Colebrooke's Essays, and he seemed to wish to learn more, as he asked me if I could explain a text. Then he asked where I was living, knew my father as Greek poet and a worker on Homer, and at last dismissed me with " Come again soon," offering to do anything he could for me.'”

We skip also commenting the contents in this letter. We mention here only that Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775 –1854) was 69 years old in 1844. He had and has nothing to do with “Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian. Friedrich Maximilian Müller did not complete his 21 in age yet and knew nothing about “Vedanta”. We shall deal with “Colebrooke's Essays” in due course. This much is for now. He is Henry Thomas Colebrooke (1765 – 1837), sent by the East India Company to Kolkata as a “writer” (clerk), when he was 17 years old in 1782. He did not even earn a school certificate. And Friedrich Maximilian Müller is unable to read English. “Colebrooke's Essays” are not translated into German.

Following are the translations presented by Georgina Max Müller:

“Translation. May 22.

' Four days in the week I have lectures at eight ; the woman cleans my room, then I stay at home till 1.30, and then dine close here. Then some days I have a lecture at four o'clock, and I am very glad to be living so close to the University, and shall be more so when the real Berlin heat begins.’”

“Translation. May 28.

' I have just come from Hensel's. As you see, I am a pretty constant guest. They are really so good to me, and it is the only house where I feel “you would like to go there”; generally one feels "you must go there." You say, you are glad that I don't work so hard; I can't quite understand that, for I often don't know what I should begin first, when I think of the future and on so much which I still have to do before I can take any rest. ... I do not often see any papers, as the public reading-rooms are so dear; in this respect you are better off in Chemnitz.'”

*****

It is a tiresome job getting through the handwritten letters of Friedrich Maximilian Müller in German original attentively. The handwriting varies according to his mental dispositions. His mind is not organised. It is not only an urge for him to write to his mother regularly, but it is also a duty. His mother is the only person of trust he has. Yet there is always a kind of haste in the letters. Information is wrapped up in stories and rapports. The style of writing is rather childish. And as mentioned earlier, he makes extensive use of space on paper which is dictated by poverty. The script is in old German, prior to the “Sütterling” script.

We are on our search for hard facts. It is a tiresome journey to ascertain “what Friedrich Maximilian Müller actually learns at Berlin”. We have literarily translated his letter, written obviously in the first half of May, keeping his syntax, punctuation and style so that this can be compared with the presentation by Georgina Max Müller on pages 23-24 in her book.

“My dear Mother,

Quite often I wished to tell you, at least in writing, and certainly you have also wished to hear from me, but this did not work out and we must have to make use of our patience in getting news from each other. Specially the first weeks in Berlin passed rather slowly, day for day I hoped for the next; wherever I came, they enquired, whether I didn’t have news from you and I had always to say: no, not yet. Also Prowe, whom I expected for so long, did not come and did not come. I was highly delighted on Thursday 2nd May when I was back from Hensels in the evening seeing Prowe there, who had arrived already in the noon and was sleeping on my sofa. He had then to narrate a lot, and began reporting about the inconveniences you had to face, but he didn’t give me a letter till I began to express my distress, then he unpacked your small packet. How much I felt sorry for you to have endured these hours of annoyance. The beautiful furnitures, now it is all Rokoko and Pompeian’s, renaissance are seemingly no more liked. How I was also delighted for the shoes that are already displayed near the bed, which I joyfully look at every morning while I move around in my short dressing gown. Prove stayed with me for two days which we nicely enjoyed. Thereafter he took a boarding which he disliked so much that he was no more there when I went to meet him as he had fled to Dorothenstrasse No. 19, due to bed−bugs. - He is very jolly and is not at all disturbed by his exams. He was here with his tasks, and now I have sent him away telling him that I have to write a letter to Chemnitz. He greets you again and will write to you soon, he was so often so helpful to you in Leipzig, who knows whether you would have got that burnish without him for example.

