ABSTRACT
This chapter re-appropriates the term ‘criticism’ so that it becomes more productive in the Indian context. We can immediately think of several useful ways of thus ‘re-covering’ criticism. One would be to interface it with parallel concepts from our own languages, such as vimarsa, sameeksha or samalochana, all words currently used in Hindi and several modern Indian languages. Take vimarsa, for instance, which means consideration, deliberation, trial, critical test, reasoning, discussion, knowledge and intelligence. But in Kashmir Shaivism, vimarsa refers to the Shakti or the cosmic energy that animates the world, while Shiva, or pure consciousness, is likened to prakasa or light. What happens when we make criticism and vimarsa converse with one another? Is the ensuing dialogue worth attending to? Perhaps, we shall be able to see texts – and the world – aright. Seeing aright may even lead to setting aright. Criticism, in other words, is not so much out there, well defined and organized; it is not regulated by a canon, kanoon, which we must aspire to or approximate. Rather, criticism is the name we give to interpretive and analytical tasks that we consider worthwhile, especially those undertaken in cooperation with peers in the field and resulting in some form of common or public good. Re-appropriating criticism for such an endeavour would combine Gandhi’s notion of sarvodaya or the welfare of all, with svaraj or autonomy. This chapter works out such possibilities by using the Samkhya category of gunas, or qualities, sattva, rajas and tamas or clarity, passion and inertia as modes of criticism.
