Some Aspects of Rasa Theory

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

Page 59

WORLDLY NATURE OF RASA
47
slightest chance of believing that perhaps for Sankuka the nature of artexperience was totally divorced from the nature of worldly experience and that for him rasa was laukika-sthāyi-vilaksaņa. It is only Mammața who seems to introduce this twist, though of course Sankuka does differentiate between 'avagamanaśakti' which is itself abhinayana' and vacakatva : avagamanasaktirhi abhinayanam väcakatvadanya (p. 273). 'Anumiti' and 'vācakatva' stand poles apart, but this does not change the laukika nature of rasa in the opinion of Sankuka, which is the main target of attack for Abhinaya who later on says : Where is the relish in the mere inference of a worldly feeling ?17 It seems very clear that at least for Abhinava, Sankuka's imaginative guess of a particular basic mental state is equivalent to the normal process of reasoning of a worldly mental state. In that case, it will be safe to presume that perhaps for Sankuka also rasa is identical with the feelings and emotions met with in ordinary life and is therefore laukika.' In these circumstances it is difficult to presume that Sankuka ever imagined a sthayi in the poetic context to be dissimilar to the ordinary sthayin. Tauta, when he criticises Sankuka means exactly this and observes : If someone were to say that the actor's feeling of Rati which is apprehended (by the spectator) is the. same as the Erotic sentiment (śrngāra) it remains to be seen in what form (it is so apprehended.) (Let us suppose that exponent of the Imitation theory says that) we apprehend the actor's feelings of Rati in the same way as we apprehend in ordinary life the Rati in a person through the complex of causes like young women, effects like their sidelong glances, concomitants like feeling of satisfaction. If this is so then it can be objected that Rati in its original form, and not in its imitated form, is apprehended. Then the whole talk of imitation is meaningless.18
Tauta comes to the inevitable conclusion that whatever Sankuka has said is less than sense-atha ca tadanukārapratibhāsa iti riktā vecoyuktih (p.275, A. bh). Abhinava also seems to toe the line of his guru and declares that if rasa is just a feeling arrived at by reasoning with the help of (artificial) determinants etc., then what harm is there in recognising rasc in ordinary life where the determinants etc., are real?-And it is not as Sankuka and others have said viz. that a permanent emotion, brought to consciousness by determinants, etc., being relishable, is itself rasa.19 17.mafaraghahari
(27. HT. . 228) 18. अथ नटगता चित्तवृत्तिरेव प्रतिपन्ना सती रत्यनुकारः शृङ्गार इत्युच्यते, तत्रापि किमात्मकत्वेन सा प्रतीयत इति
चिन्त्यम् । ननु प्रमदादिभिः कारणैः कटाक्षादिभिः कार्यः धृत्यादिभिश्च सहचारिभिर्लिङ्गभूतैर्या लौकिकी कार्यरूपा कारणरूपा सहचारिरूपा च चित्तवृत्तिः प्रतीतियोग्या तदात्मकत्वेन सा नटचित्तवृत्तिः प्रविभाति हन्त तर्हि रत्याकारेणैव सा प्रतिपन्नेति दूरे रत्यनुकरणतावाचोयुक्तिः ।
(27. HT. g. 248) - 19. न तु यथा शङ्ककादिभिरभ्यधीयत, “स्थाय्येव विभावादिप्रत्याय्यो रस्यमानत्वाद्रस उच्यते ।" एवं हि लौकिकोऽपि Pa 77 78:1
(34. HT. . 268)