Imagining Karma: Ethical Transformation in Amerindian, Buddhist, and Greek Rebirth - Couverture souple

Livre 7 sur 8: Comparative Studies in Religion and Society

Obeyesekere, Gananath

 
9780520232433: Imagining Karma: Ethical Transformation in Amerindian, Buddhist, and Greek Rebirth
Couverture souple
ISBN 10 : 0520232437 ISBN 13 : 9780520232433
Editeur : University of California Press, 2002

Synopsis

With Imagining Karma, Gananath Obeyesekere embarks on the very first comparison of rebirth concepts across a wide range of cultures. Exploring in rich detail the beliefs of small-scale societies of West Africa, Melanesia, traditional Siberia, Canada, and the northwest coast of North America, Obeyesekere compares their ideas with those of the ancient and modern Indic civilizations and with the Greek rebirth theories of Pythagoras, Empedocles, Pindar, and Plato. His groundbreaking and authoritative discussion decenters the popular notion that India was the origin and locus of ideas of rebirth. As Obeyesekere compares responses to the most fundamental questions of human existence, he challenges readers to reexamine accepted ideas about death, cosmology, morality, and eschatology.

Obeyesekere's comprehensive inquiry shows that diverse societies have come through independent invention or borrowing to believe in reincarnation as an integral part of their larger cosmological systems. The author brings together into a coherent methodological framework the thought of such diverse thinkers as Weber, Wittgenstein, and Nietzsche. In a contemporary intellectual context that celebrates difference and cultural relativism, this book makes a case for disciplined comparison, a humane view of human nature, and a theoretical understanding of "family resemblances" and differences across great cultural divides.

Les informations fournies dans la section « Synopsis » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

À propos de l?auteur

Gananath Obeyesekere is Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, at Princeton University. He is the author of The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific (1997), The Cult of the Goddess Pattini (1984), Medusa's Hair: An Essay on Personal Symbols and Religious Experience (1984), and The Work of Culture: Symbolic Transformation in Psychoanalysis and Anthropology (1990).

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Éditeur
University of California Press
Date d'édition
2002
Langue
anglais
ISBN 10 
0520232437
ISBN 13 
9780520232433
Reliure
Broché
Nombre de pages
480
Coordonnées du fabricant
non disponible
Personne responsable
non disponible

Autres éditions populaires du même titre

9780520232204: Imagining Karma: Ethical Transformation in Amerindian, Buddhist, and Greek Rebirth

Edition présentée

ISBN 10 :  0520232208 ISBN 13 :  9780520232204
Editeur : University of California Press, 2002
Couverture rigide