The general belief among both scholars and the ordinary public is that rebirth or
reincarnation theories are intrinsically associated with India and invented by Indic religious
thinkers. However, comparative ethnographic evidence suggests widespread distribution of
rebirth beliefs the world over. Yet, the karma theory is found only in the Indic theories of
rebirth. In his talk Obeyesekere will show striking parallels and differences between
Amerindian and Buddhist theories of rebirth.
Obeyesekere is professor at the Department of Anthropology of Princeton University and
published outstanding sociological and anthropological studies, among which Land
Tenure in Village Ceylon: A Sociological and Historical Study (1967) and The
Work of Culture: Symbolic Transformation in Psychoanalysis and Anthropology (1990).
The American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies awarded in 1993 his The Apotheosis
of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific (1992) with the Louis
Gottschalk prize.
The Gonda lectures are organized every year by the J. Gonda Fund. The Gonda Fund was
established in 1993 under the auspices of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and
Sciences and had the task of administering the inheritance bequeathed to the Academy by
Sanskritist and Indologist Professor J. Gonda.
For attending the lecture it is only necessary to inform the secretariat of the Gonda Fund. It
is also possible to order from the secretariat the texts of the Gonda lectures held in previous
years by Wendy Doniger (already published) and Richard Larivière (to be published
in November 1995).
The Gonda Fund
Antwoordnummer 10785
1000 RA Amsterdam
Royal Netherlands Academy of arts and Sciences
Het Trippenhuis
Kloveniersburgwal 29
Amsterdam
Tel: +31-20-5510711
Fax: +31-20-6204941
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