Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy (22 August 1877 − 9 September 1947) was a metaphysician, pioneering historian and great philosopher of Indian art. Coomaraswamy made important contributions to the philosophy of art, literature, and religion. One of Coomaraswamy’s most important contributions was his profound understanding of how people communicated in early times and how their ideas were transmitted and preserved in the absence of writing. He felt that traditional symbolism could best be understood by means of images, which preceded writing and which contained ideas that had been handed down from the earliest times and preserved in a vast array of media.