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SOME ASPECTS OF THE RASA THEORY
ever new artistic forms, navanavollekhaśālini prajña, is a manifestation in the individual consciousness of the power of universal self which said "ekoham bahu syām.” According to the English the poet-critic Coleridge, the imagination which creates art and poetry is a repetition in the finite mind of the Infinite "I am." The Infinite "I am,” according to the Upanişad, is rasa, “raso vai sah," and the kavi and the bhāvaka, by imitating the creative act of that "I am" share in his rasa.
Confronted with this explanation of the pleasure of poetry and art, Plato would probably have asked, how can we be sure that this rasa of poetic enjoyment is the rasa of momentary participation in spiritual being and not merely an abhāsa of it? Judged by the conduct in life of men in love with the pleasure of poetry and the arts, do the effects of poetic enjoyment seem spiritually beneficial? It is a challenging question to lovers of art, particularly to the advocates of "art for art's sake" doctrine.
