John Muir

John Muir CIE FRSE DCL LLD (5 February 1810 – 7 March 1882) was a British Sanskrit scholar, Indologist and judge in British India.

Biography Muir was born in Glasgow, the son of William Muir (1783–1820), a merchant of Kilmarnock and magistrate of Glasgow, and Helen Macfie (1784–1866). He was the elder brother of the Indian administrator and principal of the University of Edinburgh, Sir William Muir.

He was educated at Irvine Grammar School in Ayrshire, then studied in the University of Glasgow, and the East India Company College near Hertford. He arrived in Colonial India with the East India Company in 1829 as a civil servant, working first in Bengal, and served in various offices, as assistant secretary to the board of revenue, Allahabad, as collector at Azamgarh and as civil and session judge at Fatehpur. In 1844, he was appointed to be the first principal of Victoria College, Benaras, that later evolved into the Sampurnanand Sanskrit University. From 1842 to 1853 he was a Session Judge in the court at Futtehpore. During this period he was awarded an honorary doctorate in civil law (DCL) by the University of Oxford a second honorary doctorate (LLD) from the University of Edinburgh and a third from the University of Bonn (PhD).

He left the Indian Civil Service in 1853 and returned to Edinburgh. In 1861 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh his proposer being John Hutton Balfour.

In 1839, Muir published Matapariksa: Sketch of the Argument for Christianity and against Hinduism, a work that, in contrast to the vitriolic missionary tracts prevalent at that time, presented Hinduism in empathetic tone and depicted Christianity and Hinduism as more or less compatible, although Christianity was clearly depicted as superior. However while sensitive to "Hindu genius" Muir advanced miracles, moral excellence, and universality as three basic arguments in favour of Christianity. The work was controversial in India and helped launch a counter-apologetic movement among Hindu scholars.