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What did Bharata mean by Rasa ?
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nucleus in the media of particular arts. Sabda was applied to the medium for literary arts like poetry, Rūpa for Citra and Silpa and Rasa was used for Nāțya. There could not, in any real sense, be any fine art connected with Sparsa and Gandha as their fields, too, are covered by Sabda, Rūpa and Rasa.13 I believe at the time Bharata wrote his Nātyaśāstra, this tripple scheme must have been the basis for the classification of the arts. This is also, perhaps, the reason why we do find a special discussion of Rūpa, in connection with the visual theory of art-or Kalā-in the Tantrāloka of Abhinavagupta himself. It is evident that the works, Sabda, Rūpa and Rasa should stand on the same level and if one designates a class of media, so should the others. I think it is likely that in the course of history the originally intended meanings of these words were lost, perhaps under he influence of certain schools of philosophy. Thus Rasa, which was originally inte. nded to refer to an object (or medium or language) or Nātya, became in the post-Abhinavagupta era a mental state, a pleasure and aesthetic consciousness, and was applied not only to Natya but also to Kavya in general. As Professor Hacker, of the University of Bonn, pointed out to me, later Sanskrit dramas were most unsuitable for staging and were most likely meant simply to be read. This factor also must have contributed to the change in the meaning of Rasa. The fact that Abhinavagupta identified Kavya with Nātya should also corroborate the fact that Nātya had lost its distinction from Nataka and Kavya in his time, that is about lotb or 11th century A.D.
Abhinavagupta was, indeed, a very profound scholar; but it still appears to me that he has completely missed the point which Bharata wanted to convey. When Bharata talks about, Nātya it is clear from his use of the word that Kāvya or poetry cannot be intended. This is very plain, even from the text of Natya sastra, Whenever he wanted to speak of what we now call Kāvya he has specifically used the terms, Nāțaka and Kāvya, 18 He also defines Natya and Nāțaka in different
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