As far as my life here is concerned, firstly I quite like my boarding. The people are clean and honest and do not disturb me. The only unpleasant matter is that I have to descend three steps to reach the toilette, however, I am getting adjusted. My other matters here are agreeable and the house of Hensels I like most as they are extremely kind towards me. In fact I am more often there than my time permits, they also always invite me for lunch, not on any particular day in the week, but it is not so convenient, therefore I prefer to go there in the evenings. - Last Saturday I was there, they invited me for lunch on Sunday also. I arrived there at 12.00, where grand music was on, Matinee as it was a fortnight ago. Again Antigone chorus was sung while Krelinger recited. Then I stayed on from 2.30 to 4.30 pm in the garden with the home tutor whom I like much, thereafter we played a kind of skittles with the Hensels, for the evening they invited me again as the Danish poet, Öhlenschläger dropped in, and thus I spent the whole day there. - I have not played there yet, as I was not asked to do so. As I told that I have hired an instrument for almost two thalers which is not bad, she offered me to use an English grand piano which she played earlier. Unfortunately it is impossible to place it in my room which is so fully packed and to look for other boarding is a risky matter. But it was very kind of her. She sends you greetings and told me that she will write to you. He also takes interest in me and trying his most with the minister so that I can use the handwrittens at home, and I am hopeful now to get the permission. - He is rather a gentleman and it appears to be a bit vain. – As regard to Krügers, they appear not to be overhasty. I visited them immediately after my arrival and then on Sunday, April 28, they invited me through the Hakes for lunch. It was great and they were very pleasant, I also was not in haste to meet them and today I shall meet them again with Hake and Rath and see how it is. In the mean time they had been in Baschleben to a silver wedding also. Hakes are also very kind to me, and I wanted to have my Sundays free, so they have given me Monday and Thursday. It does not take much of my time, as I normally go there und at 3.00 pm they generally take a nap, so I take leave then. About my linen it has not been settled, she has told me again, but I have not sent it. - Besides I have called on Bopp, Kurt Höfer, (who will review my Hitopadesha) Dr Kuhn, also a Sanskritist, whom I had recommended to Brockhaus, Professor Petermann, whose lecture on Hist. of Orint. Literat, I attend to,- Prof. Schott, I attend to learn Persian, all in all I think it would be good. I also went to Schelling’s lectures, although my budget sighs. I did not meet Arnim again, I really don’t have the necessary time, however, I visited Preuß, although I did not find there anything worthwhile. Today I shall probably meet Mary. In addition I have Vogel and Fontane as friends whom however I meet seldom excepting at evening meals. The food is not bad costing 5 Sgr: only. At home I do not eat much, only bread and butter. I drink my coffee without milk and sugar but with a piece of bread with butter which tastes very well. From Brockhaus I have received the Lexicon, and you can imagine my happiness, although 44 thalers were quite painful for me. He sent me also 10 copies of the Griechenlieder in a beautiful layout. I do not know how to send you a copy. – I am very much shocked about poor Emilie, as you write, please tell her about it; I shall not personally write to her, as I shall see her soon, like to know the address of Hagedorn. I have written to Simolin through his brother-in-law, the Baron von Wettberg, who was recommended by Rath. The letters to Lassen and Schlegel are also ready. – You see, it is not uncomfortable for me here, and that I miss nothing here excepting my loving little mother. Please write quite soon, but not again that you do not like Chemnitz, if one is satisfied, one feels well everywhere, in the Hitopadesha it says, when you wear a leather shoe, then the whole world is covered with leather. Lots of greetings for Auguste and Krug be you all three joyful together and think then also of

Your Max.

Here we would like to make only one remark, and put two questions concerning this letter. It was painful for us to translate this letter in his style, which reveals the intellectual and mental disposition of a young man who has remained a child. Now the questions. Why does Friedrich Maximilian want to attend lectures offered by professors who did not belong to theology while he got matriculated as a student of theology? And: Why does he try to learn Persian at Berlin?

We refrain from our temptation to reproduce the letter also in his handwriting as facsimile right here. We may do it in a separate chapter. But we do reproduce the letter in German original:

