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THE INFLUENCE OF VARIOUS DARŠANAS ON THE INTERPRETATION AND PRESENTATION OF
THE RASA THEORY
P. R. VORA
Indian tradition often tries to claim a divine authorship for every Sastra or to trace its origin to the Vedas or seeks to establish its approval by the Sști or Smrti. Bharata too traces the origin of the Nātya-Šāstra or the Nātya-Vedal as he prefers to call it, to the Brahma2-deva, who on his part drew upon the four Vedas for the main subject-matter of his work.3
It is, therefore, not surprising if scholars, both ancient and modern, try to associate the interpretations of the Rasa-Sūtra given by the early writers on dramaturgy like Bhatta Lollata and others with the one or the other of systems of Indian philosophy. Thus Lollața is thought to be a Mimāmsaka,4 Sankuka is considered to have based his interpretation on the Nyāya Darśanas, Bhatta Nāyaka is understood to have followed the Samkhya Darśana, while Abhinavagupta is mostly accepted to have interpreted the Rasa-Sūtra according to the Kashmir Saiva philosophy. We shall discuss how far these claims are justifiable and proper.
It is, however, worth noting that the poet's world is declared by all rhetoricians to be, not merely, quite distinct from but also by far superior to the Creator's world. Here the poet is the monarch8 of all he surveys with 'none his right to dispute'. His world is in short alaukika. How far, therefore, is it proper to apply the norms and standards laid down by the laukika darśanas for evaluating Rasa which is itself alaukika ? The particular darśanas by themselves should, therefore, be thought to be unable to account for the process of nātyarasa-svāda, for it is far beyond their pale.
The rhetoricians and even śāstrakāras also do not countenance the application of the standards of the Šāstras to the field of poetry which has its
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