Some Aspects of Rasa Theory

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

Page 51

ABHINAVAGUPTA ON THE ALAUKIKA NATURE OF RASA
39
In our real life everything is consciously or unconsciously related to the - individual perceiver (pramātr) or to his friend, or to his enemy (para) or to some one in no way connected with him (taţastha). But the poet's creations are not so related; they are wholly impersonal. They have no reference to anybody in particular. Being altogether divorced from reference to personal interests, one's own or those of others, aesthetic experience is free from all the limitations of ordinary pleasure, arising out of narrow attachment, such as envy, desire or aversion; and the sahȚdaya becomes almost unconscious of his private self. He rises above the duality of pain and pleasure, love and hatred and enjoys through disinterested contemplation absolutely pure joy or delight. With the outer vesture of all practical interests and infatuation removed he experiences pure delight, ananda, bliss of his Self with this qualification that it is coloured by a particular vāsana say of love, sorrow, etc., awakened to life for the time being by the particular vibhāvas, etc.,32 He experiences or enjoys a unique kind of delight that has no parallel in our everyday life. It is therefore called alaukika. The aesthetic perception is an inward-oriented apprehension. The sahrdaya is completely absorbed in the aesthetic object to the exclusion of everything else-in other words, his mind is completely free from all obstacles, worries, tensions, preoccupations, prejudices etc., and he tastes his own consciousness which is but pure bliss and bliss alone. It is only coloured by some vāsanā. or the other, aroused by the particular vibhāvas and that is why it is said to be akin to the enjoyment of Brahman-the Ultimate Reality (Brahmäsvådasavidha).
These important passages from Abhinavagupta's two works on literary and aesthetic criticism throw sufficient light on alaukikatva, a key term for him. It would be evident to a careful student of these passages that Abhinavagupta uses the term alaukika with different shades of meaning. In one or two places he uses the term alaukika to distinguish the process whereby rasa is achieved from other worldly or mundane (laukika) processes. It is achieved by the power of suggestion which is peculiar to poetry (or creative literature) and not by the commonly known processes of abhidhā (power of denotation) and laksaņā, gunavrtti, or bhakti (secondary usage). Occasionally he uses this term 'alaukika'to point out that the mundane or worldly or earthly things of our everyday life are completely transformed by the magic touch of the activity of a poet's pratibha (creative imagination, genius). He, however, frequently uses this term to mean "what is different or distinct from worldly things", "non-ordinary", "non-worldly", "what is not found in every
32. (i) FAN Praca Agrupareared 99 71 : ETTET I got famafcüt graantzalearealध्यापारः । तदुद्बोधने चाभिनयादिव्यापारः।
-A. Bh. I. p. 292 (ii) तत्र सर्वरसाना शान्तप्राय एवास्वादो विषयेभ्यो विपरिवृत्त्यान्तर्मुखतालाभात् । केवलं वासनान्तरोपहित इत्यस्य - सर्वप्रकृतित्वाभिधानाय पूर्वमभिधानम् ।
-A. Bh. I. p. 339 (as restored by me)