Gananath “Obey” Obeyesekere, professor of anthropology, emeritus, died at his home in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on March 25. He was 95.

An ethnographer of religion whose scholarship bridged the disciplines of anthropology and psychoanalysis, Obeyesekere was esteemed as a scholar for his expansive analyses of cultures and civilizations. His 1992 book, “The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific,” found a popular audience as well.

Obeyesekere’s research interests included religion, social theory, psychological anthropology, hermeneutics and South Asian studies, particularly in Sri Lanka and South India, where he conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork throughout his career.

Obeyesekere joined Princeton’s faculty in 1980 and transferred to emeritus status in 2000. He chaired the anthropology department from 1983 to 1988. A graduate of the University of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), he received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1964. Before coming to Princeton, he taught in his native Sri Lanka, at the University of Washington, and at the University of California, San Diego.

“An intellectual giant, Gananath Obeyesekere loved all things ethnographic and was a champion of the cross-pollination of East-West and South-North intellectual traditions. In book after book, he reshaped the foundations of anthropology, psychoanalysis, and the social study of religion,” said João Biehl, the Susan Dod Brown Professor of Anthropology and department chair. “In his fierce critique of coloniality, he refused to allow history to remain the property of its victors and articulated a creative ground where diverse cultural perspectives could meet and open up to the unknown.”

He is the author of the classics Medusa's Hair: An Essay on Personal Symbols and Religious Experience, The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific, The Work of Culture: Symbolic Transformation in Psychoanalysis and Anthropology, Imagining Karma: Ethical Transformation in Amerindian, Buddhist, and Greek Rebirth, Cannibal Talk: The Man-Eating Myth and Human Sacrifice in the South Seas, and The Awakened Ones: Phenomenology of Visionary Experience, among many others.

“Obeyesekere is a vital part of our department’s DNA, and his legacy inspires us to continue to strive, as he always did, to pursue the good, the just, the unexpected, and the transcendent to the best of our ability,” Biehl said. “A person of big ideas and an even bigger humanistic imagination, Obeyesekere was a gentle and thoughtful truth-teller and a quintessential free man. He remains a shining light to generations of colleagues and students at Princeton and beyond.”

Click here to read Princeton University's obituary, which includes reflections from former colleagues and students, “Gananath Obeyesekere, an anthropologist of religion and ‘intellectual giant,’ dies at 95.”

Click here to read a tribute to Obeyesekere in the Sri Lanka Guardian, “Obeyesekere: The Relentless Iconoclast”

Click here for The New York Times tribute, “Gananath Obeyesekere, 95, Dies; Anthropologist Bridged East and West.”