Earth Talk: Who is Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy

8pm
Tickets £5, Concessions £4

With Satish and Varatha Shanmuganathan

Through his writings he became a bridge builder between East and West to wipe away the myth, "East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet." His proficiency in Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Chinese, Icelandic and other major languages of the world gave him the facility to produce literature that was highly informative and monumental. Most importantly, he was one of the exponents of Perennial Philosophy often referred to as Sophia Perennis or Perennial Wisdom. "Holding with Heraclitus that Word is common to all and that Wisdom is to know the will whereby all things are steered, I am convinced with Jeremiah that the human cultures in all their apparent diversity are but the dialects of one and the same language of the spirit, that there is 'a common universe of discourse' transcending the differences of tongues." This is how Coomaraswamy viewed the world in which he lived. His experiences of the East and West mingled in his mind to portray a world that does not harp on the differences of religions, tongues or cultures but find the common core to unite. He was also a lover of the soil and an avid gardener from his childhood. The principles, for which he dedicated his whole life, fit into the theme of 'Soul - Spirit - Soil' or Earth Talk.

Varatha Shanmuganathan
Varatha Shanmuganathan is a former teacher who taught in secondary schools and in teacher training college in Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and England. Since retiring, Varatha has turned to research and writing and has had a number of books published.

Satish Kumar
Satish is a former monk and long-term peace and environment activist. He has been quietly setting the Global Agenda for change for over 50 years. He was just nine when he left his family home to join the wandering Jains and 18 when he decided he could achieve more back in the world, campaigning for land reform in India and working to turn Gandhi’s vision of a renewed India and a peaceful world into reality. In 1973 Satish settled in the United Kingdom taking up the post of editor of Resurgence magazine, a position he has held ever since, making him the UK’s longest-serving editor of the same magazine. During this time, he has been the guiding spirit behind a number of now internationally respected ecological and educational ventures including Schumacher College.

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