Imagining Karma: Ethical Transformation in Amerindian, Buddhist, and Greek RebirthUniversity of California Press, 2002 M11 11 - 477 pages 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. |
Contents
KARMA AND REBIRTH IN INDIC RELIGIONS Origins and Transformations | 1 |
NONINDIC THEORIES OF REBIRTH | 19 |
THE TROBRIAND MODEL | 28 |
NORTHWEST COAST INDIANS AND INUIT ESKIMO | 37 |
HUMAN AND ANIMAL TRANSFORMATIONS | 43 |
KINSHIP REBIRTH AND DESIRE | 46 |
REBIRTH DESIRE AND THE RETURN OF THE DEAD | 50 |
AN ETHICAL DILEMMA AMONG THE KWAKIUTL | 58 |
ETHICIZATION AND THE CREATION OF A GODMAKING MACHINE | 168 |
ETHICIZATION AND AXIOLOGIZATION | 173 |
BUDDHISM AXIOLOGIZATION AND THE VEDIC TRADITION | 176 |
HOMO HIERARCHICUS AND HOMO AEQUALIS IN INDIA | 182 |
ESCHATOLOGY AND SOTERIOLOGY IN GREEK REBIRTH | 190 |
A PROBABLE MYTHOS | 193 |
PYTHAGOREAN BEGINNINGS AND LIFEWAYS | 200 |
PYTHAGOREAN SOTERIOLOGY | 207 |
CONCLUDING REMARKS | 70 |
THE IMAGINARY EXPERIMENT AND THE BUDDHIST IMPLICATIONS | 72 |
EMERGENCE OF THE KARMIC ESCHATOLOGY | 78 |
THE EARLIEST INDIC MODEL | 84 |
THE MODEL AND THE BUDDHIST INTERCONNECTIONS | 88 |
THE SAMANIC RELIGIONS | 97 |
CONTEMPORARY TRIBAL RELIGIONS | 98 |
ETHICIZATION AXIOLOGY AND THE BRAHMANIC TRADITION | 99 |
THE DOCTRINES OF THE ĀJĪVIKAS | 102 |
CONTENTIOUS DISCOURSES IN BUDDHIST THOUGHT | 108 |
ETHICAL PROPHECY AND ETHICAL ASCETICISM | 115 |
RATIONALIZATION AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF THOUGHT | 120 |
TEMPORALITY IMPERMANENCE NIRVANA | 125 |
KARMA CAUSALITY AND THE APORIAS OF EXISTENCE | 129 |
ETHICIZATION KARMA AND EVERYDAY LIFE | 140 |
ASCETIC RELIGIOSITY AND THE ESCAPE FROM THE WORLD | 144 |
THE BUDDHIST ASCESIS | 150 |
THE RENUNCIATORY IDEAL IN THE BUDDHIST IMAGINATION | 158 |
THE LIFE FATE OF THE BUDDHIST DEAD | 160 |
ECSTASIS ENSTASIS AND SPIRIT POSSESSION | 164 |
ETHICIZATION AND SOTERIOLOGY IN EMPEDOCLES | 214 |
POPULAR RELIGIOSITY IN PINDAR | 232 |
PLATO AND THE MYTH OF ER | 240 |
REBIRTH AND REASON | 249 |
THE SOTERIOLOGY AND ESCHATOLOGY OF THE PHAEDRUS | 254 |
THE COSMOLOGY OF THE TIMAEUS | 258 |
COSMOLOGICAL HOMOEROTICISM HETEROPHOBIA AND FEMALE NATURE IN PLATONIC REBIRTH | 266 |
ETHICIZATION AND SOTERIOLOGY IN THE PLATONIC DIALOGUES | 270 |
REBIRTH MEMORY AND RETROCOGNITION | 275 |
REASON CONVICTION AND ESCHATOLOGY IN PLATONIC BUDDHIST AND AMERINDIAN THOUGHT | 283 |
PLOTINIAN ESCHATOLOGY AND SOTERIOLOGY | 287 |
THE DRUZE CASE | 308 |
IMPRISONING FRAMES AND OPEN DEBATES Trobriander Buddhist and Balinese Rebirth Revisited | 319 |
BUDDHISM PROCREATION AND REBIRTH | 331 |
CONTENTIOUS DISCOURSES ON REBIRTH AND KARMIC ESCHATOLOGIES | 334 |
METHODOLOGICAL POSTSCRIPT | 344 |
NOTES | 361 |
BIBLIOGRAPHY | 413 |
429 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Ājīvika Amerindian ancestor animals aporia balian Balinese baloma become beliefs birth Boas body born Brahmin Buddha Buddhist conception cultural daimon dead death discourse divine doctrine Druze early earth eating Empedocles Ennead ethical ethnographic existence father gods Greek Guthrie hamatsa heaven hell History human world Iamblichus Ibid idea ideal Igbo important incarnation Indian Inuit Jaina Janavasabha Jātaka karma karma theory karmic eschatology Kwakiutl later living logic Love Malinowski monks moral myth myth of Er nirvana Northwest Coast notion Orphic otherworld Pali person Phaedo philosopher Plato Plotinus Plotinus's possess Precepts Presocratic punishment Pythagoras Pythagorean reality realm rebirth cycle rebirth eschatology rebirth theories reborn refers reincarnation religions religious rewards ritual salvation says scholars sense sentience sexual shamanic small-scale societies social Socrates soteriology soul species sentience spirit structural Sutta texts thinkers thought Timaeus tion Tlingit tradition trans transformations Trobriand Tuma University Press Upanishadic Vedic Wet'suwet'en womb
References to this book
What about Asia?: Revisiting Asian Studies Josine Stremmelaar,Paul van der Velde No preview available - 2006 |