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What did Bharata mean by Rasa?
213 says, succeeds Sthāyībhāva, i.e. Si could easily be misunderstood as something succeeding S3. Now this S4 could be a state of pleasure or happiness, and all that Abhinavagupta says may be perhaps true of S4. Since for Abhinavgupta and Bhattanāyaka there could not be any production of Rasa, S1 and 52 (or Ds2) could not exist. S3 is, then, a Sthayibhāva and the of Rasa which succeeds Sthāyībhāva is, therefore, pleasure or aesthetic consciousness But this kind of logic is based on a fundamental error that Sthāyābhāva was state S3 and not Sl or something else. This, in turn, is based on the failure to distinguish between the process of production of Rasa (Rasa-nispatti) and the process of tasting or experiencing of Rasa (Rasāsvāda ). It is on account of this confusion that Rasa, which with Bharata was not mental at all, became dogmatically mental for Abhinavagupta and his followers and was identified with Artha (meaning) or Asvāda, which Bharata. as I see it, used, to convey the S3 This paved the way for the condensation of Rasa-dhvani theory. The Dhvani theory is, in fact, a theory about 'Artha'31 i.e. S3. As soon as Rasa was identified with S3, the condensation could easily take place. It is, however, interesting to note that though the meaning of Rasa was, thus, transformed, the meaning of Sabda and Rūpa which belonged originally to the same universe as Rasa, did not undergo any such transformations.
Whether all that I say is right or wrong can be verified from the text of Bharata itself. I therefore propose to offer in translation an important passage from Bharata. After giving the list (samgraha) of all the constituents of Nāțya he says :
"We shall, therefore, first describe the Rasas (for) without Rasa there could not be any Artha.32 This Rasa is produced there (i.e. on the stage) on account of the combination of Vibhāva, Anubhāva, and Vyabhicāribhāva (this combination should not be understood as a mechanical combination, but should be understood as a combination of parts and a whole or rather of a sentence ( vākya) and words (padas ). (The Vibhāvas are the set of actors and the environments, Anubhāyas
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