Meine liebe Mutter,

schon oft habe ich mich danach gesehnt, Dir wenigstens schriftlich einige Worte sagen zu können, und gewiß hast auch Du manchmal gewünscht, von mir zu hören, es geht ja nun aber doch nicht anders und wir werden unsere Geduld wohl noch oft üben müssen, ehe wir voneinander Nachricht bekommen. Besonders die ersten Wochen sind mir in Berlin recht langsam verflossen, Tag für Tag hoffte ich auf einen; wo ich hinkam frugen sie mich, ob ich noch keine Nachricht hätte und immer mußte ich sagen: Nein, noch nicht. Auch Prowe, auf den ich so lange gehofft hatte, kam nicht und kam nicht. Groß war aber meine Freude als ich Donnerstag 2 Mai Abends von Hensels nach Hause kam und Prowe fand, der schon Mittag gekommen war und auf meinem Sofa schlief. Er mußte mir nun viel erzählen , und berichtete mir schon vorher viel von den Unannehmlichkeiten , die Du gehabt, gab mir aber noch immer keinen Brief, bis ich ihm denn anfing meine Noth zu klagen, wo er mir nun Dein Paketchen auspackte. Wie sehr hab ich Dich bedauert und was magst Du für verdrießliche Stunden ausgestanden haben. Die schönen Meubel, nun ist wohl alles Rokoko und pompehanisch, denn die renaissance wird wohl nicht viel gefallen haben. Wie habe ich mich auch über die Schuhe gefreut, die jetzt schon an meinem Bette prangen und die ich nun alle Morgen mit Freude ansehe, wenn ich in meinem hochgeschürzten Schlafrock einherstolziere. Prowe blieb zwei Tage bei mir, wo wir recht vergnügt waren. Dann suchte er sich ein Logis, kam aber so schlecht an, daß ich ihn, als ich ihn am andern Morgen besuchen wollte, schon nicht mehr dort fand, und er sich vor Wanzenschaaren schon in ein anderes Logis, Dorothenstraße No 19, 2 Höfe, 2 Treppen geflüchtet hatte. Er ist sehr fidel und läßt sich sein Examen nicht zu sehr kümmern. Eben war er mit seinen Arbeiten noch bei mir, und ich trieb ihn nun fort, weil ich sagte, daß ich nach Chemnitz schreiben wollte. Er läßt nochmals grüßen und wird nächstens selbst schreiben, er hat Dir doch viele Gefälligkeiten noch in Leipzig erwiesen; wer weiß ob Du ohne ihn auch wenigstens die Politur bekommen hättest.

