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1403
"Concept of Rasa" as seen in Anandavardhana and......
from the angle of sensation śā. has done it, over and above from the angle of sensation of happiness and unhappiness, also from the angle of the philosophical tenets of the Samkhya School of thought. We do not get this point clearly. But we will try to explain Bharata's approach and the fallacy in Śā.'s understanding later. Dr. M. M. Agrawal's approach is not acceptable to us for our own reasons.
But this does not deter us from appreciating the subtle and analytical approach Śā. has placed before us in considering the topic of 'bhava'. At the out-set we may note that Śā. has explained eight types of uddīpana-vibhāvas, and four types of anubhavas. We will go into greater details later.
One more point to be noted as distinguishing Śa.'s approach is that for him relish of rasa i.e. 'rasa-asvada' is different in type, when we take into account the aptitude, culture, intellectual equipment etc. of the enjoyer. Young people seek passion - physical aspect in the delineation of Śṛngāra, a person with 'money' or wealth at the centre of his psyche will consider achievement of wealth in it, i.e. 'artha-labha' will be sought after by such a person even in Śṛngāra, etc. A brave man has a leaning towards appréciation of adventure only and regards such theme as the best, and a learned man has fascination for philosophical considerations over anything else. This type of subjective and preferential attitude to rasa-relish has - roots, more in psychology, we feel, than in pure aesthetics.
Agrawal observes that Bharata's approach to the problem of rasa concerns dramatic art in chief and later writers (on poetics) placed poetry in the centre. But Śā. has a fusion of both these angles. This observation is also debatable. We feel that Bharata kept 'drama' in focus while discussing 'rasa' not because he was ignorant of the applicability of rasa-theory to literature or any other art for that matter. But he did it because his work dealt with drama and dramatic art in particular and hence his application of rasa-theory was drama-oriented. But at a number of places, we have yet to find time to count, Bharata has talked of "kavyarasa" also. That 'rasa' theory was catholic enough to cover all art, including drama, poetry, music, dance, architecture, sculpture, painting and what not, was clear to Bharata and to Anandavardhana and other writers alamkaraśāstra who applied rasa-theory to poetry. That rasa-theory was germane to all the arts was known to all aestheticians beginning with Bharata down to Jagannatha and even his followers. Śā. is just one of those. We will now first pick up the thread concerning 'bhāva', along with a close reference to the text of the B.P. and then 'rasa', applying the same methodology. Our observations are going to be critical and neutral or dispassionate.
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