Gananath Obeysekere's 'foolishness' and the liberation from complicities

One of the most fascinating lectures I’ve attended is the one delivered by Gananath Obeysekere at the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka on the Vädda, more than twenty years ago.

- BY MALINDA SENEVIRATNE

It was based on research conducted in the Bibile region with H G Dayasisira in 1999-2001.Further research had been conducted between 2007 and 2009. The project apparently was one that 'envisaged a critique and a followup of 'The Veddas,' the classic study by C G and Brenda Z Seligmann who believed they were dealing with one of the world's most 'primitive' hunting and gathering groups. The outcome of the exercise was Gananath's 2002 book 'The Creation of the Hunter.'

The title has the following rider: 'The Vädda presence in the Kandyan Kingdom: A reexamination.' The keyword is 'reexamination.' Obeysekere revisits the wild man thesis offered by the Seligmanns and of course his own research a decade or so before. Indeed, Obeysekere's academic life is essentially filled with re-visitations of one kind or another.

Liyanage Amarakeerthi, in a speech delivered in August 2023 on the occasion of an event where Obeysekere handed over his personal library, the Obeysekere Collection, to the University of Peradeniya, details instances where Obeysekere has challenged received knowledge. For example, he cites Obeysekere's engagement with Edmund Leach in 'Medusa's Hair,' with Marshall Sahlins in 'The apotheosis of Captain Cook,' with Western rationalism in 'Awakened Ones: Phenomenology of Visionary Experience,' and with what Amarakeerthi sees as 'nationalist forces that brought the county down, [by] promoting extreme chauvinism and xenophobia,' in 'The many faces of the Kandyan Kingdom.' One could add to this, 'Buddhism Transformed: Religious Change in Sri Lanka,' which Gananath coauthored by Richard Gombrich.