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Media Kit
Ananda Coomaraswamy (1877-1947) was a pioneering scholar in the fields of Indian art, culture, and religion, as well as an expert on the comparative study of world religions. A prolific author who was familiar with 36 languages, he was praised for his “brilliant insight” by Joseph Campbell and was described by Heinrich Zimmer as that “noble scholar upon whose shoulders we are still standing.”
The present anthology contains excerpts from his articles, letters, and speeches arranged thematically and richly illustrated with historical photographs.
S. Durai Raja Singam was a Malaysian scholar and friend of Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. He was the editor of numerous Indian works on or by Coomaraswamy, including Homage to Ananda K. Coomaraswamy: A Memorial Volume (1952). Joseph A. Fitzgerald is an award-winning editor with a particular emphasis on Eastern religions, whose previous works include Honen the Buddhist Saint, The Essential Anandamayi Ma: Life and Teachings of a 20th Century Indian Saint, and The Original Gospel of Ramakrishna.
About the Author(s)
Ananda K. Coomaraswamy
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. Dr. Coomaraswamy is often credited with reintroducing the concept of the "Perennial Philosophy" to a West dazed by the endless multiplicity of the modern world.A. K. Coomaraswamy's writings available through World Wisdom include: UL REMOVED
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S. Durai Raja Singam
S. Durai Raja Singam (1904-c. 1995) was a prolific Malaysian scholar, editor, and author, and a friend of Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. He was the editor of numerous Indian works on or by Coomaraswamy, including Homage to Ananda K. Coomaraswamy: A Garland of Tributes (1948), Homage to Ananda K. Coomaraswamy: A Memorial Volume (1952), Ananda Coomaraswamy: Remembering and Remembering Again and Again (1974), and Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy: A Bibliographical Record (1981), as well as The Life and Writings of Sir Mutu Coomaraswamy (1973).
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Joseph A. Fitzgerald
Joseph Fitzgerald has authored or edited several books on diverse world religions and philosophy that have won more than ten awards, including the prestigious Benjamin Franklin Award. The subjects include Buddhism, Hinduism, the American Indians, Christianity, the ecological crisis and the Perennial Philosophy. Fitzgerald studied Comparative Religion at Indiana University, where he also earned a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree. He is an adopted grandson of Thomas Yellowtail, one of the most honored American Indian spiritual leaders of the last century. For more than thirty years, Joseph has traveled extensively throughout the American Indian, Oriental and Islamic worlds. He has edited the following books for World Wisdom:
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Whitall Perry
According to Harry Oldmeadow , Whitall Perry (1920 – 2005) was "the most authoritative traditionalist of American background." Many researchers, editors, and authors whose works delve into the fields of comparative religion, philosophy, metaphysics, or spirituality have used Whitall Perry's A Treasury Of Traditional Wisdom as an essential reference tool since its publication in 1971. It is a magisterial compendium of spiritual doctrine spanning ail history and every spiritual tradition. Perry also contributed to the book, Ye Shall Know the Truth .Whitall Perry's early intellectual interests included Platonism and Vedanta, and he traveled extensively in the Middle and Far East both before and after World War II with a brief interlude of study at Harvard University. He was one of several Harvard students who came under Ananda Coomaraswamy's influence in the 1940s.
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Reviews
- [The editors] have selected the most beautiful and significant statements of this great teacher.
Robert Ulich, Harvard University, author of The Human Career
- While much of the volume concerns Coomaraswamy’s views on the culture and arts of India, it also includes writings on religion and metaphysics, imperialism and politics, discussions of spiritual leaders such as Sri Ramana Maharshi and political leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, and contrasts between Indian and Western views on women, love, and marriage, among other subjects.
Will Wroth, editor of Coomaraswamy’s Figures of Speech or Figures of Thought?
- A most interesting anthology of his ‘wisdom.’
A.L. Basham, School of Oriental and African Studies, author of The Wonder That was India
- With this book, we see into Coomaraswamy’s thoughts and aspirations, his intransigence regarding canons and principles of art, his deep love of and concern for that true India which modernized Indians would so easily betray in their blind fascination with the West’s shabby materialism, and his equally profound understanding of and respect for Platonism and medieval Christian culture — as part of the whole Universal perspective to which his heart really belonged.
Whitall N. Perry, editor of A Treasury of Traditional Wisdom
