Coomaraswamy’s impetus to
eastern spirit
By
Kenneth Oldmeadow - Sunday Times Sep 10 2006
The following
extracts from the book, Traditionalism, (published by The Sri Lanka
Institute of Traditional Studies) the first comprehensive study of the
influential 'Traditionalist School' of which Ananda Coomaraswamy was a
distinguished pioneer, are presented here to mark the 59th anniversary
of his death.
Ananda
Coomaraswamy's life story has been told in some detail by Roger Lipsey
in a model biography, sympathetic but clear-eyed and critical,
painstakingly researched but not burdened with trivial detail, shunning
any half-baked psychologising, narrated in elegant prose, and attuned to
those aspects of the oeuvre to which Coomaraswamy himself would have
wished attention to be drawn.
Here we shall concern ourselves less
with biographical matter than with an introduction to Coomaraswamy's
ideas and writings. We will focus on certain intellectual and spiritual
contours in Coomaraswamy's development, isolate some of the landmarks,
and offer a few remarks about the influence and significance of his
work. It should be said plainly at the outset that nothing less than a
full-length study could do justice to the scope and depth of his work
nor to the manifold influences issuing from it.
|
Ananda
Coomaraswamy with wife Stella Bloch |
By the end of his life Coomaraswamy
was thoroughly versed in the scriptures, mythology, doctrines and arts
of many different cultures and traditions. He was an astonishingly
erudite scholar, a recondite thinker and a distinguished linguist. He
was a prolific writer, a full bibliography running to upwards of a
thousand items on geological studies, art theory and history,
linguistics and philology, social theory, psychology, mythology,
folklore, religions and metaphysics. He lived in three continents and
maintained many contacts, both personal and professional, with scholars,
antiquarians, artists, theologians and spiritual practitioners from all
over the globe.
We can discern in Coomaraswamy's life
and work three focal points which shaped his ideas and writings: a
concern with social and political questions connected with the
conditions of daily life and work, and with the problematic relationship
of the present to the past and of the 'East' to the 'West'; a
fascination with traditional arts and crafts which impelled an immense
and ambitious scholarly enterprise; and thirdly, an emerging
preoccupation with religious and metaphysical questions which was
resolved in a 'unique balance of metaphysical conviction and scholarly
erudition'.
|
Coomaraswamy: a real culture breeds a race of men able to ask,
What kind of work is worth doing? |
Allowing for some
over-simplification, we can distinguish three 'roles' in Coomaraswamy's
intellectual life: social commentator and Indologist, historian of
Indian art, perennial philosopher. Each of these roles was dominant
during a certain period in his life: 1900 to 1917, 1917 to 1932 and 1932
to 1947 respectively. The three strands eventually became interwoven in
Coomaraswamy's life and his work.
Born in Ceylon in 1877 of a Tamil
father and an English mother, Coomaraswamy was brought up in England
following the early death of his father. He was educated at Wycliffe
College and at London University where he studied botany and geology. As
part of his doctoral work Coomaraswamy carried out a scientific survey
of the mineralogy of Ceylon and seemed poised for a distinguished
academic career as a geologist. However, under pressure from his
experiences while engaged in his field work, his interests took another
turn. He became absorbed in a study of the traditional arts and crafts
of Ceylon and of the social conditions under which they had been
produced. In turn he became increasingly distressed by the corrosive
effects of British colonialism.
In 1906, Coomaraswamy founded the
Ceylon Social Reform Society, of which he was the inaugural president
and moving force. The Society addressed itself to the preservation and
revival not only of traditional arts and crafts but also of the social
values and customs which had helped to shape them. The Society also
dedicated itself, in the words of its manifesto, to discouraging 'the
thoughtless imitation of unsuitable European habits and custom'.
Coomaraswamy called for a re-awakened pride in Ceylon's past and in her
cultural heritage. The fact that he was half-English in no way blinkered
his view of the impoverishment of national life brought by the British
presence in both Ceylon and India. In both tone and substance the
following passage is characteristic of Coomaraswamy in this early
period:
How different it might be if we
Ceylonese were bolder and more independent, not afraid to stand on our
own legs, and not ashamed of our nationalities. Why do we not meet the
wave of European civilization on equal terms? Our Eastern civilization
was here 2000 years ago; shall its spirit be broken utterly before the
new commercialism of the West? Sometimes I think the eastern spirit is
not dead, but sleeping, and may yet play a greater part in the world's
spiritual life.
