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Tamaki Kitagawa, University of Tsukuba, JapanAbstract
This study examines the intellectual relationship between Mircea Eliade's history of religions and the Traditionalist School, with particular attention to Ananda K. Coomaraswamy's influence. Although Eliade's work has been widely debated through both critical deconstruction and reconstruction, its connection to Traditionalist thought has received limited scholarly attention. The Traditionalist School, initiated by René Guénon and further developed by Coomaraswamy and others, understood “tradition” as deriving from primordial and universal metaphysical principles that transcend historical and cultural boundaries. The paper analyzes Coomaraswamy's interpretations of chthonic myths, focusing on two later works: “The Rape of a Nāgī” (1937) and “On the Loathly Bride” (1945). In these studies, Coomaraswamy interpreted mythological motifs such as serpents, dragons, and transformative marriages as symbolic expressions of primordial unity, cosmic polarity, and mystical reintegration. He presented the serpent as both the original totality of existence and, in later mythological stages, as a negative or chaotic force opposed to solar and divine order. The study further explores how Coomaraswamy's concepts and methodology influenced Eliade. While Eliade adopted key Traditionalist notions such as archetypes, symbolic correspondence, and the coincidence of opposites, he transformed them by removing their normative metaphysical claims and reinterpreting them in terms of universal human religious experience. Unlike Guénon's static and doctrinal traditionalism, Coomaraswamy's dynamic interpretative approach, grounded in concrete cultural expressions, provided Eliade with methodological inspiration.
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Conference: IICAH2026Stream: Humanities - Philosophy, Ethics, Consciousness
This paper is part of the IICAH2026 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Kitagawa T. (2026) A. K. Coomaraswamy’s Interpretation of Chthonic Myths and Its Impact on Mircea Eliade’s History of Religions ISSN: 2432-4604 – The IAFOR International Conference on Arts & Humanities – Hawaii 2026 Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 223-231) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2432-4604.2026.19
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2432-4604.2026.19
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