Philosophical Writings

Author(s): Hemant Shah
Publisher: Academy of Philosophy

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of beauty. The theory of imagination of Bhattanayak emphasised universalisation of experience. The aesthetic bliss is compared to Divine bliss.
Abhinavagupta is of the openion that the aesthetic experience is an act of tasting rasa tasting beauty. It is based on human emotions and is essentially pleasurable. It is a state of bliss.
Philosophical Writings
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"In Indian poetics the aesthetic experience is a state of transcendental joy or a state of self fulfilment."
About the Nature of aesthetic pleasure, unlike Plato, Marx and Freud who think it to be psycho-physical pleasure, Indian Scholars think like Kant and Hegel - a kind of Spiritual pleasure. "In the final analysis, aesthetic experience can be explained as a complex experience, pleasant in essence, in which the emotional and intellectual elements are blended in subtle harmony. It has a separate identity because it is more refined than the emotional pleasure and more colourful than the intellectual pleasure".23
2.6.1. In Advait Philosophy :
Liberation from root ignorance, according to Advait Vedant, is the ultimate value of human life. The taste of Divine Bliss can be had when a man enters the woid of art and beauty. When he enters such a world, being free form passions and desires, he will be capable of spiritual pleasure. Aesthetic pleasure does not, thus, differ in quality from the Divine bliss. Aesthetic pleasure leads an individual to the Spiritual pleasure.
2.6.2. In Sankhya School beauty is in sharp contrast to Vedantic School. Sankhya maintains that the world is both : pleasure and pain, beauty and ugliness. This eternal dualism distrubs only wordly beings and not the liberated ones. According to Sankhya School, the aesthetic pleasure, pure bliss can dawn only when the Satva element - the good dominates over the other.
2.6.3. In Esoteric Phi. of Upanishad: The Absolute is equated with Rasa and all delight is traced unto it. Mahatma Gandhi observes "Indian Philosophy and aesthetics not only recognise