Prescient words indeed in 1905!
In the years between 1900 and 1913
Coomaraswamy moved backwards and forwards between Ceylon, India and
England. In India, he formed close relationships with the Tagore family
and was involved in both literary renaissance and the swadeshi movement.
All the while in the subcontinent he was researching the past,
investigating arts and crafts, uncovering forgotten and neglected
schools of religious and court art, writing scholarly and popular works,
lecturing and organizing bodies such as the Ceylon Social Reform Society
and, in England, the India Society.
In England he found his own social
ideas anticipated and given forceful expression in the work of William
Blake, John Ruskin and William Morris, three of the foremost
representatives of a fiercely eloquent and morally impassioned current
of anti-industrialism. Such figures had elaborated a trenchant critique
of the ugliest and most dehumanizing aspects of the industrial
revolution and of the acquisitive commercialism which increasingly
polluted both public and private life.
They believed the new values and
patterns of urbanization and industrialization were disfiguring the
human spirit. These writers and others like Thomas Carlyle, Charles
Dickens and Matthew Arnold, had protested vehemently against the
conditions in which many were forced to carry out their daily work and
living. Ruskin and Morris, in particular, were appalled by the debasing
of standards of craftsmanship and of public taste.
Coomaraswamy picked up a phrase of
Ruskin's which he was to mobilize again and again in his own writings:
'industry without art is brutality'. This was more than a facile slogan
and signals one of the key themes in Coomaraswamy's work. For many years
he was to remain preoccupied with questions about the reciprocal
relationships between the conditions of daily life and work, the art of
a period, and the social and spiritual values which governed the
civilization in question.
We can catch resonances from the work
of the anti-industrialists in a passage such as this, written by
Coomaraswamy in 1915:
If the advocates of compulsory
education were sincere, and by education meant education, they would be
well aware that the first result of any real education would be to rear
a race who would refuse point-blank the greater part of the activities
offered by present day civilized existence..... life under Modern
Western culture is not worth living, except for those strong enough and
well enough equipped to maintain a perpetual guerilla warfare against
all the purposes and idols of that civilization with a view to its utter
transformation.
This articulates a concern with the
purposes of education which was to remain with Coomaraswamy all his
life. The tone of this passage, ardent, vigorous, sharp-edged, is
typical of Coomaraswamy's writings on social subjects in this period.
Later in life Coomaraswamy turned
less often to explicitly social and political questions. By then he had
become aware that 'politics and economics, although they cannot be
ignored, are the most external and least part of our problem'. However,
he never surrendered the conviction that an urbanized and highly
industrialized society controlled by materialistic values was profoundly
inimical to human development. He was always ready to pull a barbed
shaft from his literary quiver when provoked. As late as 1943 we find
him writing to The New English Weekly, again on the subject of
education, in terms no less caustic than those of 1995.
We cannot pretend to culture until by
the phrase 'standard of living' we come to mean a qualitative
standard... Modern education is designed to fit us to take our place in
the counting-house and at the chain-belt; a real culture breeds a race
of men able to ask, What kind of work is worth doing?
Coomaraswamy's work on social theory
has, as yet, received scant attention. It has been overshadowed by his
work as an art historian and as a metaphysician. This is right and
proper but it should be remembered that Coomaraswamy was profoundly
concerned with social questions throughout his life. These came to be
situated in a wider, and from a traditional viewpoint, more adequate
perspective but his concern for a qualitative standard of living runs
like a thread through his work. Here we have only touched on his social
thought. However, a close inquiry into his fully developed ideas about
education, literacy, social organization and government would make a
fascinating study.
