| A
prince among scholars
Ananda Coomaraswamy's 127th birth
anniversary falls today- August 22. Published here is the text of
a radio talk on Coomaraswamy by Ranjit Fernando on Radio Ceylon
in 1967
Ananda Coomaraswamy once suggested that Buddhism has been so much
admired in the West mainly for what it is not; and he said of Hinduism
that although it had been examined by European scholars for more
than a century, a faithful account of it might well be given in
the form of a categorical denial of most of the statements that
have been made about it, alike by European scholars and by Indians
trained in modern modes of thought.
Man
of many a talent
In the same way, it could perhaps be said of Coomaraswamy
himself, that he is admired in Ceylon almost entirely for what he
was not, and that a true account of his ideas might well take the
form of a denial of most of the statements normally made about him
in the land of his birth. Coomaraswamy has long been variously presented
in Ceylon as a patriot, a national hero, a famous art critic and
historian, an eminent scholar and orientalist. It would therefore
be as well to examine the validity of these widely held beliefs
about a man who was undoubtedly one of greatest figures of our time.
Tradition
The subject matter of all Coomaraswamy's writings can
finally be placed under one heading, namely, tradition. The Tradition
which he writes about has little to do with the modern usage of
this word to mean customs or social patterns which have prevailed
for some time. Coomaraswamy's theme is the unchanging Primordial
and Universal Tradition which, he maintains, was the source from
which all the great religions of the present as well as the past
came forth, and likewise the forms of all those societies which
were moulded by religion.
Forms
of art
The particular aspect of Tradition which Coomaraswamy
chose as his own speciality, and as the one best suited to his own
individual talents, was, of course, the traditional view of art,
now chiefly associated with the East, but one universally accepted
by East and West alike, as also by all the civilisations of antiquity
and, indeed, by all those societies which we are pleased to call
primitive. Coomaraswamy never tired of demonstrating that this traditional
view of life, and consequently of art, was always the universal
and normal view until the Greeks of the so-called classical period
first introduced a view of life and of art fundamentally at variance
with the hitherto accepted view.
In
his aversion to what has been called 'the classical prejudice' Coomaraswamy
is at one with Plato whose attitude to the changes which were taking
place in his time was, to say the least, one of strong disapproval.
Coomaraswamy tries to show, as Plato did, that the view of life
and of art invented and glorified by the Greeks, and subsequently
admired by the Romans, was, in the context of the long history of
mankind, an abnormal view, an aberration; and that although this
view lost its hold on men's minds with the rise of Christendom in
the Middle Ages, it was to re-establish itself with greater force
at the Renaissance thus becoming responsible for the fundamental
ills of the modern world.
External
knowledge
In all traditional societies, quite apart from his ability
to reason, man was always considered capable of going further and
achieving direct, intuitive knowledge of absolute truth which carries
with it an immediate certainty provided by no other kind of knowledge.'In
the modern world, we think in terms of 'intellectual progress' by
which we mean a progress in the ideas which men formulate with regard
to the nature of things, but, from the point of view of traditional
knowledge, there can be no progress except in so far as particular
individuals advance from ignorance to reflected or rational knowledge,
and from reason to direct, intuitive knowledge which, we might add,
by its nature cannot be defined, but which nevertheless, stands
over and above all other forms of knowledge being nothing less than
Knowledge itself.
Classical
times
From a traditional point of view, the fault of the Greeks
lay in their substitution of the rational faculty for the supra-rational
as the highest faculty of man, and, in the words of Coomaraswamy's
distinguished colleague, Rene Guenon, 'it almost seems as if the
Greeks, at a moment when they were about to disappear from history,
wished to avenge themselves for their incomprehension by imposing
on a whole section of mankind the limitations of their own mental
horizons.'
Since
the Renaissance, as Gai Eaton has said, 'the modern world has gone
much further than did the Greeks in the denial even of the possibility
of a real knowledge which transcends the narrow limits of the individual
mentality.' Moreover, as we are all well aware, that which, from
a traditional point of view, appears to be a serious narrowing of
horizons, is seen, from our modern point of view, as an unprecedented
intellectual breakthrough!
Plato’s
tale
While it is hardly possible in a brief summary such as
this to further discuss the issues involved, we might usefully ponder
on Plato's story of the subterranean cave where some men have been
confined since childhood. These men are familiar only with the shadows
cast upon the dark walls of the cave which they have all the time
in the world to study, and about which they are most knowledgeable.
They know nothing of the outside world and therefore do not believe
in its existence. Coomaraswamy, like Plato, would have us realise
that we too are in darkness like these men, and that we would be
wise to seek the light of another world above by concerning ourselves
with those things which our ancestors knew and understood so well.
