ABOUT THIS BOOK

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.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

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.

REVIEWS

“Recognizing how history is an unraveling as much as a construction, Leoshko disentangles the life and intellectual times of the influential yet enigmatic Coomaraswamy, showing how his cosmopolitanism was formative for the emerging discipline of international Buddhist art history. Making a Canon is sensitive, informative, balanced, and self-confident—mercifully free of professional jargon and polemic—and, in its own right, an innovative and insightful contribution to the ‘canon’ of Buddhist art history.”

— Peter Skilling, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok

“Much ink has been spilled over the art philosopher Ananda Coomaraswamy’s precise legacy. By delving into the roots of his intellectual formation in Sri Lanka, Leoshko compels us to revise many of our commonly held assumptions about the savant. This refreshingly original work is a must-read for all students of ancient Indian art.”

— Partha Mitter, University of Sussex

“With her usual sweeping thoroughness and unprecedented angles of approach, Leoshko discerns the origins of Coomaraswamy’s most influential ideas about Buddhism, South Asia, art, and religion in his first career as a geologist for the British Empire in Sri Lanka. Leoshko turns her forensic eye for pattern on new archival data. Her intellectual history of a visual thinker, told in accessible language, balances respect for his profound legacy with insight into his shortcomings.”

— Padma Kaimal, Colgate University

“We have long needed more biographical studies of influential individuals who were not only entangled in the ‘Orientalist’ enterprise but who also shaped it. Undoubtedly, one such figurehead in Buddhist art is Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy. Leoshko has now delivered an in-depth and critical study of Coomaraswamy’s scholarly activities in the broad context of contemporary and present academic discourse—a must-read for anybody interested in things South Asian.”

— Max Deeg, Cardiff University

“Coomaraswamy (1877–1947) was more than a scholar—he was a cosmopolitan cultural bridge, a provocateur, and part of Boston and New York’s avant-garde intellectual scene. . . . [Leoshko] masterfully unveils his complex legacy, from uncovering ruins in Sri Lanka to curating at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.”

— Tricycle

"Overall, Leoshko’s book invites a wide audience. Scholars and students interested in how categories of art, craft, aesthetics, and religion were deployed during this period will find this book a valuable resource. Those familiar with Coomaraswamy’s work will find new ways to consider his contributions (and shortcomings) to South Asian art history and canon building."

— Religious Studies Review

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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