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Revision as of 00:54, 29 October 2006

Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy (22 August, 1877–9 September, 1947) was a pioneering historian and philosopher of Indian art, and early interpreter of Indian culture to the West

Early life

He was the son of the famous Sri Lankan Tamil legislator and philosopher Sir Mutu Coomaraswamy and his English wife Elizabeth Beeby.

Born in colonial Colombo, Ceylon and educated in England, he became a prominent art historian and scholar of traditional iconography. He served as curator in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts until his death, serving as one of the first Asians to translate the meaning of Asian art to the West. He played an important role in the collection of Persian Art for the Freer Museum in Washington, D.C. and the Boston Museum of Fine Art as well.

His contributions

What made him a qualified as well as an acclaimed interpreter was his extensive knowledge, love, and understanding of the world’s diverse cultures, sacred scriptures, and languages. Coomaraswamy was credited with knowledge of thirty-six languages, as well as familiarity with those languages' literature, poetry, and music . He once remarked I actually think in both Eastern and Christian terms—Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Pali, and to some extent Persian and Chinese. For this reason, he had access to deeper levels of meaning found in language which made it possible for him to interpret symbols and mythologies within the context of the literature in which they are found.

Coomaraswamy died in Needham, Massachusetts in 1947.

The Perennial Philosophy

He was described by Heinrich Zimmer as That noble scholar upon whose shoulders we are still standing. While serving as a curator to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in the latter part of his life, he devoted his work to the explication of traditional metaphysics and symbolism. His writings of this period are filled with references to Plato, Plotinus, Clement, Philo, Augustine, Aquinas, Shankara, Eckhart, Rhinish and other Asian mystics. He was responsible for creating the collections of oriental art for the Freer Museum, Washington D.C., as well as for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. When asked what he was, foremostly Dr. Coomaraswamy referred to himself as a Metaphysician

Along with René Guénon, and Frithjof Schuon, Coomaraswamy is regarded as one of the three founders of Perennialism, also called the Traditionalist School.

Although he agrees with Guénon on the universal principles, his works are very different in form from Guénon's. By vocation, he was a scholar, who dedicated the last decades of his life to searching the Scriptures. He offers a perspective on the tradition which complements well that of Guénon. He had a very highly active aesthetic perceptiveness and he wrote dozen of articles on traditional arts and mythology. His works are also intellectually more balanced. Although born in the Hindu tradition, he had however a deep knowledge of the Western tradition and had also a great expertise and love for Greek metaphysics, especially that of Plotinus, the founder of Neoplatonism.

He built a bridge between East and West that was designed to carry a two-way traffic: his metaphysical writings aimed, among other things, at demonstrating the unity of the Vedanta and Platonism. His works also rehabilitated original Buddhism, a tradition that Guénon has for a long time limited to a rebellion of the Kshatriyas against Brahmin authority.

Works of Coomaraswamy

(partial list)

  • The Dance of Siva (1918), Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1997 edition: ISBN 8121501539
  • History of Indian and Indonesian Art (1927), Dover Publications 1985 edtion: ISBN 0486250059 Kessinger Publishing 2003 edition: ISBN 0766158012
  • Hinduism and Buddhism,
  • The Living Thoughts of Gotama the Buddha, Dover Publications 2000 edition: ISBN 0486414396
  • Am I My Brothers Keeper?,
  • Figures of Speech or Figures of Thought, South Asia Books, 1981 edition: ISBN 8121501784
  • What is Civilization,
  • Time and Eternity, South Asia Books, 1993 edition: ISBN 8121500591
  • The Transformation of Nature in Art (1934). South Asia Books, 1994 edition: ISBN 8121503256

See also his work of technical art history "The Technique and Theory of Indian Painting" in Technical Studies in the Field of the Fine Arts vol. 3:1 (1934-5): 58–89, which includes extracts from Indian artists' technical recipe texts.

His two works

  • Origin of the Buddha Image, Munshirm Manoharlal Pub Pvt Ltd, 1980 edition: ISBN 8121502225 and
  • Elements of Buddhist Iconography,

still stand today as a remarkable achievement in the scholarly and metaphysical explanation of earliest Buddhist symbolism and theirs roots in Vedic and Upanishadic thought.

A representative anthology of his work is to be found in the Princeton University Press Bollingen series (1977) collected by Roger Lipsey:

  • Traditional Art and Symbolism
  • Ananda Kentish, Coomaraswamy (1978) ISBN 0691099316
  • Metaphysics, 1987 edition: ISBN 0691018731
  • Roger Lipsey, His Life and Work

Some of the very last unpublished works of Coomaraswamy, mostly on Greek philosophy, were only released in 2004 by Fons Vitae, called

  • Guardians of the Sun-Door: Late Iconographic Essays, ISBN 1887752595

References

External links

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