Full Description
The story of how one scholar's experiences in Sri Lanka shaped the contours of the Buddhist visual canon.
An early interpreter of Buddhist art to the West, Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy laid the foundation of what would become the South Asian visual canon, particularly through his efforts to understand how Buddhist art emerged and developed. In Making a Canon, Janice Leoshko examines how Coomaraswamy's experience as the director of a mineralogical survey in Sri Lanka shaped his understanding of South Asian art and religion. Along the way, she reveals how Coomaraswamy's distinctive repetition of Sri Lankan visual images in his work influenced the direction of South Asia's canon formation and left a lasting impression on our understanding of Buddhist art.
Contents
List of Figures
Note on Usage
Chapter One Placing Ananda Coomaraswamy
Chapter Two In Old Ceylon, 1903-1905
Chapter Three The Last Year in Old Ceylon, 1906
Chapter Four What Is in Mediaeval Sinhalese Art?
Chapter Five A Buddhist Art Turn, 1908-1910
Chapter Six Buddha, Shiva, Mudra: Selecting Examples of Indian Art, 1910-1920
Chapter Seven Canons: Making and Unmaking
Acknowledgments
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
