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"Throughout his career, Obeyesekere has combined psychoanalysis and anthropology to illuminate the relationship between personal symbolism and religious experience. In this book, he begins with Buddha's visionary trances wherein, over the course of four hours, he witnesses hundreds of thousands of his past births and eons of world evolution, renewal, and disappearance. He then connects this fracturing of empirical and visionary time to the realm of space, considering the experience of a female Christian penitent, who stares devotedly at a tiny crucifix only to see the space around it expand to mirror Christ's suffering. Obeyesekere follows the unconscious motivations underlying rapture, the fantastical consumption of Christ's body and blood, and body mutilation and levitation, bridging medieval Catholicism and the movements of early modern thought as reflected in William Blake's artistic visions and poetic dreams. He develops the term 'dream-ego' through a discussion of visionary journeys, Carl Jung's and Sigmund Freud's scientific dreaming, and the cosmic and erotic dream-visions of New Age virtuosos, and he defines the parameters of a visionary mode of knowledge that provides a more elastic understanding of truth. A career-culminating work, this volume translates the epistemology of Hindu and Buddhist thinkers for western audiences while revitalizing western philosophical and scientific inquiry."--Jacket

Captain Cook and the European Imagination -- Myth Models -- Improvisation Rationality and Savage Thought -- The Third Coming: A Flashback to the South Seas -- The Visit to Tahiti and the Destruction of Eimeo -- The Discovery of Hawaii -- The Thesis of the Apotheosis -- Further Objections to the Apotheosis: Maculate Perceptions and Cultural Conceptions -- Anthropology and Pseudo-History -- Politics and the Apotheosis: A Hawaiian Perspective -- The Other Lono: Omiah, the Dalai Lama of the Hawaiians -- Cook, Lono, and the Makahiki Festival -- The Narrative Resumed: The Last Days -- The Death of Cook: British and Hawaiian Versions -- Language Games and the European Apotheosis of James Cook -- The Humanist Myth in New Zealand History -- The Resurrection and Return of James Cook -- The Versions of the Apotheosis in the Traditions of Sea Voyagers -- Cook, Fornication, and Evil: The Myth of the Missionaries -- On Native Histories: Myth, Debate, and Contentious Discourse -- Monterey Melons; or, A Native's Reflection on the Topic of Tropical Tropes -- Myth Models in Anthropological Narrative -- The Mourning and the Aftermath -- Appendix I: The Destruction of Hikiau and the Death of William Watman -- Appendix II: Kalii and the Divinity of Kings.

The paper deals with the language riots that occurred in summer 1984 between the Tamils and Sinhalese of Sri Lanka. It adopts the position that powerful elements within the govemment, especially the govemment trade union, were involved in these riots. The riots were moreover reflective of the political institutionalization of violence in Sri Lanka and herald the demise of democracy. The Sinhala-Tamil antagonisms and their historical background as well as their significance for the future are discussed in detail.

One must be very humane to say, 'I don't know that,' to afford ignorance.- Friedrich Nietzsche, aphorism 229 in The Will to Power. Most Sri Lankans assume that due to the contemporary absence of a Brahmin presence there have been no Brahmins in Sri Lanka at all, particularly among the Sinhalas, except in Jaffna and other Hindu areas where a small number of Brahmin and non-Brahmin kurukkals officiate in major temples. For Sinhala Buddhist areas, there is no record of Brahmins from the nineteenth century onwards although it is evident from historical evidence that Brahmin purhitas were present in most, if not all the kingdoms of Sri Lanka. It is often assumed that Brahmins were not part of the general population, in spite of the fact that there were constant South Indian migrations throughout history. However, palm leaf manuscripts collected over the last 10 years and written from the sixteenth century onwards by village intellectuals not only refer to the mass immigration of South Indian people but also deal with Brahmin movements into Sri Lanka, and list some of the villages they were settled in. Several contain the term Brahmin or bamunu and hence village names such as Bamunugama and Kiribamuna. Texts from an important shrine for god Skanda in the Uva district mention its founding by two Brahmin brothers and their descendants who have non-Brahmin names. Dutch sources mention the existence of Brahmins in the city of Kandy during the reign of King Vimaladharmasuriya (1591–1604). The question then is: where have all the Brahmins gone? A clue is found in two palm leaf manuscripts from the mid-seventeenth and mid-eighteenth centuries that list the names of important families in the Matale district, north of Kandy. They mention several prominent goyigama/vellala (farmer caste) families with the name 'Brahmana' attached to it. The article suggests that given the numerical and political importance of the goyigama caste, various migrant groups, be they merchants or Brahmins, were assimilated into that caste with the more prominent Brahmins often placed in its aristocratic segment ( radala). Recent research indicates the constant movement of Brahmins from the north to the very south of India from ancient times, and it is improbable that they did not extend their journeys into Sri Lanka. The article demonstrates their movements into Sri Lanka where they were in a sense 'demoted' in terms of the classical varna scheme but 'promoted' in terms of Sri Lankan values. The speaker will also briefly discuss the local variations of the varna scheme in relation to Brahmin migratory movements.

Cook: The Extraordinary Voyages of Captain James Cook. Nicholas Thomas. New York: Walker and Co., 2003. 467 pp.