The Essential Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (Perennial Philosophy Series) [Paperback]

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (Author), Rama P. Coomaraswamy (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Perennial Philosophy Series | Publication Date: July 28, 2003

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy was engaged in the world not only as a scholarly expositor of traditional culture and philosophy, but also as a radical critic of contemporary life.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

The name of Ananda K. Coomaraswamy has become synonymous with an entire approach to art and of the civilization of which it is an expression. Coomaraswamy’s genius lay not only in presenting it to the modern Western world but also in demonstrating that this civilizational art and artistic civilization was contrapuntal and not necessarily antithetical to the modern West, as ears less gifted than his to hearing celestial harmonies might have proposed. His multi-splendored genius expressed itself in over a thousand published items. One might say that Coomaraswamy wrote more than many people read in the course of one life.

The publication of his seminal contributions in the form of the compendium of his essential writings that you hold in your hands is therefore to be greatly welcomed. It conveys to us the flavor of his thought, as water collected in a small shell on the shore conveys the flavor of the entire ocean. Of course it cannot convey a sense of the ocean’s magnitude, but it earns our gratitude in conveying a sense of its taste; of how the divine dialectic of the transformation of religion into art and art into religion might hold the key to the rejuvenation of both life and art in the modern world.

Our contemporary world is trying to rejuvenate itself not through God but through religion, thereby creating for itself the problem of fundamentalism, an outcome which would not have surprised Coomaraswamy, who insisted that the modern world must rejuvenate itself through God rather than religion, and bring its wasteland to life by irrigating it with the waters of Tradition. This Tradition offers perennial answers to contemporary questions whereas modernity has only been able, if at all, to offer contemporary (and fugitive) answers to perennial questions. It is not merely an accident then that while that great work of the Enlightenment, Voltaire’s Candide, ends with Dr. Pangloss cultivating his garden living in the best of all possible worlds, Coomaraswamy, when he sensed that his life was about to run its course, chose to leave his body in the manner of a Hindu renunciate, also in a garden, symbolizing the fact that he brought to us from all possible worlds the spiritual fragrance of humanity, fresh from the exquisite gardens of its various religions. And they are various. For none of the great expositors of the perennial philosophy—not Coomaraswamy in any case—made the mistake, to which some are prone, of imagining that just because all the religions say more or less the same thing that they are therefore all the same. Thus Coomaraswamy has rightly been hailed as a bridge-builder at a time when the West was acting like a steamroller in the rest of the world.

All the reader need do to verify what I have said, lest he or she be inclined to consider the thoughts and emotions I have just shared as too encomiastic or enthusiastic, is to read this book.

Arvind Sharma McGill University

About the Author

Born in 1877 in Ceylon, Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy was a multi-talented researcher, scientist, linguist, expert on culture and art, philosopher, museum curator, and author. He was the first well-known author of the modern era to expound the importance of traditional arts, culture, and thought as more than simply relics of a bygone past—in all that he wrote, he pointed to their critical role in restoring to modern man his true intellectual and spiritual birthright. Dr. Coomaraswamy has often been credited with reintroducing the concept of the "Perennial Philosophy" to a West dazed by the endless multiplicity of the modern world.

Dr. Rama P. Coomaraswamy, son of the renowned perennialist writer Ananda Coomaraswamy, received his early education in India in an orthodox Hindu setting. Graduating from Harvard University with a major in Geology, he went on to Medical School, graduating in 1959. He spent 8 years in post graduate training and then some 30 years as a Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeon, holding the position of Assistant Professor of Surgery at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, as well as Chief of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at Stamford Hospital.

For five years he was Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the St. Thomas Aquinas (Lefebrist) Seminary. He has published extensively both in the fields of medicine and theology. His works include, The Destruction of the Christian Tradition (1972) and The Invocation of the Name of Jesus (1999).

Product Details

• Paperback: 344 pages
• Publisher: World Wisdom (July 28, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0941532461
• ISBN-13: 978-0941532464
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #257,430 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

ANANDA K. COOMARASWAMY was born in 1877, of Anglo-Ceylonese parents. After completing studies in Geology he soon became interested in the arts and crafts of his native Ceylon and India. In 1917 he relocated to the USA where he became Keeper of Indian and Islamic Art at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, establishing a large collection of Oriental artifacts and presenting lectures on their symbolic and metaphysical meaning. An encounter with the seminal writings of perennialist author René Guénon served to confirm and strengthen his view of the Perennial Philosophy. From this period onwards Dr. Coomaraswamy began to compose his mature--and undoubtedly most profound--works, adeptly expounding the philosophia perennis by drawing on his unparalleled knowledge of the arts, crafts, mythologies, cultures, folklores, symbolisms, and religions of the Orient and the Occident. In 1947 his plans to retire to India and take on sannyasa (renunciation of the world) were cut short by his sudden and untimely death. A representative collection of his extensive writings, entitled The Essential Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, was edited by his son Rama P. Coomaraswamy and published by World Wisdom.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A truly "essential" writer of our time, May 11, 2005

By 

MATEUS SOARES DE AZEVEDO (SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Essential Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (Perennial Philosophy Series) (Paperback)

The "communication society" in which we live submerges us with raw information in terms of numbers, dates, facts and figures. The net result is that our mind becomes cloged.

More than ever, it is necessary to harmonize information with real knowledge.
Only few writers of our epoch have the gift of combining pure information and pure wisdom. Ananda Coomaraswamy is one of them.

The writings collected by his son, the noted Christian traditional theologian Rama Coomaraswamy, constitute an outstanding instance of how to apply an immense erudition to the service of truth.
This stimulating book demonstrates that Ananda Coomaraswamy is one of the few truly "essential" writers of our time.