Dalit Aesthetics- An Alternative Way of Looking into Literature

Abstract

Abstract

?The margins of the nation displace the center; the peoples of the periphery return to rewrite the history and fiction of the metropolis?. (Homi Bhabha. 1990:6) Among the literary reviewers and critics of literature, it has always been a controversial question to fix ?What constitutes the literariness of a work of literature?? In its response, many scholars have tried to formulate various theories since the birth of literature till now. Their theories incorporate various rules, in other words literary aesthetics, which are a pre-requisite for every standard work of art and literature. In the Indian context, the classical rules of literature are found in Bharatmuni’s Natyasastra, an ancient Sanskrit text on dramaturgy, and other Brahmanic books written in Sanskrit. Since most of the books written on the above formula are religious, they can?t represent the whole of the Indian society because it is divided into Vernas which are; Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Sudra. This classification is based on the following maxim of Purusukta of Rig-Veda which describes: