Gananath Obeyesekere
E1017893
Gananath Obeyesekere is a Sri Lankan anthropologist renowned for his influential work on South Asian religions, myth, and the cultural interpretation of Buddhism.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Gananath Obeyesekere canonical | 5 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T13035221 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Gananath Obeyesekere Context triple: [Buddhist modernism, studiedBy, Gananath Obeyesekere]
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A.
Hildred Geertz
Hildred Geertz was an American anthropologist and scholar of Indonesian society, known for her ethnographic work and long association with Princeton University.
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B.
Colin Gordon
Colin Gordon was a British character actor known for his numerous film and television roles in the mid-20th century, often portraying officious or bureaucratic figures.
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C.
B. L. Mitter
B. L. Mitter was an Indian lawyer and constitutional expert who served on the Constituent Assembly’s Drafting Committee that framed the Constitution of India.
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D.
Marshall Hodgson
Marshall Hodgson was an influential American historian of Islam and world civilizations, best known for his seminal work "The Venture of Islam" and for reshaping understandings of Islamic and Persianate history.
-
E.
R. C. Zaehner
R. C. Zaehner was a prominent 20th-century British scholar of comparative religion and mysticism, known for his influential writings on Eastern religions and their relationship to Western thought.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Gananath Obeyesekere Target entity description: Gananath Obeyesekere is a Sri Lankan anthropologist renowned for his influential work on South Asian religions, myth, and the cultural interpretation of Buddhism.
-
A.
Hildred Geertz
Hildred Geertz was an American anthropologist and scholar of Indonesian society, known for her ethnographic work and long association with Princeton University.
-
B.
Colin Gordon
Colin Gordon was a British character actor known for his numerous film and television roles in the mid-20th century, often portraying officious or bureaucratic figures.
-
C.
B. L. Mitter
B. L. Mitter was an Indian lawyer and constitutional expert who served on the Constituent Assembly’s Drafting Committee that framed the Constitution of India.
-
D.
Marshall Hodgson
Marshall Hodgson was an influential American historian of Islam and world civilizations, best known for his seminal work "The Venture of Islam" and for reshaping understandings of Islamic and Persianate history.
-
E.
R. C. Zaehner
R. C. Zaehner was a prominent 20th-century British scholar of comparative religion and mysticism, known for his influential writings on Eastern religions and their relationship to Western thought.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
academic
ⓘ
anthropologist ⓘ author ⓘ person ⓘ |
| citizenship | Sri Lanka ⓘ |
| coAuthorWith | Richard Gombrich ⓘ |
| educatedAt |
University of Ceylon
ⓘ
University of Washington ⓘ |
| employer | Princeton University ⓘ |
| familyName | Obeyesekere ⓘ |
| fieldOfWork |
Buddhist studies
ⓘ
South Asian studies ⓘ anthropology ⓘ mythology studies ⓘ religious studies ⓘ |
| givenName | Gananath ⓘ |
| hasAcademicDiscipline |
cultural anthropology
ⓘ
historical anthropology ⓘ |
| influenced |
anthropological studies of Buddhism
ⓘ
scholarship on South Asian religions ⓘ |
| influencedBy |
Clifford Geertz
ⓘ
Sigmund Freud ⓘ |
| knownFor |
cultural interpretation of Buddhism
ⓘ
studies of myth and ritual ⓘ work on South Asian religions ⓘ |
| languageOfWorkOrName |
English
ⓘ
Sinhala ⓘ |
| name | Gananath Obeyesekere ⓘ |
| nationality | Sri Lankan ⓘ |
| notableIdea |
critique of European myth-making about Captain Cook
ⓘ
reinterpretation of Buddhist and Hindu symbols in Sri Lanka ⓘ |
| notableWork |
Buddhism Transformed
ⓘ
Imagining Karma ⓘ Medusa’s Hair ⓘ The Apotheosis of Captain Cook ⓘ The Cult of the Goddess Pattini ⓘ |
| occupation |
anthropologist
ⓘ
professor ⓘ |
| placeOfBirth | Sri Lanka ⓘ |
| positionHeld | Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University ⓘ |
| researchInterest |
Buddhist ritual
ⓘ
Hinduism in Sri Lanka ⓘ anthropology of religion ⓘ colonial encounters in the Pacific ⓘ myth and symbolism ⓘ |
| theoreticalApproach |
interpretive anthropology
ⓘ
psychoanalytic approaches to culture ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Gananath Obeyesekere Description of subject: Gananath Obeyesekere is a Sri Lankan anthropologist renowned for his influential work on South Asian religions, myth, and the cultural interpretation of Buddhism.
Referenced by (5)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.