Trobriand and buddhist rebirth and the fate of soul: the "Virgin birth" debate revisited
Date
2007
Authors
Obeyesekere, Gananath
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Peradeniya
Abstract
The Trobriand islanders of New Guinea, like many other small- scale societies, believed in the reincarnation of deceased ancestors but without a b.Jief in karma. The wide prevalence of such rebirth theories goes counter to the notion that South Asia was their original locus of such theories. In early anthropology the conventional view was that the Trobrianders, like the Australian Aborigines, were ignorant of physiological paternity and apparently believed that conception occurred when an ancestor as a spirit entity entered a womb of a woman from the same matrilineal clan. This thesis was further spelled out and documented in great detail by Bronislaw Malinowski, one of the founding fathers of anthropology. In the 1960s Malinowski's thesis produced fractious debates by leading anthropologists in the journal Man. This article revisits the old debate with a fresh point of view and suggests that the anthropological debate ignores the multiple discourses on procreation that prevailed among the Trobrianders and smothers women's voices. It then compares the dominant Trobriand conception of birth with a minor tradition of procreation in Buddhism known as opapatika or spontaneous births and discourses at length on the birth of the Buddha as an example of "virgin birth" analogous to the Christian. The essay concludes with an examination of related rebirth theories among the ancient Greeks especially Empedocles and Plato, the latter whom the present author, arguing against established opinion, thinks was a "rebirth fanatic".
Description
Keywords
Buddhist , Trobriand
Citation
Modern Sri Lanka Studies, Vol. 2 ,No.1, 2007, pp.21-49