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What did Bharata mean by Rasa ?
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It must be admitted that art, like language, is in a very important sense, communicative. This communication is be tween the artist and the appreciator and is carried on through a certain medium (an art object ). The state (or content) of mind (feelings ?) which the artist is impelled to express, as well as the the effect on the mind of the appreciator are both mental and perhaps in some way, similar or equivalent. But in the realm of art there cannot be any direct transmission of the contents of the artist's mind to the mind of the appreciator. There cannot be any direct transition from the artist to the appreciator. The content of the artist's mind must take some form which acts as a medium betweem the artist and the appreciator and may vary from art to art." In fact it is on account of the variations of medium that one art differs from another. Nātya differs from Kāvya in respect of this medium : the medinm of Kāvya or literature is "ordinary language or word or sabda”, the medium of drama that is staged (Nāțya) is something different - not abhinaya or acting alone : is it not entirely Nāļya.28 It is in a sense the stage with all its constituents. A suitable word is to be found for it.” To express this idea, I believe Bharata employed the word 'Rasa' on the analogy of the word 'Sabda', borrowing it from the metaphysics of Sāmkhya.
Before proceeding further, let the relations that exist between the three stages be noted. Let me call them SI, S2 and S3. Si refers to the content of the artist's mind, all that he wants to convey or express. S2 represents symbols—the mental facts or Sl as transformed into symbols S3 again depicts them as they are in the mind of the appreciator. S3 constitutes the meaning that the symbols S2 have for the appreciator. Let this meaning' be symbolised by the letter 'M'. I can, then express myself in the following way : (1) SI = S2
(2) M(S2) = S3 If the above equations are roughly correct, then it will be the object of any artist to put forward his ideas, or the content
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