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"The aim of anthropology is the enlargement of the human discourse," Clifford Geertz persuasively observed.1 This is what Obeyesekere's 1982 Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures achieve. In this volume they are considerably expanded (289 pages, plus extensive footnotes and bibliography) and presented as four lectures whose headings succinctly outline the dimensions of the author's concepts and approach. He combines vivid ethnographic field accounts with South Asian mythologies. The focus is on the manifest variations of oedipal currents. He paints a lively picture of them against the background of the prevailing ethos ("Buddhist Sri Lanka glorifies the son who kills the father, whereas Hindu India glorifies the son who submits" [p. 138]) and characteristic life styles. The study culminates in a broad and involved exposition that occasionally is not easy to follow. He supports Freud's early topographic model in his effort to gain understanding of some of the origins and vicissitudes of human interaction.
It is not often that one has the privilege of reviewing a work of rare erudition. It deals with the essential affinity of basic human predicaments and the modalities of object relationships. Obeyesekere integrates detailed field observations made in his home country of Sri Lanka with what he gained from many years of Western education, not only in his own field but also in twentieth century sociology and philosophy. Although his conceptualizations are largely guided by Freud, his familiarity with Max Weber, Dilthey,