Some Aspects of Rasa Theory

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

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SOME ASPECTS OF THE RASA THEORY
their particular space-time-person context and making them a common wealth'-a state produced by fourfold acting in a play and guņalankūras in poetry. Thus generalized, rasa is relished by the spectator by bhojakatva, a unique process of the mind distinct from the commonly recognised modes of cognition such as perception, memory, etc. Though made up of the three primeval qualities, the sattva, the rajas and the tamas, it is dominated by the sattva, as a result of which this experience rests in the consciousness (caita-. nya) full of light and happiness-much the same way as the experience in the realization of the Supreme Brahman (Para-Brahmäsvåda-savidha). Nāyaka conceives bhāvakatva and bhojakatva ás processes exclusively operating in the field of poetry (and drama) and distinct from the abhidhā process which is common to poetry and other literature-mandatory (Veda, etc) and advisory (Itihasa, Purāna, etc). The chief purpose of poetry is, therefore, to give pure joy, and only secondarily, to give moral instruction.. . .
Even a hurried survey of Nāyaka's theory would reveal that in formulating it he has drawn substantially on Mimānsä (as Abhinava presents him), Sāṁkhya and, most of all, Vedānta; this shows what an imaginative, discriminating man of wide knowledge can contribute to the exposition of a theory. For his bhāvakatva concept, he is indebted to Mimāṁsā; for his conception of the rasa experience, to Sāmkhya (a part of which is also absorbed in Vedānta); and for the idea of over-whelming, total absorption in the experience, he is indebted to Vedānta. Nāyaka is the first critic to compare poetic experience to the experience of Brahman which the Indian tradition regards as the highest goal of life. All subsequent writers on poetics are indebted to him for this brilliant conception. Even Abhinava who has rejected his contention that rasa is not a cognition and that bhāvakatva is a specific process peculiar to poetic experience, concedes that his description of the poetic experience is on a par with the spiritual experience, and that his bhojakatva process is identical with Ananda's Vyañjana. As monistic Śaivāgama, of which Abhinava is the chief exponent, is basically not different from the monistic Vedānta, indebtedness of his exposition to śaivagama needs no special mention. ABHINAVA AND NAYAKA :
The two salient points in Nāyaka's interpretation which Abhinava has criticised are: (i) rasa is not a cognition, and (ii) bhāvakatva is a special poetic process which brings about sadharanikarana. About the first, Abhinava remarks that it is self-contradictory to call rasa a bhoga--pleasure, and at the same time to deny that it is a cognition-pratiti. What is pleasure if not a form of awareness or cognition ? Abhinava has no objection to singling it out from the common forms of cognition or awareness; but calling it no cognition' is equivalent to making it unfit for any dealing with it.4 As for bhāvakatva, 4. अप्रतीतं हि पिशाचवत् अव्यवहार्य स्यात् । किं तु यथा प्रतीतिमात्रत्वेन अविशिष्टत्वेऽपि प्रात्यक्षिकी, आनुमानिकी,
आगमोत्था, प्रतिभानकृता, योगिप्रत्यक्षजा च प्रतीतिः उपायवैलक्षण्यात् अन्यैव, तद्वत् इयमपि प्रतीतिः चर्वणास्वादन
TITTAT HT I Locana on Dhvanyaloka with Balapriya (Com:), Banaras (1940); p. 187