Was nun mein Leben hier betrifft, so gefällt mir erstens mein Logis noch ganz gut. Die Leute sind reinlich und ehrlich und gestört bin ich auch nicht. Das einzige Unangenehme ist der Abtritt, 3 Treppen tief, jedoch ich suche mich einzurichten. Meine sonstigen Verhältnisse sind hier auch recht angenehm, und besonders ist mir Hensels Haus ein sehr lieber Aufenthalt, da sie besonders sehr freundlich gegen mich ist. Ich gehe öfter hin, als ich eigentlich Zeit dazu habe, auch laden sie mich immer wieder von neuem ein, einen bestimmten Tag haben sie mir jedoch nicht gesagt, da mir überhaupt der Mittag dort , die Zeit und die Orte noch zu unbequem ist und ich lieber Abends hingehe. So war ich vorigen Sonnabend dort, wo sie mich für Sonntag zu Tisch einluden. Ich ging um 12 hin, wo große musikal. Matinee war, so wie auch vor 14 Tagen. Es wurden da auch die Chöre z. Antigone gesungen und die Krelinger Sprach dazu. Dann blieb ich von ½ 3 bis ½ 5 im Garten mit dem Hauslehrer, der mir gut gefällt, dann spielten wir mit Hensel im Garten eine Art Kegelspiel, aßen dann und für Abends luden sie mich wieder ein, da Öhlenschläger, der dänische Dichter, hinkam, und so war ich fast den ganzen Tag über bei ihnen. Gespielt habe ich noch nicht bei ihr, da sie mich noch nicht dazu aufgefordert hat. Da ich ihr aber erzählte, daß ich mir ein Instrument für 1 Taler 16 Sgr gemietet, was nicht schlecht sei, so bot sie mir einen englischen Flügel, den sie früher gespielt, zum Gebrauch an. Leider ist es jetzt unmöglich, ihn zu platzieren, da die Wände ringsherum vollgestellt sind, und kaum der Spinknopf einen Platz findet, und auszuziehen ist doch auch eine gewagte Sache. Es ist doch aber sehr freundlich. Sie läßt Dich schön grüßen und sagte mir, daß sie Dir nächstens schreiben wollte. Auch er ist sehr theilnehmend für mich und hat sich beim Minister viel Mühe gegeben wegen der Benutzung der Handschriften in meiner eigenen Wohnung, was ich nun wohl auch erlaubt kriegen werde. Sonst ist er aber etwas Weltmann, und wie es scheint, nicht wenig eitel auf Bändchen und Sofabekanntschaften. – Was nun Krügers betrifft, so scheinen sie sich nicht zu übereiligen. Ich hatte gleich anfangs bei ihnen einen Besuch gemacht und erst Sonntag 28. Apr. ließen sie mich durch Hakes zu Mittag einladen. Es ging sehr hoch her auch waren sie sehr freundlich, ich habe mich nun auch nicht übereilt und werde auch Hake und Rath erst heute wieder eine Visite dort machen und werde ja sehen, wie sie sich machen. Sie sind unterdeß auch in Baschleben zur silbernen Hochzeit gewesen. Hakes sind aber auch sehr gut gegen mich und da ich den Sonntag gern frei haben wollte, so haben sie es mir Montag und Donnerstag gesagt. Viel Zeit nimmt es mir auch nicht, da ich nun hingehe und um 3 sie sich gewöhnlich schlafen legen, wobei ich mich dann entferne. Wegen der Wäsche bin ich immer noch nicht im Reinen, sie hat es mir wieder gesagt, ich habe sie aber nicht hingeschickt. Sonst bin ich nun noch bei Bopp, Kurt Höfer, (der meinen Hitopodesha rezensieren wird) Dr. Kuhn, auch ein Sanskriter, dem ich Brockhaus empfohlen hatte, Prof. Petermann, bei dem ich ein Colleg über Orient. Literat. Gesch. höre, bei Prof. Schott, bei dem ich Persisch höre, gewesen und ich denke es wird sich alles gut machen. Auch bei Schelling höre ich, obgleich mein Beutel seufzt. Bei der Arnim war ich noch nicht wieder, denn ich habe wirklich keine Zeit dazu, jedoch bin ich bei Preß gewesen, ohne aber etwas Besonders dort zu finden. Heute werde ich vielleicht auch zu Mary gehen. Von Bekannten habe ich denn noch Vogel und Fontane, die ich jedoch auch selten als bei Tisch treffe. Das Essen ist nicht schlecht und kostet 5 Sgr. Zu Haus esse ich nur wenig und zwar nur Butter und Brot. Den Kaffee trinke ich ohne Milch und Zucker und esse ein Butterbrot dazu, was sehr gut schmeckt. Von Brockhaus habe ich das Lexikon bekommen, und Du kannst Dir meine Freude denken, wenngleich 44 Taler ein schmerzliches Nebengefühl waren. Auch 10 Exemplare von den Griechenliedern schickte er mit, die sehr hübsch ausgestaltet sind. Ich weiß nur nicht, wie ich sie Dir schicken soll. - Wie sehr habe ich mich aber über die arme Emelie erschrocken, wenn Du schreibst, sag nur wie sehr leid es mir gethan hätte; ich selbst werde, da ich sie doch bald selbst sehen werde nicht noch schreiben, gern aber wüßte ich die Adresse von German original in the sixth Chapter. An Simolin habe ich geschrieben durch seinen Schwager, den Baron von Wettberg, an den mich die Rath empfohlen hatte. Auch die Briefe an Lassen und Schlegel sind fertig. – Nun Du siehst, daß es mir nicht schlecht hier ergeht, und daß mir eben nichts fehlt, als meine liebe kleine Mama. Schreib mir nur recht bald, aber nicht wieder, daß es Dir in Chemnitz nicht gefällt, wenn man zufrieden, geht es ja überall und im Hitagadesa heißt es, wenn einer Lederschuh anhat, dann ist die ganze Welt mit Leder gedeckt. Auguste und Krug grüße vielmals und seid alle 3 recht fidel zusammen und denkt dann auch an

— Euren Max.

His next letter is dated May 22, 1844. It is almost as long as the previous one. We translate it in parts, we indicate the breakings and we know that our translation in parts is also our unarticulated commentary.

“My dear Mother,

I think, it is not needed today to soothe you as my last letter must have reached you earlier than your letter containing your unrest; you have surely noticed that it was only partly my fault, the delay of your letter as well. You can imagine how I distressed knowing your anxieties and it would be better in future to fix certain days when we can definitely expect our letters and to be happy in advance. I would like to hope that our letters do not cross now again and that is why I catch hold of the opportunity to dispatch this letter to Leipzig, so that you will have to pay one Groschen instead of costly postal charges. Hopefully you are not resentful that I do not put stamps on the letters; I think this indulgence is permitted in case of one’s own mother; isn’t it? Why have you then sent me four thalers that you also could make use of? My budget is not so bad and my life here is not that expensive. … I am not envious of your curative drinking course, though it would be good for me too; I feel, thank god, quite well now and actually better, although I work less than in Leipzig. I am pleased that you do not dislike Chemnitz as before. …

