and direct grass-root contacts with literature, by funcfioning as practical critics with all the necessary equipment and substantial help from our native common sense. That Maharashtrian critics and aestheticians should have wasted about thirty years in dealing with a particularly weak, small branch of the great tree of the aesthetics of the Kantian-Hegelian tradition bears ample testimony to their nai-vete and all-round ignorance. They were deluded into believing that this weak branch has great importance in the world aesthetic thought. To give it a slight jolt was thought to be an event of international significance; to give it some support was also regarded as an equally significant event. If we had devoted even half of this time to the study of the Kantian-Hegelian tree itself perhaps we would have been able to produce a small corpus of theoretical writing of good quality. Thirty years is a small period in the entire history ofMaharashtra. If we have our feet planted firmly in reality, and if we make all-round, honest, and determined efforts along proper lines, it is probable'that an aesthetic theory which we can legitimately call our own may emerge in the next fifty or hundred years. When we call an aesthetic theory our own, it is implied that it is the creation not of any one individual, however brilliant he may be, but of a whole art tradition, a whole socio-cultural group. Let us hope that during this period an equal amount of work of good quality will have been done in natural sciences and humanities, and all sensible people will have been convinced that these other field of inquiry are more important than aesthetics. Aesthetics will then get its due place; even if it turns out to be low, it will be its legitimate place. 66 Journal of Arts & Ideas