His extensive work was based on fieldwork in his native Sri Lanka, as well as a deep study of English literature and Christian mysticism.
Gananath Obeyesekere, an anthropologist whose long career and broad social views, informed by Hindu texts, Freudian psychoanalysis and Christian mysticism, among many other ideas, made him a leading intellectual figure both in his native Sri Lanka and in the sophisticated world of Western academia, died Tuesday at his home in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He was 95.
His son Asita confirmed the death.
Dr. Obeyesekere was born in a small village in Sri Lanka at a time when the country, then known as Ceylon, was still under the rule of the British Empire. He spent much of his career teaching in the United States, primarily at Princeton, where he earned a reputation as a critical voice in debates about colonialism, pluralism, and the possibility of finding commonalities across cultural differences.
Long a prominent figure among scholars, he broke into the public consciousness in 1992 with his book The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific.
Captain James Cook was a British explorer who, after being greeted with great fanfare by the Hawaiian people in 1779, unexpectedly returned and was murdered by the same people who had warmly welcomed him earlier.
It was widely believed among historians and anthropologists that the islanders believed Captain Cook to be a god and that his return from a broken mast on his ship inadvertently confirmed the belief in an exiled god who would one day be defeated by their leader.