Coomaraswamy's
significance as a social commentator is not fully revealed until his
later work when the political and social insights from the early period
in his life found their proper place within an all-embracing traditional
framework which allows him to elaborate what Juan Adolpho Vasquez has
called 'a metaphysics of culture'. The seeds sown by Coomaraswamy in
India and Ceylon, at first with his early writings and later through his
mature work, have been a long time germinating. The harvest, if it does
come, could be none the less rich for that. We should not imagine that
because he at first received a lukewarm or even unfavourable response
from his compatriots (an attitude which in some measure persists to this
day) that this betokened any kind of failure but rather that his ideas
were then, just as his later writings are now, from one point of view,
'ahead of their time'
Ultimately
Coomaraswamy's most important function as a social commentator lay in
his insistence on relating social and political questions back to
underlying religious and metaphysical principles. In this respect he
anticipates some of the more percipient of present day social critics
who realize that our most fundamental problems derive from a progressive
etiolation of authentic moral and spiritual values. This period of
Coomaraswamy's life is important for the ways in which some of his ideas
and attitudes, later to be assimilated into a traditionalist vision,
took shape. Coomaraswamy was impelled by the contrast between the
traditional and the modern industrial cultures of the two countries to
which he belonged by birth.
The second refrain
which sounds through Coomaraswamy's life is closely related to his
interest in social questions and became the dominant theme of his public
career - his work as an art historian. From the outset Coomaraswamy's
interest in art was controlled by much more than either antiquarian or
'aesthetic' considerations. For him the most humble folk art and the
loftiest religious creations alike were an outward expression not only
of the sensibilities of those who created them but of the whole
civilization in which they were nurtured. There was nothing of the art
nouveau slogan of 'art for art's sake' in Coomaraswamy's outlook. His
interest in traditional arts and crafts, from a humble pot to a medieval
cathedral, was always governed by the conviction that something
immeasurably precious and vitally important was disappearing under the
onslaught of modernism in its many different guises.
As his biographer
remarks,'… history of art was never for him either a light question -one
that had only to do with pleasures - or a question of scholarship for
its own sake, but rather a question of setting right what had gone amiss
partly through ignorance of the past.'
Coomaraswamy's
achievement as an art historian can perhaps best be understood in
respect of three of the major tasks which he undertook: the
'rehabilitation' of Asian art in the eyes of Europeans and Asians alike;
the massive work of scholarship which he pursued as curator of the
Indian Section of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; the penetration and
explanation of traditional views of art and their relationship to
philosophy, religion and metaphysics. Again, for purposes of convenience
we can loosely associate each of these tasks with the three main phases
in his adult life whilst remembering that it was in the middle years
(1917-1932) that he devoted himself almost exclusively to art
scholarship.
In assessing
Coomaraswamy's achievement it needs to be remembered that the
conventional attitude of the Edwardian era towards the art of Asia was,
at best, condescending, and at worst, frankly contemptuous. Such an
artistic illiteracy was coupled with a similar incomprehension of
traditional philosophy and religion, and buttressed by all manner of
Eurocentric assumptions. Worse still was the fact that such attitudes
had infected the Indian intelligentsia, exposed as it was to Western
education and influences.
From the early
days of his fieldwork in Ceylon Coomaraswamy set about dismantling these
prejudices through an affirmation of the beauty, integrity and spiritual
density of traditional art in Ceylon and India and, later, in other
parts of Asia. His work on Sinhalese arts and crafts and on Rajput
painting, though they can now be seen as formative in the light of his
later work on Buddhist iconography and on Indian, Platonic and Christian
theories of art, were nevertheless early signs of a prodigious
scholarship.
As a Curator at
the Boston Museum Coomaraswamy performed a mighty labour in classifying,
cataloguing and explaining thousands of items of oriental art. Through
his professional work, his writings, lectures and personal associations
Coomaraswamy left an indelible imprint on the work of many American
galleries and museums and influenced a wide range of curators, art
historians, orientalists and critics - Stella Kramrisch, Walter Andrae,
and Heinrich Zimmer to name a few of the more well-known.
Here we shall not
rehearse Coomaraswamy's complex vision of traditional art but will only
stress a few of the cardinal ideas. Traditional art, in Coomaraswamy's
view, was always directed towards a twin purpose: a daily utility,
towards what he was fond of calling 'the satisfaction of present needs',
and towards the preservation and transmission of moral values and
spiritual teachings derived from the tradition in which it appeared. A
Tibetan tanka, a medieval cathedral, a Red Indian utensil, a Javanese
puppet, a Hindu deity image, a piece of Shaker furniture - in such
artifacts and creations Coomaraswamy sought a symbolic vocabulary. The
intelligibility of traditional arts and crafts, he insisted, does not
depend on a more or less precarious 'recognition', as does modern art,
but on 'legibility'. Traditional art does not deal in the private vision
of the artist but in a symbolic language.
