________________
96
SOME ASPECTS OF THE RASA THEORY
One's own experience is bhāva while experience arising on seeing another
is vibhāva.45 Abhinava comments:
To those who are forgetful by nature, the author is indicating hy way of a telling analogy the exact nature of emotion (bhava), stimulant (vibhāva) and ensuant (anubhāva). That experience which is personally lived through, e. g., pleasure and pain, is bhāva. The word ātma or personal”. here rules out categorically the experiencing of things like a pot from the province of bhäva.46 And that is his last word on the subject.
The main thrust of this paper is to expose how Abhinava has been more often than not misunderstood by modern scholars. Sädhäranikarana is not a differentia of rasa; it is only a half-way house leading to the destination of rasa proper. Even if it be subjected to a critique and found inadeguate, it cannot affect the validity of the theory of rasa which rests on the unshakable foundation of the ever-blissful self, allowing us glimpses of its ecstasy in the state of deep poetic response. Rightly understood, his philosophy grounded on the bed-rock of "spiritual pre-conscious," transmuting a finite conscious being (parimita-pramåts) into an infinite subject of all-consciousness (aparimitapramåtr), if I can borrow a phrase from Maritain, remains relevant to modern literature also.
45. ātmānubhavanaṁ bhāvo vibhāvah paradarśanam-Loc. cit. 46. atha vismaranaśilän prati śrnga-grāhikayā bhāva-vibhāyānubhāva-svarūpam darśayati
ātmānubhavana bhāva ityādi, Atma-viśrāntam yadanubhavanaṁ sukha-duḥkhasamvid-rūpam sa bhāvah ityarthah. Ātma-grahaņāt ghatādyanubhavanam na bhāvah ityuktam bhavati.-Loc. cit.
