Bharata’s Natyaśastra, the Poetics of India: Postcolonial Readings of Bharata’s Natyaśastra in the Light of Aristotle’s Poetics

Abstract: 

This essay will present the reception of Aristotle’s Poetics by Indian scholars in the light of its comparison with Bharata’s Natyaśastra, by pla­cing the issue within the broader framework of post-colonial studies. I will start by providing a short introduction on the reception of classical antiquity in colonial and post-colonial India and then I shall attempt to demonstrate the difficulties inherent in the comparison between the two works, in order to argue that in gen­eral terms the interpretation of Bharata’s text is subordinated to and influenced by the signification of ‘national identity’. Equally importantly, this interpreta­tion produced a discourse that, while questioning Aristotle’s domination, it also took for granted the intellectual structures on which this domination was based.