"[Coomaraswamy] is one of the most learned and creative scholars of the century."

-Mircea Eliade

"[His] writings remain as pertinent today as when he wrote them and his voice echoes in the ears of present day seekers of truth and lovers of traditional art."

-Seyyed Hossein Nasr

"Coomaraswamy's essays [give] us a view of his scholarship and brilliant insight."

-Joseph Campbell

 "That noble scholar upon whose shoulders we are still standing"

-Heinrich Zimmer

This volume gathers in one place three of Ananda K. Coomaraswamy's most important writings on Buddhist art and thought in facsimile reproductions of the author's personal copies with his annotations and corrections. Coomaraswamy rarely set aside a published work once and for all; using his publications as an ongoing journal, he continued thinking and recognizing new connections. The works here are among his greatest. “The Nature of Buddhist Art” (1938) is a classic essay, as eloquent as anything he wrote.

What did Coomaraswamy really think about the content and purpose of art at its deepest and truest? The answer to that question is here, never more brilliantly stated. “The Origin of the Buddha Image” (1927) is a more strictly art-historical work, which looks at the evidence for an Indian or Hellenistic Greek origin for the central image of early Buddhist art. The volume concludes with a masterful book-length study, "Elements of Buddhist Iconography” (1935), which focuses the author's unique blend of scholarship and spirituality on key images in Buddhist art.

"Are patriarchs precursors? Are their work and insights gratefully recognized--and then quietly shelved in favor of up-to-date sources? Coomaraswamy is assuredly a patriarch, and for all who acknowledge the grandeur of traditional religious art, he is much more than a precursor. He is a lifelong companion and teacher who offers endless insight into the meaning and power of religious art. In this volume, his essay of 1938 on the nature of Buddhist art is still the latest word."

-Roger Lipsey, editor and biographer of Ananda K.Coomaraswamy- Princeton's Bollingen Series LXXXIX

Introduced by Coomaraswamy's “The Nature of Buddhist Art” (1938), “The Origin of the Buddha Image” (1927) is crowned by a supremely important metaphysical and spiritually transformative text, “Elements of Buddhist Iconography” (1935). Although this essay is about sacred art, it actually is sacred art itself in that it is able to transport the reader to the very threshold of an awakening. This is achieved through the etymological and artistic explication of the archetypal nature and profoundest meaning intended by the Cosmic Tree of Life (symbolizing the Buddha) and the Lotus Throne which are not actually situated in “art” but may be beheld within the human heart and found in each one of us. We are truly fortunate to be able to provide a facsimile reproduction of the author's personal copies of these formative works with his own annotations and corrections.
-The Publisher

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy’s The Origin of the Buddha Image is a detailed study and analysis of the controversial problem. In the present monograph, with his usual acumen and deep understanding of the subject, Coomaraswamy has laid bare the facts which clearly show that the Buddha image was a product of the Indian mind. In this detailed excurses, he has discussed the problem not only with a view to prove that the Buddha image originated out of the pre-existing Indian forms, but has also taken pains to disprove the theories of those scholars with whom "Indo-Greek art has become a veritable obsession."

Coomaraswamy has divided the work into the following heads: (1) What is the Buddha image?, (2) The early representation of deities by means of symbols, (3) The necessity for a Buddha image, (4) Elements of the later anthropomorphic iconography already present in early Indian art, (5) Style and content: differentiation of Indian and Hellenistic types, and (6) Dating of Gandhara and Mathura Buddhas.

According to Coomaraswamy, every element essential to the iconography of Buddha and Bodhisattva figures appears in early Indian art before the Buddha figure of Gandhara or Mathura is known. For this, he says we have only to look at a sequence of examples beginning with the Parkham image and culminating in the Mathura types of the Gupta period to realize that there is no room at any point in the intercalation of any model based on the Hellenistic tradition: he has even suggested that the Gandhara iconography itself is derived from the pre-existing Indian forms, either through Mathura or otherwise.