He constantly points out that modern or anti-traditional societies
are shaped by the ideas men develop by their own powers of reasoning
- there being as many sets of ideas as there are men - whereas traditional
societies were based on perennial ideas of quite another order,
ideas of suprahuman origin and revealed - whereby all the aspects
of a society were determined.
Traditional
art
Coomaraswamy's main preoccupation was the traditional
view of art. He tried to show that Graeco-Roman art and Renaissance
art, like the more modern forms of art, were of earthly inspiration
and therefore of human origin (like the philosophies that went with
them); whereas traditional art, like traditional philosophy, was
related to the metaphysical order and therefore religious in character
and devine in origin. It is now clear that in his earliest works
such as the monumental Medieval Sinhalese Art, Commaraswamy did
not as yet fully understand the difference between the two contrasting
points of view which were to form the basis of his life's work;
in these early writings, his great understanding and sympathy with
the traditional arts of India and Ceylon as, indeed, his already
considerable grasp of the true meaning of religion was a little
clouded with modernistic prejudice, the outcome, no doubt, of his
early academic training which was of a kind which he, even then,
had begun to despise. But later, following his association with
the French metaphysician, Rene Guenon, Coomaraswamy's writings assumed
the complete correctness of exposition and the great authority which
we associate with his mature work. Still later, it was as a result
of Coomaraswamy's intervention that Guenon himself corrected his
earlier views concerning Buddhism.
A
great thinker
Insofar as we are willing to regard the field of Traditional
Studies as being one of the highest importance at the present time,
two men, the Frenchman, Rene Guenon, and the Ceylonese, Ananda Coomaraswamy,
stand out as the two greatest thinkers of the first half of the
twentieth century. A great gulf separates their work from the work
of nearly all their contemporaries.
It
will now be apparent that if we are to regard Coomaraswamy as an
eminent orientalist and art historian, it must first be clearly
understood that he stands apart from almost all those other scholars
who can be similarly described, in that while they approach the
life and art of traditional societies from a modern standpoint (which
is both 'skeptical and evolutionary') Coomaraswamy, like his few
true colleagues and collaborators, takes the view that traditional
societies and their art can only be understood by a careful consideration
of their own point of view however unfamiliar and inconvenient this
may be. Once this is realised, it would certainly be true not only
to say that Coomaraswamy was an eminent scholar but, as Marco Pallis
has said, a prince among scholars.
Religion
and power
For Coomaraswamy, a feudal or heirarchical society based
on metaphysical principles is essentially superior to the supposedly
egalitarian systems so fashionable today. Like Plato, he believed
that democracy was one of the worst forms of government. His enthusiasm
for such institutions as caste and kingship was based, not on sentiment,
but on a profound understanding of the vital relationship between
spiritual authority and temporal power in society and government.
He would hardly have approved of the road which India and Ceylon
have taken since their independence although he may have regarded
it as inevitable.
Leader
with a difference
It is well known that, from the very beginning, Coomaraswamy
deplored the influence of the West on Eastern peoples, and especially
the consequences of British rule in Greater India. He has, therefore,
been placed alongside those who in India and Ceylon have been regarded
as national leaders in the struggle for independence. But here again,
a complete difference of approach separates Coomaraswamy from his
contemporaries, for it was not imperialism or the domination of
one people by another that Coomaraswamy was concerned about, but
rather the destruction of traditional societies by peoples who had
abandoned sacred forms.
It
was what the British then stood for and not the British that he
detested; on the contrary, there is no doubt that he loved England
because he knew another, older, England which both in form and spirit
was so much akin to the oriental world he understood so well.
One
of a kind
It would, in conclusion, be appropriate to quote the words
of that highly respected English Catholic artist-philosopher, EricGill,
who in his autobiography paid Coomaraswamy this great tribute:
'There
was one person to whose influence I am deeply grateful; I mean the
philosopher and theologian, Ananda Coomaraswamy. Others have written
the truth about life and religion and man's work. Others have written
good clear English. Others have had the gift of witty exposition.
Others have understood the metaphysics of Christianity and others
have understood the metaphysics of Hinduism and Buddhism. Others
have understood the true significance of erotic drawings and sculptures.
Others have seen the relationships of the true and the good and
the beautiful. Other have had apparently unlimited learning.
Others
have loved; others have been kind and generous. But I know of no
one else in whom all these gifts and all these powers have been
combined. I dare not confess myself his disciple; that would only
embarrass him. I can only say that I believe that no other living
writer has written the truth in matters of art and life and religion
and piety with such wisdom and understanding.' |
