CULTURE OF SATIRE: A STUDY OF SANSKRIT LITERATURE 0 0

Abstract

This paper attempts to deal with the question as to what is ‘satire’ and can we talk in terms of a culture of satire in our sources. The paper also seeks to critique the dominant historiographical position that satire as a genre is absent from Sanskrit literature. We have tried to show that Sanskrit literatures were deeply conscious of the political, social and religious inequities that were prevalent in their world and on these injustices, they used the whiplash of their satire sometimes blatantly but more frequently subtly to draw attention to and censure them. We also argue that sometimes a satirical gaze of an outsider is able to illuminate those cultural realities or peculiarities which are lost on the native populace.