"Merely touching these obvious truths, the author sweeps us on to an analysis of three examples of Indian symbols - the Tree of Life, the Earth Lotus, and the World Wheel. He demonstrates the cosmic simplicity of these three conceptions in his peculiar penetrating way and thereafter we are given a glimpse of their elaboration through more than fifteen centuries of Indian mysticism...[I]t is finished by illustrations chosen from the Buddhist monuments of India, China, and Japan to picture these three great symbols. It then appears that we have experienced, perhaps vicariously and surely only according to our own powers of penetration, a deeper knowledge of sacred art...This book is scholarship, tough and rewarding. It is part and parcel of religion and of art and will stand as a model for Christian as well as Oriental iconographic studies of the future. Once and for all it demonstrates that dates and influences and schools and styles, though they fascinate the specialists, are not in their nature of primary importance."

-Langdon Warner

"Over forty years have passed since the death of Ananda Coomaraswamy; yet his writings remain as pertinent today as when he wrote them and his voice echoes in the ears of present day seekers of truth and lovers of traditional art as it did a generation ago. In contrast to most scholarly works which become outmoded and current philosophical opuses which become stale, Coomaraswamy's works possess a timeliness which flows from their being rooted in the eternal present."

-Seyyed Hossein Nasr, George Washington University

The Matheson Trust is a charity whose principal aim is to further the study of comparative religion and the great metaphysical and religious traditions.

"Coomaraswamy's essays, learned, elegant, and wise, are one of the great treasures of 20th century thought. To read them is to see the world in the clear light of tradition, to understand art and philosophy from the viewpoint of first principles, to be reminded of our sacred calling and of the One who calls us."

- Philip Zaleski, author, editor for Parabola

"Don't make any mistake about Coomaraswamy. He is an eminently practical man. I love him."

- Wendell Berry

"It is not that I want to write about AKC, but rather than I want to enter contemplatively into the world of thought, which...is for all of us, but which nevertheless had to be opened up to us by him."

- Thomas Merton (Thomas Merton series)

Ananda Coomaraswamy is best known as one of the twentieth century's most erudite and percipient scholars of the sacred arts and crafts of both East and West. He also had few peers in the exegesis of traditional philosophy and metaphysics.

- Dr. Harry Oldmeadow

Like St. Augustine, Ananda Coomaraswamy wrote in order to perfect his own understanding. He sought to know the whatness and principial roots of things, above all, of himself. In doing so, he collaterally provided access to a fundamental intellectual itinerary, which unfailingly beckons all who recognize in themselves an intrinsic regard for Truth.

- Alvin Moore, Jr.

In Coomaraswamy…all the religious traditions of the world meet.

- Jean Borella

After having read Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, the distinction between oriental and occidental thought hardly has any more meaning.He is a tireless ‘ferryman’ between one and the other side of the same transcendent [reality].

- Jean Canteins

The pioneering and interdisciplinary essays of Ananda K.Coomaraswamy on medieval Christian and Oriental art have shed so much light on religious symbolism and iconography, and given such profound metaphysical insight into the study of aesthetics and traditional folklore, that if contemporary art history does not take [his] challenges and contributions into account, it will inevitably fall prey to ideological reductionisms and degrade the ancient and perennial language of art forms into a mere archaic system of lifeless symbols with [no] meaning.

- Ramon Mujica Pinilla, art historian, Universidad Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, Peru

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These two foundational texts are concerned not only with providing a language for “reading” the artistic and linguistic symbols of Buddhism, but more importantly show how these lead on to possibilities for Self realization, which is the aim of all sacred art. This comes at a time when we most need a schema which informs us of what is of the utmost value in all the world’s great spiritual traditions as they pertain to transforming our way of understanding life and the spiritual process.

