PUBLICATION

Kalasamalocana

Highlight on the Reprints of the work of Ananda K Coomaraswamy

The IGNCA carries out several research projects which culminate in a series of publications of varied range and application. One major programme relating to publication is Kalasamalocana, which relates to the publication of critical studies and the editions of the works of eminent scholars who have made path-breaking study of Indian culture. These scholars can be considered as essentially bridge-makers, for they have retained a universal perspective while concentrating on an Indo-centric approach in their studies and brought the East and the West together in a meaningful dialogue. Among such writers, Ananda K. Coomaraswamys’s name looms large, for he made outstanding contribution to the study of Indian art and culture. He retained a global perspective encompassing the study of ancient Greece, the world of Islam and medieval Europe, but was always inspired by the perennial source of wisdom revealed in the Indian tradition. His books, covering a wide range of topics and disciplines, reflect his unique scholarship.

IGNCA, as a beginning, has started a series of reprint of Ananda K. Coomaraswamy’s works. Out of the corpus of over thirty-five books by Coomaraswamy, IGNCA has so far published about six and this ongoing programme plans to bring out rest of the books too. Here is a list of the publications already brought out in this area:

Selected Letters of Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. Ed. Alvin Moore Jr. and Rama P. Coomaraswamy. (New Delhi: IGNCA and Oxford University Press, 1988). Contains a collection of letters, most of them hitherto unpublished, written to his contemporaries – who include eminent scientists, Sanskritists, Buddhist monks and poets.

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. What is Civilization? (New Delhi: IGNCA and Oxford University Press, 1989). Contains twenty essays on several aspects of the civilizations of the East and the West.

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. Time and Eternity. (Bangalore: IGNCA and Select Books, 1990). Traces man’s awareness of Time articulated in ancient and modern civilizations thorough cosmologies, metaphysics, theology, philosophy, religion and the arts.

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. Essays in Early Indian Architecture. Ed. Michael W. Meister (New Delhi: IGNCA and Oxford University Press, 1992). Deals with the history of architecture in India through his probing analysis of texts and sculpted reliefs.

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power in the Indian Theory of Government. Eds. K.N. Iengar and Rama P. Coomaraswamy (New Delhi: IGNCA and Oxford University Press, 1993). The Indian theory of government is expounded on the basis of the textual sources.

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. Yaksas: Essays in Water Cosmology. Ed. Paul Schroeder (New Delhi: IGNCA andn Oxford University Press, 1993). Examines the origin of Yaksas in the context of Vedic, Brahmanical and Upanishadic literature.

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