Karma and Rebirth: A Cross Cultural Study

With Karma and Rebirth: A Cross Cultural Study on the very first comparison of rebirth concepts across a wide range of cultures. Exploring in rich detail the beliefs of small scale indigenous societies of West Africa, Melanesia, and 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 authoritiative discussion decenters the popular notion that India was the origin and locus of ideas of rebirth.

About the Author:

Gananath Obeyesekere is chairman of the Department of Anthropology at Princeton University. He is the author of Medusa’s Hair, also published by the University of Chicago Press.