Modern art, which
from a traditionalist perspective includes Renaissance and all post-
Renaissance art, is by contrast, divorced from higher values, tyrannized
by the mania for 'originality', controlled by 'aesthetic' (sentimental)
considerations, and drawn from the subjective resources of the
individual artist rather than from the well-springs of tradition. The
comparison, needless to say, does not reflect well on modern art! An
example:
Our artists are
'emancipated' from any obligation to eternal verities, and have
abandoned to tradesmen the satisfaction of present needs. Our abstract
art is not an iconography of transcendental forms but the realistic
picture of a disintegrated mentality.
During the late
1920s Coomaraswamy's life and work somewhat altered their trajectory. He
became more austere in his personal lifestyle, partially withdrew from
the academic and social worlds in which he had moved freely over the
last decade, and addressed himself to the understanding and explication
of traditional metaphysics, especially those of classical India and
pre-Renaissance Europe.
His later work is
densely textured with references to Plato and Plotinus, Augustine and
Aquinas, Elkhart and the Rhinish mystics, to Shankara and Lao-Tse and
Nagarjuna. He also immersed himself in folklore and mythology since
these too carried profound teachings. Coomaraswamy remained the
consummate scholar but his work took on a more urgent nature after 1932.
The vintage
Coomaraswamy of the later years is to be found in his masterly works on
Vedanta and on the Catholic scholastics and mystics. Some of his work is
labyrinthine and not easy of access. It is often laden with a mass of
technical detail and with linguistic and philological subtleties which
test the patience of some readers. Of his own methodology as an exponent
of metaphysics Coomaraswamy wrote,
We write from a
strictly orthodox point of view… endeavouring to speak with mathematical
precision, but never employing words of our own, or making any
affirmation for which authority could not be cited by chapter and verse;
in this way making our technique characteristically Indian.
However formidable
some of Coomaraswamy's later writings may be they demand close attention
from anyone seriously interested in the subjects about which he wrote.
There is no finer exegesis of traditional Indian metaphysics than is to
be found in Coomaraswamy's later works. His work on the Platonic,
Christian and Indian conceptions of sacred art is also unrivalled. It
hardly matters what one picks up from the later period: all his mature
work is stamped with rale scholarship, elegant expression and a depth of
understanding which makes most of the other scholarly work on the same
subjects look vapid and superficial. We can unhesitatingly ratify
Coomaraswamy's own words: 'I have little doubt that my later work,
developed out of and necessitated by my earlier works on the arts and
dealing with Indian philosophy and Vedic exegesis, is really the most
mature and most important part of my work
125th Birth Anniversary
: Ananda Coomaraswamy - Apostle of culture
by
Andrew Scott
'Where
ever there is
knowledge,
Where ever there is virtue,
Where ever there is beauty,
He will find a home'.
Ananda
Coomaraswamy was born 125 years ago on August 22, 1877 at Kollupitiya.
His mother was English and his distinguished father, Sir Muttu
Coomaraswamy, was a devoted Hindu and the first Hindu to be called to
the English Bar. Ananda Coomaraswamy's father died while Ananda was very
young and as a result young Coomaraswamy was brought up in England from
where he ultimately graduated in geology from the University of London.
He served in Sri Lanka as an active geologist and mineralogist and
achieved recognition as a renowned scientist by a series of very
impressive discoveries.
Later he
became the curator of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and died in 1947 at
the age of 70. As an energetic young man Ananda Coomaraswamy played a
dominant role in the regeneration of the Sri Lankan culture at the turn
of this century. He was an ardent nationalist who sometimes directed his
attacks on the materialism of the West. Ananda Coomaraswamy had an utter
contempt for both europeanised Indians as well as europeanised Sri
Lankans. He once remarked that these europeanised Indians and Sri
Lankans were Indian or Sri Lankan only by name.
What he said
about India and the decadent Indian culture at that time is rightly
applicable to present Sri Lanka. He always pointed out that schools and
churches hastened the decay of eastern culture and remarked: "If you
teach a man that what he has thought right is wrong, he will be apt to
think that what he has thought wrong is right".
Ananda
Coomaraswamy's views on politics too were much varied as his noble ideas
about art. He was a nationalist in outlook and he always pointed out the
great danger to which nationalism may eventually lead. He elaborated on
his warnings in one of his early essays of genius, 'Young India' and
advocated that nationalism should positively contribute to resolve
problems that face the whole wide world, and no longer merely those of a
single race or continent.
