Sir George Birdwood was an art critic. He delivered a lecture on Western and Eastern art. He said that in the East artist’s produced pictures and sculptures as works of art but they did not know what beauty was. As an example he spoke of the Buddha figures of the East. "What beauty is there in these? They are like pies made of sawdust."

Ananda Coomaraswamy was both pained and disgusted. He felt that people like Birdwood knew nothing of the origin and development of the arts in the East. They spoke from the point of view of their own country. But many people in the East believed them and learnt to regard their own art through Western eyes. Coomaraswamy felt the injustice of this keenly. The necessity to explicate the eastern arts became clearer.

A little later he wrote the book call 'Origin of the Buddha Image.'