Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy

Hinduism and Buddhism Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy

This outstanding work represents in many ways the most complete achievement of Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1877-1947), one of the main modern representatives of the Hindu tradition. Displaying an unequaled mastery of Sanskrit, Pali, Greek, Latin, and medieval German and Italian sources. The book is divided into two parts, one on Hinduism, the other on Buddhism, the parallelism between the fundamentals is so great that only a single truth, or rather an aspect of The Single Truth, is expressed. The aspect, however, has to do with metaphysical first principles. The author is of one mind with the Indian tradition, which "is one of the forms of the Philosophia Perennis, and as such, embodies those universal truths to which no one people or age can make exclusive claim." The author gives an authoritative exposition of the teachings of these two religions as understood by those who practiced them rather than as understood by scholars and comparative religionists who studied and viewed them from without. Coomaraswamy assumes that even the oldest forms of Hinduism were neither polytheistic nor pantheistic and that there is no doctrine of reincarnation, other than that of the immanent God 'who never become anyone.' Hinduism is the oldest of the surviving mystery religions whose formulations are essentially the same as those of Platonism Christianity, Taoism and other traditional doctrines. Buddhism is treated in a similar manner. The life of the pseudo-historical founder, the Conqueror of Death, repeats the original myth of the archetypal dragon-slayer. His doctrine -- as he asserts very forcibly -- is not his own but the re-opening of the 'ancient path.' Buddhism is thus not a 'new' religion, but rather a reiteration, with different emphases, of the same teachings that are to be found in the ancient Vedas.