Since the purpose is to  pay a tribute to freedom of critical expression,

Questions of

    HOW was satirical criticism in ancient, classical India RECEIVED?

    Did anyone suffer on account of critical views expressed in Sanskrit?

Seem to be more central to this discussion.

To answer to this question ,

We can divide the possibility of ‘punishment’ for criticising into four kinds: When the criticised is

       1. a king

       2. a god /the God

       3. Entire society, a certain occupational  caste or other social group

       4. A school of philosophy, or an academic discipline

A king: That the kings were open to satire targeting them is the image at least as reflected in the folk narratives of Bhoja-Kalidasa, Akbar-Birbal, Krishnadevaraya-Tenalirama formula.

There is an interesting narrative which depicts just the opposite of the Sanskrit-Prakrit division between genders depicted by the Sanskrit Drama. It is the highly popular ‘modakaistaaDaya’ story. The king is mocked at here too. This narrative was allowed to get created and get passed on in the tradition.

A god/ the God : 1. Demon characters and other such anti-god characters are made to speak through satires targeting a god/the God. Usually such criticisms are ‘answered’ inside the narrative itself. Many poems narrating these stories used the instrument of vyaajastuti during such ridicules by the demon side. Such employment of vyaajastuti has a vairabhakti theory involved too. The demons ridiculing the God through satire are either considered to be ‘punished’ or in the case of Vairabhakti model narratives, the same ridicule through satire is considered to be a disguised path of devotion and is considered to be ‘rewarded’. Both the depictions are received with a devotional attitude as either examples of what not to do or interesting occurrences not meant to be emulated.

2. Sometimes there is an auto-criticism through auto-satire resorted to by the disguised gods/ God to ‘test’ the ‘lover’/devotee characters love/devotion. An example is S’iva’s criticism of himself in front of Parvati in his disguise as an old man. Parvati answers all the criticisms. One of the theorizations made to explain such portions of narratives is that the narrator incorporates this in order to answer the rival philosophical schools whose arguments he puts into the mouth of the self-criticising God. These are received as entertainingly educative debates/ conversations.

3. Playful satires by the poet-singers and poets in their intimately affectionate devotional lyrics. There is frequently vyaajastuti employed here too. These are received as highly entertaining expressions of intimate feelings towards the God.

4. Satires in the spiritual but not mythological/devotional/idol-worshipping yet ‘Hindu’ traditional lyrics. These too are not opposed. These are either overlooked by the mythological/devotional/idol-worshipping traditions as an equally valid but not their favourite tradition. Followers of the tradition to which the lyrics enjoy the fun in the satire and the criticism.  

Social Criticism: Society receives this without any opposition probably because everyone looks at it as not targeting himself/herself personally.

A school of philosophy, or an academic discipline : These satires interestingly take almost the form of proverbs of the learned and most of the times function as memorizing tools for certain crucial but difficult concepts of the discipline or school of thought. A student of a discipline or a school of thought enjoys these satires targeting his own favourite discipline or school.

Thanks for your patience.

Nagaraj