Jain Journal 1990 01

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 23

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JAIN JOURNAL
person alone feels joy or satisfaction on hearing tragic news and is distressed on hearing good news. Thus karuna and other painful rasas produce sorrow and nothing but sorrow.
The seat of rasa is the original character, the spectator, the hearer or the poet himself. Generally speaking, an actor does not experience the aesthetic delight, but it is not an absolute or invariable rule that he never experiences rasa. For example, a harlot who, through avarice or cupidity enters into amorous dalliance for the pleasure of others, may at times herself experience great delight; a singer singing to delight others at times himself experiences great delight. Similarly an actor while playing the role of a character may at times be completely absorbed by that role and experience rasa.9
It is quite clear from the very definition of rasa, given by the Natyadarpana (III.7), that it holds, like Lollata, that rasa is laukika (as in actuality). It holds rasa to be alaukika only in the sense that the vibhāvas as depicted in a play or poem are not real. In the case of a real man and a real woman the rasa is apprehended vividly because its vibhāvas are actually present ; and it is on account of this actuality that the vyabhicārins and anubhāvas produced by rasa are clearly perceptible. In the case of a spectator or an actor however the rasa is apprehended only indistinctly for the vibhāvas portrayed in a play or a poem do not have real existence. Consequently the vyabhicărins and the anubhāvas too which follow rasa are not clearly perceptible. That is why the rasa, apprehended in a spectator is called alaukika (not of actuality, non-worldly, supranormal).10
It would seem from the above that the authors of the Natyadarpana, strongly differ with Abhinavagupta on two points regarding rasa. Abhinavagupta holds all the eight (nine, includingśānta) rasas to be pleasurable (ānandarūpa) whereas these authors speak of two distinct groups of rasa: 1 śrugărādi (the erotic and others), which are pleasurable and 2 karunādi (pathos and others), which are unpleasurable or painful. Abhinavagupta locates rasa primarily in the spectator (or hearer) whereas these locate rasa in the original character, the spectator (or the hearer), the poet and at times even the actor.
Natyadarpana, p. 142. 10 Ibid., 143
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