Some Aspects of Rasa Theory

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

Page 70

SOME ASPECTS OF THE RASA THEORY
the ac
atus-vibhāvanues and carvană continly as long as the
is d carosa exis
atives
ot be rede the speonly as
ABHINAVAGUPTA:
As interpreted by Abhinava, rasa is different from sthāyin inasmuch as the former can abide only temporarily and only in a connoisseur (sahrdaya), while the latter exists dormantly and permanently in every being from the moment he is born. In other words, rasa exists only in drama (or other arts), and sthāyins exist only in actual life. Rasa exists only as long as the act of carvaņā-relishing-continues : and carvaņă continues only as long as the rasa apparatus-vibhāva etc.-is present before the spectator. That is the reason why the correlatives of rasa cannot be regarded as having a causal relation with rasa; for an effect like a pot can exist independently of the potter who has made it, once it has come into being. This leads us to the inevitable conclusion that the experience of rasa has no parallel in actual life and must hence be regarded as alaukika, uncommon. The relation between rasa and its correlatives is explained on the analogy of a pot and a lamp, - ghațapradipa-nyaya, and is called vyañjana. The pot is revealed, not produced, by the nearby lamp; and that also only as long as the lamp emits light. Rasa, too, which already exists in the form of sthāyin in the mind of the spectator, is likewise revealed to him by its correlatives when it assumes the form of a rasc. Before this stage is reached, the sthāyin undergoes a metamorphosis-shorn of its space-time-person context, it is generalized : this is sādhāraṇīkarana. As a result, it is experienced by the spectator not as his own, nor as his opponent's, nor as that of a neutral person, leaving thus no scope for such reactions as embarrassment, anger or indifference. This experience does not have the character of memory (for it is not recalling of something experienced before), or perception (for it is not produced through the medium of sense organs), or inference (for it is directly relished), -though, of course, the faculty of inference in the spectator as he utilizes it in worldly affairs lays the foundation for the experience of rasa. Hence it is a unique, pure experience, uninterrupted by any other cognition and unpolluted by any worldly motive, very much like the experience of the Supreme Brahman, and, liekwise, constituted of pure happiness. The most logical conclusion of this view is that theoretically rasa is only one (for Brahmāsvāda does not have varieties),-a suggestion not taken notice of by his immediate successors, but taken up later on by Bhoja and elaborated to its fullest extent.
VYANJANA : IN GRAMMAR AND IN POETICS :
For the concept of vyañjanā, also called dhvani, presented in an elaborate form for the first time in the work.Dhvanyaloka', Ananda has acknowledged his debt to grammarians who first enunciated this principle in the context of sphota, a characteristic semantic theory of the Pāṇinian school. Vyañjanā
5. quffarn: quff489: 4174: Aca: Teg: 12:Sarva-darśana-saingrcha, Pāņini
darśana. नादैराहितबीजायामन्त्येन ध्वनिना सह। आवृत्तिपरिपाकायां बुद्धौ शब्दोऽवर्धायते॥ Vakyapadiya, 1.85