His clear
intellect ranged over many varieties of subjects such as petrology,
philosophy, metaphysics, music, iconography, philology and art. His
knowledge of the indigenous arts and crafts was unexcelled and he was
even called 'the greatest orientalist of all time'.
In Ananda
Coomaraswamy was harmoniously blended both Eastern and Western culture
and whether he wrote on politics or poetry, on myths or on metaphysics
he wrote with erudition. Whether it was Plato or the Upanishads, the
Bible or the Baghavad Gita, the Koran or the Tripitaka, Ananda
Coomaraswamy was imbibed with the true spirit of their noble teachings.
Taken in the broadest sense he was a truly cultured man. Ananda
Coomaraswamy who, as mentioned earlier, began life as a scientist and
attained its giddy heights was also keenly interested and equally
competent to stress the importance of literacy. He was one of the rare
Sri Lankans who emphasised that literacy is an essential commodity for
the cultural resurgence of a nation. One of his essays, 'Borrowed
Plumes' first published in Kandy in 1905 was his maiden literary effort.
It reflects the deep thoughts of a youthful genius.
In this essay
he describes very movingly the destruction of native life under foreign
domination. This is an interesting essay which should be read and
re-read how especially in view of the serious efforts being presently
made to reactivate this country's cultural heritage. Those who have not
yet read Borrowed Plumes have missed a glorious piece of literature
which spurs national enthusiasm too. It rings with choice sentences such
as "Sometimes I think the eastern spirit is not dead, but sleeping, and
may yet play a great part in the world's spiritual life".
Ananda
Coomaraswamy's writings have a vital message for men and nations
everywhere who are interested to preserve their moral and cultural
integrity. He placed a high value both on his dignity and freedom as
well as on the dignity and freedom of others and his independence of
spirit and thought continues to inspire us even today. He is very much
alive today as he was in the past and his spirit continues to speak to
all those who believe that their future rests on the preservation of the
individual regardless of race, religion, nationality or social status.
His greatly
absorbing and colossal work Medieval Sinhalese Art, for which he
collected material when on his long circuits remains a monumental volume
in this sphere while from rocks and stones to art and culture, from
culture to man and society itself he was an authority as well as a
dynamic source of inspiration. There is no doubt that his simple and
noble life will continue to inspire the Sri Lankans for many more years.
As a young man
of 23 he saw his fist paper on 'Ceylon Rocks and Graphite' in print in
the quarterly journal of the Geological Society and by the time he died
he had completed writing more than 500 publications including the bulky
monuments like Medieval Sinhalese Art and History of Indian and
Indonesian Art. For the 14th edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica he
contributed 8 articles and edited the English words of Indian origin in
Webster's New International Dictionary. His books and memoirs, articles
and monographs, were published in India, Sri Lanka, England America,
France, Germany and Holland.
On his 125th
birth anniversary let us remember him as a Sri Lankan who attained
international eminence as a philosopher of art and art historian, as an
expositor of oriental art and philosophy, as a traditionalist thinker,
as sociologist, educationist, a knowledgeable commentator of comparative
religion, erudite writer and above all as an essayist with the touch of
a prophet. To us who are living in the modern world sundered by broken
harmonies Dr. Ananda Coomaraswamy's life serves well as a model that
should be emulated.
Ananda
Coomaraswamy: portrait of a scholar and Orientalist
by Andrew Scott - DN Fri Aug 22 2003
Ananda Coomaraswamy was born in
Kollupitiya 126 years ago on 22nd August, 1877 to an English mother and
a distinguished Hindu father, Sir Muttu Coomaraswamy who was the first
Hindu to be called to the English Bar.
Ananda
Coomaraswamy's father died while Ananda was very young and he was
brought up in England from where he ultimately graduated in Geology from
the University of London. He served in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) as an
active geologist and mineralogist and achieved recognition as a renowned
scientist by a series of very impressible discoveries. Later he served
as the Curator of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and died in 1947 at the
age of 70.
As an energetic young man he
played a dominant role in the regeneration of Sri Lanka's culture at the
turn of this century. He was also an ardent nationalist who directed his
attacks at the materialism of the West. Ananda Coomaraswamy had an utter
contempt for both Europeanised, Indians and Europeanised Sri Lankans.
