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1562
SAHṚDAYALOKA
solely of a tasting and has not the nature of an object of cognition, etc. "But how then do you think that the expression which Bharata uses in the sutra can be justified when he says: "The production of Rasa (rasa-niṣpatti)"? This expression, we reply, must be understood in the sense of a production, not of Rasa, but of the tasting which refers to the Rasa (tad-viṣaya-rasana). Likewise, if the expression "The production of Rasa" is understood in the sense of a production of a Rasa whose subsistence is exclusively depending on the said tasting, our thesis is not beset by any difficulty.
Besides, this tasting is neither the fruit of the operation of the means of cognition nor of the means of action. On the other hand, it can be said that, in itself, it is not ascertained by any means of aknowledge (a-prāmāṇika), for its real existence is an inconfutable datum of our own consciousness (sva-samvedanasiddha). This tasting, moreover, is, no doubt, solely a form of cognition, but a form of cognition different from any other ordinary perception.
This difference is due to the fact that the means of it, that is, the determinants, etc., are of a non-ordinary character. To conclude: What is produced by the combination (samyoga) of the Determinants, etc., is the tasting (rasanā); and the rasa is the non-ordinary reality, which is the matter of this tasting. This is the sense and purport of the sutra.
Abhinavagupta gives the summary of what he has dicussed at length above in the words (A.bh., pp. 22, ibid) :
"ayam atra samkṣepaḥ. mūkuṭa-pratiśīrṣakā"dinā tāvan nata-buddhir acchadyate. gāḍha-prāktana-samvit-samskārāc ca kavya-bala"nīyamānápi na tatra ramadhir viśramyati. ata eva ubhaya-deśa-kāla-tyāgaḥ. romāñcā”dayaś ca bhūyasā rati-pratīti-kāritayā dṛṣṭās tatrávalokitā deśakāla-niyamena ratim gamayanti. yasyām svā❞tmápi tadvāsanāvattvād anupraviṣṭaḥ. ata eva na tatasthataya raty avagamaḥ, na ca niyata-kāraṇatayā, yena arjanábhiṣvangā”di -sambhāvanā. na ca niyata-parātmaika-gata-tayā, yena duḥkha-dveṣā"dyudayaḥ. tena sādhāraṇībhūtā samtana-vṛtter ekasyā eva vā samvido gocarībhūtā ratiḥ śṛngāraḥ. sādhāraṇībhāvanā ca vibhāvā"dibhir iti."
Gnoli translates (pp. 86, 87, ibid) :-"All this may be summarized in the following way in the first place, the identity of the actor as such is concealed by tiaras, headwear, etc.; in the second place, the idea that he is Rāma, etc., aroused by the power of the poem, neverthless does not succeed in imposing itself upon the idea of the actor, for the latent traces of the said idea are strongly impressed on the
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