About my life here, I gave you some details in my last letter and it continues in the similar way. Four days in a week I have classes at 8.00 to 1.30, when my room is cleaned, then I have meals for 5 Sgr (Silver “Groschen”). Then I have classes at 4.00, and I am pleased that I stay quite near to the university especially in regard to the forthcoming summer days in Berlin. You know already about my meetings, I visited also Mary which was rather dull, also Schelling, who talked to me at length and friendly on Indian philosophy and offered me his help whenever necessary. Last Sunday I had lunch at Krügers, we sat in the garden joyful. In the afternoon we were in Schönhausen … Paul Mendelsohn’s wife has given birth to a daughter after nine years of their marriage. … − I am becoming sleepy and sleepy as it is already past 10.00, please don’t mind about my handwritings. Prove sends you greetings, he was not able to write to you due to his forthcoming exams. Greeting from all others, Juliens, Krügers, Hensels. With a lot of greetings for Auguste and Krug remains your diligent young chap.”

Next he writes on May 28, 1844, also a long letter. Again, we reproduce only in parts for obvious reasons:

“Dear Mother,

You may wonder to get news so soon and that threefold. Hensels have given a letter for you, I asked the Anti also to give a letter for you though she hesitated because of postal charges … I won’t be able to write much today as it is quite late and little time is left. I am just back from Hensels and you see that I am often a guest there. They are genuinely kind to me, it is the only place where I gladly go, and not that I must go there. Though you tell me now that you feel happy to note that I do not work so much, I cannot follow you really as I actually don’t know what to do first. When I consider my future and all that I have to do before I can come to rest, yes, I almost believe that Berlin is not the place to accomplish something thoroughly. … Regarding Benary it is not satisfactory; a recommendation from Alfred would please more. What Höfer says to Hitopadesa I cannot let you know yet, as it does not go so quickly; the same it is in regard to Griechenlieder. I can read journals very seldom, as they are expensive. … Regarding my scholarship I have done the needful, I have written to Justice Richter and to the President of the Chamber, both letters were sent to Dessau through Karl, but I don’t believe that something will come out. On my life here is nothing new worth writing. It just goes on, and I believe that I shall not need much, the prospect of additional earnings are yet rather bad. About the grand piano I have talked to Hensel and I shall get it checked whether it can be brought on the third floor. It would be a lot of savings and my instrument was so bad that I have given it back some time ago. … I close this letter. It has already gonged 12.00. Many greetings to Krugs, tell them also that I am happy when they enjoy their life with my little Mama. … Prove also send you greetings, he was very pleased to getting your letter, will write as soon as he finishes his exams. Today is May 30, you will not let me wait later than 14th June with your letter, on which your Max is delighted in advance.

Should I write to Carus?”

As pointed out earlier, we have translated the last two letters of May in parts, which carry no information according to our judgement. The parts omitted are sheer gossips. We recommend a comparison of our translation and the translation presented by Georgina Max Müller especially in terms of facts.

The tune in his next letter, written on June 5, 1844, i.e. in the seventh week of his stay in Berlin has changed. He does not see his future optimistic at all; he sees it as rather gloomy. Things are not developing well for him:

“Dear Mother,

As you do not wish that I start writing at 12.00 at night I begin today earlier to let you know how my life here is. The main thing is that I am now unexpectedly fine and lively. And my headaches did not attack so often and it seems that the climate in Berlin do suit me quite well. Though I feel quite fine here in Berlin I do not find time to go for a picnic in this beautiful season and enjoy life outside in natural surroundings. But my works won’t permit me this joy. The vacation will start here in the beginning of August and till mid October, i.e. up to the 12th. I would rather like to be in Dresden when you and Emilie will be there and as I would like to spend some days in Chemnitz also and so much time will be lost thereby that I can impossibly make further plans. I must make use of my time in Berlin as I shall possibly not stay here longer than a year, unless I find opportunities to reduce the cost of my stay by giving lessons to pupils which had not been possible yet. The sole purpose of staying here is copying handwritten texts, my access to them has not yet been finally decided. Where I will be next eastern is also yet to decide, optionally between Vienna, Paris and Bonn. Paris will only be possible if I could meet Hagedorn somewhere, whose address I would like to get. Vienna attracts me specially for my study of languages, i.e. Persian and Turkish which can better be learnt there than in Paris, and these are necessary to get a job in the orient. You can imagine that also these plans disturbs me often as presently I live without a definite future perspective and renewal of matriculation is expensive and time consuming so that I cannot plan as in another three years, i.e. in all six years after the school final are needed. The sole consolation is that others are not having better, rather worse, because all subjects are recently overcrowded and only few find a chance to obtain a reasonable service in the government before being 30. So, one has to console oneself with the lilies on the fields, and so on. Now I stop grumbling to you, the time is bad, (mit Sorgen trägt sich schön das junge Blut fallera! Mit Sorgen wird es nicht besser gehen, drum hab ich frohen Muth, fallera! Nicht wahr mein kleiner Schnu...!)

