Some Aspects of Rasa Theory

Author(s): V M Kulkarni
Publisher: B L Institute of Indology

Page 15

THE BASIC MODES OF POETIC EXPRESSION
identification of the reader's consciousness with that of the poet as expressed in the poetic work. In the case of Sybhāvokti, it is Vastu-samvāda, objective matching or correspondence (i. e. the feeling that the expressed idea is exactly as we thought it to be), while in the case of Rasokti it is Citta-vrtti-samvāda, emotional matching or correspondence (i. e. identification of the reader's emotion with that expressed in the poem).8 The following remarks by Raghavan in this context, even though made with respect to Bhoja, apply much more aptly to Kuntaka. :. 'In the realm of ideas or Artha, there are only two classes, namely, the mere nature of things—Vastu-svabhāva and Emotions. In the description of these two, we have Vastu-samvāda and Citta-samvāda respectively, and the corresponding cases of expressions are called Svabhāvokti and Rasa-delineation, or Rasa-Ukti, according to Bhoja. These two are bare descriptions, Vastu-svabhāva or Rasa-svabhāva being the object of description. When both of these are figuratively described, we have the third kind of Ukti, Vakrokti’.9 In other words, the different types of beauty experienced from poetry depend upon the depiction of ideas or emotions, and the manner of depiction in both cases can be either natural and vivid or heightened and embellished. Such a categorization of literary beauty can be matched with the types of aesthetic experience from life. Things and expression of emotions are felt beautiful, just by themselves or when tinged with psychological associations.
Though content and form are interfused or integrated in a literary work, resorting to the Apoddhāra method (as Kuntaka says), we can consider each of the two by itself. We find that in some works, the poetic content functions as the main source of beauty, while in some others, such a function is fulfilled by the poetic form of expression. We can say that Svabhāvokti and Rasokti are content-oriented and Vakrokti (in Bhoja's terminology) is form-oriented.10
While concluding, I would like to hint at the wider significance of the above-noted views of Kuntaka and Bhoja. In a recent important work of literary criticism dealing with some fundamental problems like the nature and typology of literature, David Lodge examinesll the relationship between form and content in the literary text. Adopting a vital linguistic distinction from Roman Jacobson, Lodge establishes a fundemental polarity between the metaphoric (analogous, symbolic) and metonymic (contiguous, realistic) techni
8. न च हृदयसंवादमात्रेण स्वभावोक्तिरसवदलंकारयोरभेदः । वस्तुसंवादरूपत्वात् स्वभावोक्तेः, चित्तवृत्तिसमाधिरूपत्वाच्च
Thaçoareli (Alankarasarvasva, p. 227.) 9. Bhoja's ś? ngāraprakāśa, p. 136. 10. It is assumed here that for certain purposes and in certain contexts we can take these
controversial terms as contrastive.
The Modes of Modern Writing published by Arnold Heinemann, London, 1977 (reprinted in 1979), issued as Indian Edition in 1980. Lodge adopted for his purpose Jacobson's theory that dichotomy of metaphor and metonymy characterizes all verbal behaviour and human behaviour in general. Sce' The Modes of Modern Writing', pp. 73-103.