{"id":241358,"date":"2025-03-26T21:19:24","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T15:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=241358"},"modified":"2025-04-08T16:43:43","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T11:13:43","slug":"gananath-obeyesekere-is-no-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/gananath-obeyesekere-is-no-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Gananath Obeyesekere Is No More"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><strong>By <a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=H.+L.+Seneviratne\">H. L. Seneviratne<\/a> &#8211;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_110225\" style=\"width: 152px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-110225\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-110225\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/H.L.-Seneviratne-142x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"142\" height=\"150\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-110225\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Prof. H.L. Seneviratne<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Gananath Obeyesekere\u2019s contribution to anthropology is vast and varied, and few have combined theory and empirical fact so skillfully as he has done. At the time he graduated from the University of Ceylon, the dominant variety of anthropology was British Social Anthropology, and talented young students seeking further study went to England, in particular to the prestigious universities like Oxford, Cambridge and London. <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Gananath+Obeyesekere\">Gananath<\/a><\/span> defied this custom by seeking higher education in the United States. He joined the graduate program at the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, where the anthropology programme included the study of psychology. His primary teacher at Washington was Melford Spiro, perhaps the country\u2019s best known psychological anthropologist. Thus, exposed to both British Social Anthropology and American Anthropology with its strong psychological content, Gananath had forged for himself an anthropology that has expressed itself in 20 or so books, and numerous articles in learned journals.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-93555\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Gananath.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"721\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Gananath.jpg 960w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Gananath-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Gananath-800x600.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":93555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2186,46,61,8,2375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-241358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-featured-news","category-constitutional-reforms","category-obituaries","category-editorial","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Gananath Obeyesekere Is No More - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/gananath-obeyesekere-is-no-more\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gananath Obeyesekere Is No More - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/gananath-obeyesekere-is-no-more\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-03-26T15:49:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-04-08T11:13:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Gananath.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"960\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"721\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"H.L. 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