“Shake off all the sorrow and agony, Fallera”. You know also that I did have a lot of pleasures. … Sunday noon I was with Krügers who are very kind … in the evening I was with Hensels … their grand piano is now in my room, and I am quite satisfied with it, I only don’t know where I should keep it during the vacation. … For today I have written enough, my dear Mother. … Many greeting to Krug and Auguste and many kisses for my good Mama from your Max.”

There are no letters to his mother between June 5, and August 6. Is he absent from Berlin? We do not know. He writes again on 06.08.1844 and 15.08.1844. In none of these letters he explains his silence from Berlin while the semester was on. We do not find any information on his studies. Just trivial exchange of greetings and gossips. What does it indicate? Has he nothing to report on his studies to his mother? If that is the case, what can be concluded about his studies at Berlin? Is he learning?

It is worth to note that Georgina Max Müller refers to a letter written on 26th June 1844 on page 25 of her book under the heading “Doubts and Difficulties”. This letter is not included in the Oxford collection. We quote her and her translation:

“Max Müller seems soon to have found out the expense of the life at Berlin, and the old doubts whether he could afford the life of a scholar revived. On June 26 he writes to his mother :— Translation.

'I must make the most of my time in Berlin, as I cannot stay here more than a year, unless I can find some chance of lessening my expenses. Where I am to go next Easter is not at all certain. I hesitate between Paris, Vienna, and Bonn. I am attracted to Vienna by the thought of studying Persian and Turkish, for which there are better means than in Paris, and they are certainly necessary should I ever have the chance of employment in the East. You can fancy that these plans often disturb me, as for the nearest future I have no certain prospect; and the University course is so expensive and wearisome, that I cannot reckon on it, as generally for the first three years, that is six years after leaving school, one is not admitted to anything. Well, one must console oneself with the lilies of the field!’”

We refrain from an analysis of this version of the letter. This letter is not kept in the archives. Nowhere. Why it is so, we won’t explore. We just take a note of remembrance. Immediately hereafter Georgina Max Müller continues:

“Two days later he writes in his Diary: ‘I cannot give up Sanskrit, though it holds out no prospect for me.’ Over and over again come the entries in his Diary: 'All day at home'—'no dinner’'—'dinner of stirred eggs' (which he prepared himself)—'work till 3 a.m.' At this time he began Bengali, 'which may perhaps be useful to me later, and is now for comparison with33 the low Indian dialects. I attend Schelling's course more diligently and with great interest; his philosophy has something Oriental about it. I am translating the Kathaka Upanishad for him with great diligence.'”

“The term at Berlin which had begun so cheerily was now drawing to an end. Max Müller had not found pupils or sufficient employment in copying Sanskrit MSS. to eke out his small stipend, and just before returning to Chemnitz he wrote almost despairingly to his mother :— Translation. Aug. 19.”

We have found this letter dated August 19, 1844. We consider it as significant. Again, we are tempted to bring this letter first in Handwriting, transcribe it, translate it in the original diction of Friedrich Maximilian Müller and then reproduce the translation done by Georgina Max Müller. This procedure will exemplify how facts are deliberately twisted. We may do it separately, if necessary.

We take liberty to make a few remarks before presenting our translation of the original letter. We are not so ignorant not to know about the difficult job of a translator. We are also not ignorant enough not to know that a translation depends on the intellectual ability and capacity of translators. And as mentioned earlier, we are simple-minded. We can differentiate. We can differentiate between not so professional translations and deliberate distortions.

