Neohinduismus und Indologie am Beispiel der Beziehung Sri Aurobindo - Max Müller

Abstract

Reading Max Müller's India, What Can It Teach Us? during his studies for the Indian Civil Service in Cambridge, young Aurobindo found there the idea that Europe could learn from ancient and classic India. Müller expressed this in romantic and idealistic terms such as Aurobindo himself would later use in a more intensive way, at first more politically, later on increasingly spiritually. And, just as Müller, he neglected the whole of the Islamic contribution to Indian culture, or more accurately, both even implicitly criticized it. Here we can trace a - normally neglected - possible influence of romantic Indology on Neohinduism and through this on the later religio-social-political rivalry between Hindus and Muslims. Later on Aurobindo also increasingly criticized western (i. e. Müller's) Vedic scholarship: Sanskrit scholars should be like gurus, spiritual leaders, seeking the inner meaning of texts instead of a more materialistic exegesis.