Making a Canon : Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Sri Lanka, and the Place of Buddhist Art

Leoshko, Janice

ISBN 10: 0226836061 / ISBN 13: 9780226836065

Published by University of Chicago Press, 2024

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 47725702-n

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Making a Canon : Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Sri Lanka, and the Place of Buddhist Art
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226836061
• ISBN 13: 9780226836065
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

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.

About the Author

Janice Leoshko is associate professor of South Asian art at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of Sacred Traces: British Explorations of Buddhism in South Asia.