Abstract. Let C g be a smooth projective irreducible curve over C of genus g ≥ 1 and let {p 1 , . . . , p s } be a set of distinct points on C g . We fix a nonnegative integer and denote by M g (p, λ) the moduli space of parabolic semistable vector bundles of rank r on C g with trivial determinant and fixed parabolic structure of type λ = (λ 1 , . . . , λ s ) at p = (p 1 , . . . , p s ), where each weight λ i is in P (SL(r)). On M g (p, λ) there is a canonical line bundle L(λ, ), whose global sections are called generalized parabolic SL(r)-theta functions of order . In this paper we prove the existence of such nonzero nonabelian theta functions, thus establishing a part of higher genus generalizations of the celebrated saturation conjectures.