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APPENDIX-II
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presence of the vibhāvas and so or before us. It is vibhāvādijīvitāvadhi. It comes into existence with the vibhāvas, and ends when the vibhāvas are removed from the stage. The argument perhaps aims at distinguishing between the sthāyibhavas, which are permanently there in the human mind in a dormant state, and the rasa experience, which occurs only when the vibhāvas are present before us. But then this distinction holds good even outside the literary context, for it is the distinction between dispositions and occurrents which is familiar to all psychologists. An irascible man is not angry all the time; he has a disposition to get angry at the least provocation; and the anger, which is an occurrent and not a disposition, lasts only so long as the cause for provocation lasts. When we say that "X enjoys music" we are talking about X's disposition, we can use this exrpession even if, at the moment, no musical concert is in progress. But it would be logically odd to say "X is enjoying a musical concert which is not now in progress." The same is true about enjoying a particular performance of a play or a cricket match that is just not there. According to the logic of the verb "to enjoy" when used in the context of an episode, enjoyment and the thing which is enjoyed are coterminus.
At one stage in this article it was shown that sädhäranikarana is not peculiar to the Tusa experience, for universalization is a precondition of the ethical experience also. But the supporters of Abhinavagupta might say that despite this similarity the two experiences are different because the ethical experience issues into action but the rasa experience is an end in itself It might be readily conceded that the rasa experience does not give rise to immediate overt action. But that is because the peculiar ontological status of vibhāvas rules out the very possibility of any such action with regard to them. Even if we wish to, it is logically impossible for us to interfere in the lives of the characters' on the stage. The world in which the characters move is structured like the world in which real men move; but there is no continuity between the worlds. That we should be able to see the former and that it should be able to induce emotional states in us creates peculiar epistemological and ontological problems. Sri Sankuka's theory of citraturagapratiti shows that the Sanskritists were aware of these problems. We see a configuration of pigments to be a horse, although we know that a real horse is not made of pigments. In the same way we see an actor as a character like Rāma. Seeing one thing as another thing is not a variety of ordinary seeing. As Śrī Sankuka has shown, it does not belong to the four known categories of perception : (a) veridical perception (b) illusory perception (c) perceiving something as resembling something else (d) perception which leaves us in doubt about the identity of what we perceive. What we see has a peculiar ontological status; the status would not have been peculiar .if we had before us an actor merely as a man following a particular profession. Again, there would have been no problem if Rāma, whose role the actor is supposed to play, were actually present before us. What we see on the stage is sui generis; and our seeing it is also sui generis.
It should be evident that Sri Sankuka's theory bears a striking resemb
gical proemotionaluld be able ve; but
