Some Aspects of Rasa Theory

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

Page 72

SOME ASPECTS OF THE RASA THEORY
surprise,-all that has an invariable reference to one's own self. This principle of ego is so overwhelming that it can convert even pain into pleasure and vice versa. A young girl feels pleasure at the scratches made by her lover's nails on her breasts : why ? Her ego is the answer. It is plain that every man is happy or sorry for the profit he makes or the loss he incurs. Even when he appears to be happy or sorry for another man's profit or loss, it is really for himself, in an indirect way. The sacrifice a man makes for another is also for himself-for the satisfaction he obtains therefrom. If he weeps for another, it also is really for himself. It is the self-love that is the source of all a man does or does not do. Even Yājñavalkya and Manu do not think otherwise;8 and, above all, no one can deny one's own exerience.
This ego is a quality of the soul; and, hence, whosoever has a soul has also an ego. Its refinement which goes to make a rasika is the achievement of its cultivation during a series of past lives. The ego, according to the Sāṁkhya theory, is constituted of sattva, rajas and tamas. It develops into rasa when the element of sattva reigns. Bhoja conceives it in three stages : the first, pure ego; the second, where the 49 bhāvas get a scope to be enriched by their respective vibhāvas, etc.; the third, the fully developed stage where the bhavas, enriched in the second stage, merge into one single awareness-self-love. Bhoja has openly acknowledged his debt to the Sāmkhya system. But there are in his exposition of rasa concepts like karman, väsanā, punarjanman which are commonly shared by almost all Indian philosophical systems and are drawn upon tacitly or explicitly as much by Bhoja as by other expounders of the rasa theory like Abhinava:
JAGANNATHA :
Jagannātha is the last doyen of the Sanskrit tradition of criticism. He has enlisted as many as eleven views on rasa including those discussed by Abhinaya. Only the first four of these views are given by him in detail, while the rest are covered in a few lines, the last five receiving hardly a line each. The obvious distinction of Jagannātha's treatment of rasa is that he presents his material mostly in a style cultivated by the Navya Nyāya and adopted by the post-Gangesa works on Vedānta. Following the ancients, he
7. दुक्खं देंतो वि सुहं जणेइ जो जस्स वल्लहो होइ।
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अकामस्य क्रिया काचिद् दृश्यते नेह कर्हिचित् ।
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आत्मनः अहंकारविशेषः सचेतसा रस्यमानः रस इत्युच्यते। यदस्तित्वे रसिकः, अन्यथात्वे नीरस इति । Bhoja's sțrgāra Prakāśa, pp. 464-465