Comments on: Thoughts on Ananda Coomaraswamy

By: Mahesh K Varma

Mahesh K Varma — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 11:41:08 +0000

Coomaraswamy Centre for Traditional Studies, Lucknow & Kolkata, India,(email:coomaraswamy_centre@rediffmail.com) Preident: Ven Samdhong Rinpoche(Kalon Tripa, HH Dalai Lama’s Tibetan Administration, fulfils the need in India for spreading Philosophia Perennis based on traditional writings of Guenon, Schuon, Coomaraswamy, Marco Pallis, A K Saran and other Masters. Saran’s books (10 sofar published by Central University of Tibetan Studies, Sarnath, UP, India), including “Traditional Thought”, bear testimony to our renewed interest in Tradition, with especial reference to Coomaraswamy. Saran was close to Schuon, Marco Pallis, Rama Coomaraswamy and others of the peer group. An entry for Wikipedia in unser compilation consonant with its guidelines and will be submitted shortly.
Mahesh K Varma, Vice President, Coomaraswamy Centre for Traditional Studies.

By: Ananda Coomaraswamy on Indian Education » Seriously Sandeep

Ananda Coomaraswamy on Indian Education » Seriously Sandeep — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 10:05:55 +0000

[...] Ananda Coomaraswamy was featured in this blog earlier. He remains one of the most staunch defenders of the Indian tradition in the mould of what David Frawley calls an Intellectual Kshatriya. [...]

By: N.S. Manjunath

N.S. Manjunath — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 18:59:22 +0000

Thumba chennagi bardhidhira!

Devru nimge valleyadu madali…

I will go the book shop/library and read Coomarswamy right away!

Manju

By: Straight Dope Message Board - BA Calcutta (Failed)

Straight Dope Message Board - BA Calcutta (Failed) — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 06:25:27 +0000

[...] Join Date: Jan 2001 Posts: 2,909 Location: Santa Clara, CA Thanks for that piece of information, Kimstu. I did a bit of searching and found another reference from early 20th century writing: http://www.sandeepweb.com/2006/04/2…a-coomaraswamy/ Quote: [...]

By: Understanding Indian Art | seriously sandeep

Understanding Indian Art | seriously sandeep — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 17:14:35 +0000

[...] This post has adopted Ananda Coomaraswamy’s essay of the same title. I vaguely recall writing in this post, that Coomaraswamy typically wrote “for the professional.” The present essay however, is one of those rare introductory pieces he wrote several decades ago. [...]

By: K.S.Kannan

K.S.Kannan — Sat, 27 May 2006 12:33:53 +0000

Sandeep,

Your write-up on Coomaraswamy is commendable.

As for myself, I have had an exposure to most of the works of AKC(Ananda K. Coomaraswamy).

Just for your kind information, I am shortly giving a talk on “Art as Yoga”, based primarily on select AKC corpus: it is on the coming 18th (Sunday), June 2006 (6pm), at IIWC(The Indian Institute of World Culture),Basavanagudi, Bangalore – 560 004.(I have earlier given two invited talks on AKC at the same venue(invited by IGNCA(Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts), and a series of five lectures on AKC at GIPA(Gokhale Institute of Public Affairs), NRColony, Bangalore).

I foresee a revival of AKC studies in the coming decades in India, with the growing realisation, at least among the new “elite” here, a minority though, of a need for an intellectual understanding of various aspects of our culture. And who could provide the same as well as AKC, the scholar colossus, of whom it has rightly been remarked that he “interpreted the East to the West, and, for that matter, the East to the East”!: our ignorance of our heritage is of no mean order. That is not to say, however, that AKC makes any easy reading; he professedly “wrote for the professional”, his journal articles at least.

May the tribe of his readers/admirers increase!

Kannan

By: Sandeep

Sandeep — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 19:32:41 +0000

Jaffna,

Thanks for those kind words. This was a long-pending post (2 + years) which I finally got off my chest.

>>He also wrote on Buddhist art and philosophy as well.
And wrote voluminously which is a shortcoming of my post because I didn’t mention it. Coomaraswamy’s contribution to Buddhism is immense and un-repayable.

By: Jaffna

Jaffna — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 05:17:44 +0000

Sandeep,

Thank you for the excellent synopsis of my fellow Jaffna-descended Sri Lankan
Ananda Coomaraswamy critiqued modernism and the industrial ethos. Art to him was not just the aesthetic, but needed to demonstrate practical use, social relations, village harmony and economic return. His thesis on development was plagiarized by others such as Schumacher who wrote the book “Small is Beautiful”.

He also wrote on Buddhist art and philosophy as well.

Keep up the informative posts. Btw, this post needs to be better aligned on the right. The first letter on each line is not entirely clear.

Best regards

By: Pratap

Pratap — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 18:04:59 +0000

Yes. As you rightly point out, Coomaraswamy is unknown in India. But I do find his essays very tough to read. It takes me atleast 3 readings to get the gist of what he is saying – especially the Dance of Siva.

By: Dhruv

Dhruv — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 20:51:07 +0000

Wow,

That was an amazing post. Well yes, I never heard of Ananda Coomaraswamy, and I am sure many other Indians who live the “urban indian karma” like me have not heard of this man.

Just by the stuff that you have mentioned on this post, I can get an idea of what sort of subtle, and very very critical, cultural and aesthetic issues this person has touched upon.

One of the central phenomena that I believe is going to greatly endanger Indian Arts is the lack of awerness about the Indian philosophical/religious/sprititual thought and theme, which forms the basis of expression of everything from arts to religion. On the other hand I also see commercialzed art in the form of the movie industry and pop music take over what defines “sucessful art” and really really mess with the whole concept. Funny that you mention the whole “art’s for art’s sake”…It has come a long way from there and got much worse. It is now “Art’s for Money sake”, “cheap nonsense we can sell as entertainement’s sake” or ” imitate the commercially popular idea’s sake”….Pretty bad… And this is not just Indian art that is facing it…Its a pretty global problem at least at this time. Meaning behind expression is a waste of time for the average commercial artist, it has begun to seem…..So art which expresses a very refined and loflty theme and which measures its quality on the basis of a combination of the artist’s understanding of that theme and his expertise with his medium, is becoming an idea covered with dust and hard to see in this world today. Artists are good with their medium, but maybe there is not much of a theme to live for in an ‘unphilosophical’ world. Well thats what it at least seems like for the most part, and almost the whole for the stuff I see on TV

Wow, talk about reviving the lost, I wonder how thick and old this layer of dust is.