Presently we must focus our attention to two issues for which we don’t find any explanation from any corner. The first issue is that there are no letters between, – even if we considered a letter dated 26.06.1844 as Georgina Max Müller want us to accept -, the fact remains that Friedrich Maximilian was “silent” or absent from Berlin at least for more than five weeks during his three months’ summer term. The second issue is: Why does Friedrich Maximilian stay on at Berlin during the vacation instead of going to Chemnitz to his mother? Keeping these two issues in mind, we continue our reading Georgina Max Müller and her translation of the letter, dated 19.08.1844:

'I am longing to be away from Berlin, to get a thorough change of thought, as I really think I had every chance here of becoming a confirmed hypochondriac. This is no mere transitory feeling, but it is founded on my circumstances, which have cost me many sad thoughts latterly, I acknowledge that the plan of life I had formed is not to be realized ; that it is difficult for me to part with all these favourite ideas you can well imagine. And yet I see that it would be folly in my circumstances to attempt a University career. You tell me that I still have 800 thalers (£120), but this would only just last till I had settled where to live, and that I should then have the prospect of living for five years as a tutor (Privatdocent) without any stipend from Government. I should therefore in this way study on to starve, just in order not to give up an idea which I had taken up for my own pleasure, and to which I had sacrificed much money and time. Had I more courage or only anywhere a firm point to cling to, I could perhaps still try my chance, but as it is, nothing remains for me but to become a sensible schoolmaster, which at all events gives one bread and butter. You will feel that a certain amount of resignation is needed for such a decision, and therefore I rejoice all the more at the thought of the next few weeks, which will repay me for many sad hours.'”

We restrict ourselves here to three neutral remarks. Georgina Max Müller does not present the whole letter. Secondly, her translation is incorrect. It distorts the style of language, the spirit of the original letter written in German and summarises often the contents without indicating the summary. Thirdly, a necessary correction of: “living for five years as a tutor (Privatdocent) without any stipend from Government”. The route of academic career we have dealt with in our fourth chapter. Here we explain “Privatdozent” which was valid throughout the history of German universities. A doctoral thesis is the first independent scientific work. Thereafter one has to acquire the qualifications of scientific teaching, documented in writing, followed up by a discussion amongst the members of the faculty. This is called “Habilitation” which is a German specialty. Thereafter one becomes practically a professor at that university without having a planned and salaried post of a professor. As a “Privatdozent” one earns the lifelong right to teach at that university, but no right to demand a salary from the government. A “Privatdozent” is not a tutor.

*****

Here follows the literary translation of the original letter dated August 19, 1844, which we consider to be significant:

“Dear Mother,

Although I do not know much to tell you now and from here, yet I want to send you these lines to Dessau so that everything will be ready and fixed for our journey. As you, after leaving Dessau, would like to have only a short break in Eichen so that you can stay a few days more in Strasbourg, so I think, I can definitely meet you already in Leipzig sometime today (We have taken note of the little confusion!). I thought to start on Sunday afternoon, but it could also happen that I cannot leave before Monday, so you must not expect me definitely on Sunday. That we then travel from Leipzig to Dresden without a break is all right with me if Emilie wishes so, although your carriage will be quite worn out by this back and forth route. That you passed a pleasant time in Dessau delights me much and hopefully my absence there did not affect your stay much. I am so happy to be getting together with you in the forthcoming days. I am really longing to get away from Berlin so that I can once find to my own self, as here I have the best prospect of becoming a real hypochondriac. It is not just a temporary mood; it is caused by my whole circumstances at present which lead to so many gloomy thoughts. I see it clearly that the scheme of life I had in mind cannot be realised and that it would be hard for me to break away from these favourite ideas you will definitely understand. At the same moment I see also that it would be foolish to begin an academic career under my circumstances as this is a privilege only for persons favoured by luck who can live on own money and must not depend on science. Though you tell me that I would have 800 thalers at my disposal, but do consider that this amount would be at most enough for my eventual “Habilitation” and thereafter the prospect of maintaining myself as a “Privatdozent” for a minimum of five years without any support from the government. Practically it would mean that I begin my studies to achieve a starving future only because I once started dreaming an idea, though for which I have already spent quite some money and effort, and now unable give it up.

Had I had more courage or some fixed anchor, I would possibly try my luck, but as it is I have no other option than becoming a good school teacher and thereby earn at least enough to eat and drink. That such a decision produces quite some resignation you will surely understand; therefore I am all the more rejoiced thinking of the forthcoming days which would compensate many of my gloomy hours.

What you write about Auguste has rejoiced me wholeheartedly, although I also would have wished that they could