India What Teach by Muller Max, First Edition (1 results)

First edition. Müller, a "great and learned pandit" (ODNB), exhibits his improved opinion of India and its culture, including of Hinduism and Buddhism. Max Müller (1823-1900) was one of the founders of the Western academic discipline of Indian studies and edited the 5-volume series The Sacred Books of the East, a 50-volume set of English translations. In his earlier writings, he was critical of Hinduism in India in comparison to Christianity, but began to write far more favourably in his later works. "If I were to look over the whole world to find out the country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power, and beauty that nature can bestowin some parts a very paradise on earthI should point to India" (p. 6). Provenance: R.B. Magor (d. 1933), with his 1882 ownership inscription on the front free endpaper. Magor worked for the famous Great Eastern Hotel in Calcutta and established Williamson Magor & Co. Limited, an Indian-based tea business, in 1868. Octavo. Original green cloth, spine lettered in gilt, spine and front cover elaborately ruled in black, similar pattern to rear cover in blind, front cover with central decoration in black, dark brown coated endpapers, top edge uncut. With 26 pp. of advertisements to rear. Corners and lower edge lightly bumped, minor rubbing to extremities, slight finger soiling to cloth, foxing to edges and occasionally to content, title page a little creased. A very good copy.