He remarked that europeanised
Indians or Sri Lankans were Indian or Sri Lankan only by name, and said:
"A single generation of English education suffices to break the threads
of tradition and to create a nondescript and superficial being deprived
of all roots - a sort of intellectual pariahs who does not belong to the
East or the West, the past or the future". What he said about India and
the decadent Indian culture is rightly applicable to present Sri Lanka.
He always pointed out that
schools and churches hastened the decay of Eastern culture and noted:
"If you teach a man that what he has thought right is wrong, he will be
apt to think that what he has thought wrong is right".
Ananda Coomaraswamy's views on
politics too were as much varied as his noble ideas about art. Though a
nationalist in outlook he always pointed out the great danger to which
nationalism may eventually lead. He elaborated on these warnings in one
of his early essays of genius - "Young India" and advocated that
nationalism should positively contribute to the solution of problems
that face the whole world.
His clear intellect ranged over
many varieties of subjects such as petrology, philosophy, metaphysics,
music, iconography, philology and art.
His knowledge of the indigenous
arts and crafts was unexcelled and he was even called 'The greatest
orientalist of all time'. In Ananda Coomaraswamy was harmoniously
blended both Eastern and Western culture and whether he wrote on
politics or pottery, on myths or metaphysics, he wrote with erudition.
And whether it was Plato or the Upanishads, the Bible or the Baghavad
Gita, the Koran or the Tripitaka, Ananda Coomaraswamy was imbued with
the true spirit of their noble teachings. This great son of Lanka, who
began life as a scientist and attained its giddy heights, was also
highly interested in and equally competent to stress the importance of
literacy and in all his studies he was greatly inspired by philosophers
such as Plato. He was one of the rare Sri Lankans who consistently
emphasised that literacy is an essential commodity for the cultural
resurgence of a nation. One of his essays, "Borrowed Plumes", first
printed in Kandy in 1905 was his maiden literary effort.
It reflects the deep thoughts of
a youthful genius. In this essay Ananda Coomaraswamy describes very
movingly the destruction of native life under foreign domination.
As a young man of 23 years he saw
his first paper 'Ceylon Rocks and Graphite' in print in the Journal of
the Geological Society and by the time he died, he had completed writing
more than 500 publications including the bulky monumental work such as
"Medieval Sinhalese Art' and 'A History of Indian and Indonesian Art'.
For the 14th edition of the
Encyclopedia Britannica he wrote eight articles and edited the English
words of Indian origin in Webster's New International Dictionary. His
books and memoirs, articles and monographs were published in many
countries. All his writings have a vital message for men and nations
everywhere who are interested to preserve their moral and cultural
integrity.
Dr. Ananda Coomaraswamy revealed
to the Sri Lankans that art is nothing more, nothing less, than a mere
skill. He had a contempt for those who had built up a magical aura
around art and spoke of some vague appreciation of art. His greatest
lament was that the modern mind has separated art from work and that art
as a leisure time activity was completely unknown. He remarked: "It is
the man who, while at work, is doing what he likes best that can be
called cultured".
He was individualist during his
time and he placed a high value both on his dignity and freedom as well
as on the dignity and freedom of others. Dr. Ananda Coomaraswamy is very
much alive today as he was in the past and his spirit continues to speak
to all those who believe that their future rests on the preservation of
the individual regardless of race, religion, nationality or social
status.
He was ever active and at the
same time critical of his fellowmen too. From rocks and stones to art
and culture, from culture to man and society itself he was an authority
and a dynamic source of inspiration. There is no doubt that his simple
and noble life will continue to inspire Sri Lankans for many more years.
We would also remember him as a
great Sri Lankan who attained international eminence, as a philosopher
of art and art historian, as an expositor of oriental art and
philosophy, as a traditionalist thinker, as a sociologist, an
educationist, a knowledgeable commentator on comparative religion, an
erudite writer and above all as an essayist with the touch of a prophet.
Dr. Ananda Coomaraswamy, with the
freshness of his thoughts and the warm sympathy for his less fortunate
countrymen, flung himself to the society for a long and dedicated
service. In modern Lanka, faced with hard realities of economics and
culture, it is always good for us to emulate his worthy qualities of the
idealistic values of integrity, justice, courage and the purity of
thought for which Dr. Ananda Coomaraswamy nobly stood.
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