We are provided with a clear exposition of the most profound significance of Buddhist symbols we so often see but cannot truly grasp –

a) the poses,

b) the Lotus (the ground of manifestation),

c) the Bodhi Tree (the Tree of Life is synonymous with all existence, all the worlds, all life, from its root in the naval center of the Supreme Being),

d) the Wheel (the operation of principles)

– and we are taken to a hitherto unattainable penetration into our own spiritual Nature. In this volume, one comes unexpectedly upon “break-throughs” where the purpose of art and purpose of life come together. We see how the “Kingdom of Heaven Within" is portrayed in Buddhist etymology, iconography and metaphysics, and learn that this "Kingdom," which all of the images portray, lies within. This whole cosmology which would appear to be 'outward,' is actually located 'inward' - in the Human Heart. This is the whole point of it all: art is not just for our instruction or visual/mental pleasure, but is intended to liberate people from the restless activity which veils Reality which Itself only becomes transparent when we're at peace with ourselves - the common hope and desire of every soul on earth.

1. This work reveals the esoteric language for understanding the images used in Buddhist art, including the image of the Buddha himself.
2. The reader can go from no knowledge of this subject to being plunged into the depths of true scholarship with the result that one's education has commenced from many angles simultaneously, and subtleties previously inaccessible can be appreciated by the newly fine-tuned eye.
3. The reader is able to develop an acute awareness of the issues and images involved in Buddhist iconography such as the drapery, hair, nimbus, cranial protuberance and gestures such as the raising of the right hand, which indicates: removing fear, graciousness, benediction, taking an oath, addressing an audience, closing a dispute, among others - as well as learning to appreciate the meaning of stylistic differences in both the Ghandara and Mathura Buddha figures.

About the Author

Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy (1887-1947), described by Heinrich Zimmer as "That noble scholar upon whose shoulders we are still standing", was one of the world's greatest art historians and scholars of traditional iconography. he knew thirty-six languages and admitted he did "actually think in both Eastern and Christian terms, Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Pali and to some extent Persian and even Chinese." While serving as a curator to the Bston Museum of Fine Arts in the latter part f his life, he devoted his work to the explication of traditional metaphysics and symbolism. His writings of this period are filled with references to Palto, Plotinus, Clement, Philo, Augustine, Aquinas, Shankara, Eckhart and the Rhinish and oriental mystics. AKC 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. The Princeton University Bollingen Series LXXXIX presented three volumes by Roger Lipsey: His Life and Work, Metaphysics, and Traditional Art and Symbolism. AKC was the author of innumerable books and articles.

* * *

Fons Vitae is honored to have been given the rights for the incomparable body of works by A.K. Coomaraswamy (1877-1947), “a cardinal figure in Twentieth-century art history and in the cultural confrontation between East and West,” (Princeton University Press Bollingen Series LXXXIX Vol. I Coomaraswamy: Traditional Art and Symbolism, Vol. II Coomaraswamy: Metaphysics, Vol. III Coomaraswamy: His Life and Work). He was described by Heinrich Zimmer as “that noble scholar upon whose shoulder we are still standing.”

Born in Ceylon, educated in his mother’s homeland England, he became one of the world’s greatest art historians and scholars of traditional iconography. He served as curator in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts until his death, having been the first Oriental to make the meaning of oriental art understood in the West. He played an important role in the collection of Persian Art for the Freer in Washington, D.C. and the Boston Museum of Fine Art as well.

What made him one of the most qualified and gifted interpreters of traditional symbolism to have ever lived was his extensive knowledge, love, and understanding of our world’s diverse cultures, sacred scriptures, and languages. Coomaraswamy knew thirty-six languages, which meant for him that he had no need of a dictionary and knew that culture’s literature, poetry, and music. He once admitted, “ 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 the deepest levels of meaning to be found in language which made it possible for him to truly be able to interpret symbols and mythologies within the context of the literature and where they are found.

Books in the Fons Vitae Coomaraswamy series include: 

The Bugbear of Literacy ; Figures of Speech, Figures of Thought ; Guardians of the Sundoor

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