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Sanskrit Sahityaśāstra
183
According to him, the aesthetic pleasure or rapture is just like ordinary pleasures of sense, that arise, for instance, from pressing plump breasts of a beautiful young lady or from applying cool sandal paste to our bodies. Rasa is thus laukika and not alaukika. Rasa, by its very nature, being pleasurable he holds that there are only four rasas : 1. śrngära 2. vīra 3. häsya and 4. adbhuta. He rejects the claim of karuna, raudra, bibhatsa, and bhayānaka to the title of rasa." The whole discussion of this topic is marked by originality, logical reasoning and freshness of outlook and deserves to be read in the original. Siddhicandragani goes a step, and a very big step indeed, further than Rāmacandra and Guņacandra in holding that there are four rasas only. The description of Aja-vilāpa, or of śänta or of bhayātiśaya is aimed at showing the intensity of love towards Indumati, his beloved wife, or complete detachment or world-weariness of mumuksus or the tenderness or softness of a particular individual, respectively. In fact, however, poets undertake to describe such incidents, events or situations only to demonstrate their own descriptive power or the richness of their own imaginative faculty.
This survey would show that there is nothing peculiarly Jaina about their view of the nature of rasa. Along with other writers on poetics they take rasas to be laukika or alaukika, sukha-duhkhātmaka or sukhātmaka only. A “Moderner" like Siddhicandragani disregards tradition and holds that there are four rasas only. It is, however, very surprising, if not shocking, that none of these Jaina authors and commentators takes cognizance of the "nava-kavva-rasā pannatta" passage found in their sacred text, viz., the Anuyogadvāra sūtra.
7. Abhinavagupta explicitly says that some of the 'sthāyibhāva's are 'sukha-svabhāva' (of the nature of happiness, i.e. pleasurable) while some others are duḥkha-svarūpa' (of the nature of unhappiness, i.e. painful) : ETAAEFE ai gatty1TH ...... Alla razasutajai I :98921
-Abhinavabhārati on NS I. 119, pp. 43-44 Siddhicandragani holds that rasa is simply laukika.' Naturally, he recognises the four 'rasa's based on 'rati,' hasa' utsäha' and 'vismaya' and rejects the claim of 'raudra,' 'bhayanaka' etc. to the title of 'rasa' Abhinavagupta, who firmly subscribes to the view that "rasas' are 'alaukika,' regards even ‘raudra,' 'bhayānaka,' etc., as 'sukha-svabhāva' or 'sukha-pradhāna.' .
8. Kāvyaprakāśakhandana (p. 16 and pp. 21-22), Singhi Jaina series, Vol. 40, Bombay, 1953,
