India, May 24 -- When one speaks of modern India's ideas of culture, civilization, and a sense of being, Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy is among the most underappreciated intellectual architects. Because long before "civilizational state," "decolonization," and "Indic consciousness" entered the lexicon of academic and political inquiries, Coomaraswamy had already addressed these themes and cautioned about India's cultural self-confidence. Among other things, he argued that India risked losing not merely its artistic heritage, but the philosophical essence of its existence if it did not embrace its own values and culture.

Born in Colombo in 1877 to a Tamil father and an English mother, Coomaraswamy occupied a rare intellectual position betwe...