Gananath Obezikir, 95, dies; Blade of the Anthropology East and West

Gananath Ubiskeri, an anthropologist who made his long career and wide-ranging social visions-which was based on Hindu texts, Freudian psychological analysis and Christian mysticism, among many other ideas-a leading intellectual figure in both his homeland, Sri Lanka and the rare world of Western academics, on Tuesday in Colombo. He was 95 years old.

His son Aseeta confirmed death.

Dr. Obizker was born in a small Sri Lankan village at a time when the country, which was then known as Ceylon, was still in the grip of the British Empire. He spent most of his career in teaching in the United States, primarily in Princeton, where he demonstrated his reputation as a critical voice in discussions on colonialism, pluralism and the possibility of finding common denominators through cultural divisions.

A long time ago, among academics, he stormed the awareness of the broader audience in 1992 with his book “Apotheissis of Captain Cook: European in the Pacific Ocean”.

cap. James Cook was a British explorer, after receiving a large ceremony by the Hawaiian Island residents in 1779, he was unexpectedly returned and killed by the same people who welcomed him warmly before.

Among the historians and anthropologists, the common understanding was that the inhabitants of the island believed that Captain Cook was a god, and that his return, because of his broken ship, has intentionally achieved faith in a denying God, who would be defeated one day.

Dr. Obeyeseker saw it differently. Hawaii believes that he is just a man. He honored him as an honorary president, not a god; I killed him due to a more secular conflict. Otherwise, Westerners have imposed their own biases on Hawaiian residents, in the sense of what they create their legends around the legendary people.

“This European deity,” wrote, “It is the legend of conquest, imperialism and civilization.”

He was among his goals Marshall SahlsAnother prominent anthropologist, who argued the thesis of God’s manufacture in 1985 in his book “The islands of History”.

Dr. Sahlins responded to Dr. Obeyesekere with a second book. In “How the indigenous people think: About Captain Cook, for example” (1995), he said that Dr. Obizker was the true imperialist, because he denied the possibility that Hawaii had a way to see the reality that was mainly different from the West.

The discussion was widely covered in New York Times Elsewhere. Dr. Obeyesekere denied that the imperialist was, but Dr. Sahlins was not completely wrong in saying that he sought the common denominators between East and West. A lot of Dr. Obizker’s work explores the ways in which different cultures participated in some global qualities, including what he called “practical rationality”, a basic feeling of seeing the world.

His desire to pay attention to the political beliefs in Sri Lanka made him something controversial at home, although he often laughed with humor.

“For some of my critics, I must look a foolish person and also ignorance,” he said in a 2015 speech at the University of Peradinia in Sri Lanka. “This is really true: during my long intellectual life, I had to be a fool.”

Although he built his reputation in his ethnographic field work in Sri Lanka, Dr. Obizker later moved away from traditional anthropology to include philosophy, sociology and literary criticism.

In other works of his main works, “The Awark NEAR: The phenomenon of insight experience” (2012), he studied Sufism through a variety of cultures and time periods. By touching Hinduism, Buddhism, and William Blake’s hair, he found embrace similar to a different kind of thinking.

He said in 2015: “This is irrational,” not necessarily irrational, “he said in 2015.

Gananath Obisikir (clearly Na Nat “obedience to” Say Kara) was born on February 2, 1930, in Megama, in the western province of what is now known as Sri Lanka, but his family moved to Colombo, the capital, when he was 5 years old, his father, without Darlladosa Obizicri, could teach him Ayurveda, medicine. His mother, the building of (Canangara) Obizker, died when he was very young.

He enrolled in private schools in the British model and overcame British culture, then he studied English literature at the University of Ceylon (which later was divided into four institutions).

After graduation in 1955, he had the opportunity to continue studying literature. But he was also interested in collecting stories and studying folklore in the countryside, and he chose to follow anthropology instead.

He married Rangini Elepola in 1958. With their son Aseeta, she survived, as another son did, Instarat; Their daughter, Nalnika Obizicire; Three grandchildren and one grandson.

Dr. Obeyesekere obtained a master’s and doctorate degree, both in anthropology, from the University of Washington, where he also taught it. He later taught at the University of California San Diego and Bruneston, where he served as head of the Anthropology Department from 1980 until his retirement in 2000.

Dr. Obizker’s early work included “possession of lands in the village of Ceylon: a social and historical study” (1967) and “worship of the goddess Patini” (1984), both of which turn into the culture and policy of his country of origin.

in A 2003 interview with the University of California, BerkeleyHe said that his great intellectual mission was to study the way whose ideas were filtered from one culture, whether it was the culture of South Asia across the West or vice versa.

“Even Buddhism was nominated across the West,” he said. “I am the product of that myself.”