In 1860, Monier Monier-Williams was elected to the position of Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford, following an acrimonious campaign against his rival, Friedrich Max Müller. Monier-Williams had previously been Professor of Sanskrit, Persian and Hindustani at Haileybury College (the East India Company College) until 1858 when the College was closed. Monier-Williams remained Boden Professor until he retired in 1887. Shyamaji Krishnavarma worked as his assistant from 1879 to 1883.

Monier-Williams' major contribution to the landscape and pedagogy of Oxford was the foundation of the Indian Institute. In 1875, he first put the idea to Congregation to found an institute to provide a place of study for Indian Civil Service (ICS) probationers and Indian students at Oxford, combining a library, reading room and museum. He travelled to India in 1875, 1876 and 1883 to secure moral and financial support from Indians, particularly the Indian Princes who also donated items for the museum and library. The foundation stone was laid by the Prince of Wales in 1883, and opened by the Vice-Chancellor, Benjamin Jowett, on 14 October 1884 at which Monier-Williams gave the address.

Friedrich Max Müller was a Sanskritist at the University of Oxford in the late nineteenth century. Having spent some time in Paris, Müller travelled to London in 1846 for a short research trip. In 1848, he decided to settle in Oxford having had his edition of Rig Veda printed by the University Press. He became a naturalized British citizen in 1855.

From 1851, Müller held various positions in the University of Oxford. In 1860, he competed against Monier Monier-Williams for the position of Boden Professor of Sanskrit. Although Müller's body of scholarship exceeded Monier-Williams', the issue of Müller's Liberal Lutheranism and German ethnicity came to the fore in the campaign and he was defeated by Monier-Williams. Despite the huge disappointment, Müller continued to pursue his studies in Sanskrit and the Vedas, and was widely known and respected in India.

Müller delivered a number of lectures, and wrote many essays and books on Indian religion and spirituality. He cultivated a number of friendships with Indians through correspondence and their visits to Oxford. In particular, he became very close to Keshub Chunder Sen and interested in the Brahmo Samaj - which Müller saw as the natural sect of Christianity. He was also extremely concerned about the practice of child marriage in India, a concern he shared with Behramji Malabari and Pandita Ramabai, who both visited him in Oxford. Müller felt compelled to comment upon the case of the the child-bride, Rukhmabai, by sending a letter to The Times in 1887.

Lala Har Dayal was the son of M. Gaure Dayal, Reader in Government Service.

After a MA in English and History at Punjab University, Har Dayal earned a state scholarship to study in Britain. He joined St John's College, Oxford, in October 1905 to study Sanskrit. He was the Boden Sanskrit Scholar in 1907 and the Casberd Exhibitioner (awarded £30 by the trustees at St John's College). He was a member of the St John's College debating society as well. During his Oxford student days, Har Dayal would visit India House in Highgate. He began corresponding with Shyamaji Krishnavarma and in 1907 resigned from his state scholarship on ideological grounds. His wife was also studying at Oxford with Krishnavarma's financial assistance.

He returned to India in 1908 then left again in 1909 for Paris. He travelled and lived in various countries and eventually moved to the USA in 1910 to take up a job as lecturer in Indian Philosophy and Sanskrit. In 1913 he set up the weekly paper, Ghadr, in California and was one of the founding members of the Hindustan Ghadr Party.

In 1927, Har Dayal returned to London to prepare for a doctorate in Sanskrit at the University of London. He lived in Edgware. He received his PhD in 1930 and returned to the USA. He died in Philadelphia in 1938.

Pandita Ramabai was born in 1858 and orphaned in the famine of 1876-7. She came from a Marathi Brahmin family and was married in 1880 to a Brahmo Samajist, Bipin Behari Das Medhavi. He died nineteen months later, leaving her widowed with a baby daughter. Ramabai lectured on Sanskrit and the position of women in India and hence the title 'Pandita' was conferred onto her. Dr W. W. Hunter admired her work and spoke of her in lectures in Edinburgh, making her known in Britain. Ramabai was considering converting to Christianity and so the Society of St John the Evangelist at Poona made arrangements for her to go to England to answer her questions about the Christian faith.

In 1883, Ramabai arrived in Wantage to stay with the community of St Mary the Virgin. She also intended to study medicine. In September 1883, Ramabai and her daughter, Manorana, were baptized at Wantage. In 1884, Ramabai went to teach Sanskrit to women intending to become missionaries in India at Cheltenham Ladies' College, where she stayed until 1886. She then travelled to America and returned to India.

In March 1889, Ramabai opened a school in Bombay for women, and especially for widows. She received financial support from the Ramabai Association in America and from friends in England such as Dorothea Beale. In 1897, her daughter, Manorana, returned to Wantage to study medicine. Meanwhile, Ramabai moved her school to land she bought near Poona, now Pune. This place was known as Mukti Mission. Mukti was largely self-supporting with nearly 2000 people living there and with American and European helpers. Ramabai publicized the plight of the Hindu widow but also campaigned for Hindi to be the national language of India. Manorana died in 1921 and Ramabai died a year later in 1922.

Shyamaji Krishnavarma first came to Britain in 1879 as a Sanskrit scholar and assistant to Professor Monier Williams at Oxford. He graduated from Balliol College in 1883 and was called to the Bar in 1884. In 1881, he attended the Berlin Congress of Orientalists.

Krishnavarma returned to India to work in service to the Indian Princely States and then returned to England in 1897, settling with his wife at Highgate. They first lived at a house he bought at 9 Queenswood Avenue. He endowed an annual lecture in honour of Herbert Spencer in 1904, after attending the funeral service of Herbert Spencer in Golders Green in December 1903. He also created scholarships for Indian students to study in Britain from 1905, on the condition that they would not work for the British Government.

In February 1905, Krishnavarma founded the Indian Home Rule Society. He then established India House in Highgate (at 65 Cromwell Avenue) in the same year (July 1905), as a hostel for Indian students, which became a meeting-place for Indian revolutionaries in London. Krishnavarma fled to Paris in 1907 to avoid arrest and censure by the British Government in relation to his published inflammatory material, such as the journal The Indian Sociologist, and the political activities of India House. He was also disbarred from Inner Temple. After a lapse between 1914 and 1920, Krishnavarma began to publish The Indian Sociologist again from Geneva until 1922. He died in Geneva in 1930.