What is Civilization?

ANANDA K. COOMARASWAMY (1877-1947) was born to 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 Eastern artifacts and presenting lectures on their symbolic and metaphysical meaning. An encounter with the seminal writings of perennialist author Rene Guenon 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. His plans to retire to India and take on sannyasa (renunciation of the world) were cut short by his sudden and untimely death. Ananda Kentish Muthu Coomaraswamy (1877-1947) was a Sri Lankan Tamil metaphysician, pioneering historian, and philosopher of Indian art. He was an early interpreter of Indian culture to the West and is described as a groundbreaking theorist responsible for introducing ancient Indian art to the West.