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1 The Concept of "Rasa" in Sanskrit Dramatic Theory Author(s): Wallace Dace Source: Educational Theatre Journal, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Oct., 1963), pp Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: Accessed: :28 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at The Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Educational Theatre Journal

2 THE CONCEPT OF RASA IN SANSKRIT DRAMATIC THEORY WALLACE DACE The term Rasa appears for difference the first between tasting the emotion time in a particular text in and the experiencing Natyacastra of Bharata, a very old marized Sanskiit by the word Rasa. it in real life is sum- document difficult to date (estimates According to the Indian aesthetician range from 500 B.C. to 500 Pravas A.D.) Jivan and Chaudhury,' Rasa was thought to be, until very recently, originally quite a physiological term which impossible to render into English. appeared in One ancient medical literature of the chief reasons for this and is meant the presence in the treatise (on dramaturgy) and also any of one of six tastes: sweet, the physical quality of taste, such words as Rasa; it is a key acid, term salt, bitter, with-astringenout an understanding of which These Sanskrit six kinds of tastes characterize the and insipid. dramatic theory is totally six incomprehensible, and yet for which their absolutely tastes. As it happens, all this is bodily humours which are known by no English equivalent is available. found in Hippocrates too, who enumerates these same six physical qualities But we need a word for Rasa and rather than invent one, the present of taste tend-aency seems to be to use the original humours. Bharata says at first that there characterizing six bodily term, transliterated from Sanskrit. are six We Rasas in drama, but later that need the word because we know that there are eight. He describes Rasa as the emotion experienced in the theatre is somehow subtly different from that like emotion which goes by the same name love, pity, fear, heroism or mystery, which informs the dominant note of a real life. We experience pity and dramatic fear piece. This dominant emotion, in the theatre, and enjoy the experience; as tasted by the audience, has a different but pity in real life is annoying quality and from that which is aroused in irritating ultimately; and we avoid real with life; Rasa may be said to be the determination and ingenuity any original situation which is at all likely to arouse ic delight. fear emotion transfigured by aesthet- in us. Hindu aesthetics solved this problem long ago: as the actor imitates Emotions, the as felt in life, are like uninterrupted Chaudhury continues: emotion, so the audience tastes the emo- images and sensations. They are uninformed tion as it watches his performance. The Mr. Dace is Associate Professor of Speech at Kansas State University. relish of an elemental human emotion 1 In an article entitled "Catharsis in the Light of Indian Aesthetics" in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Volume XV No. 2, December 1956, pp

3 250 EDUCATIONAL THEATRE JOURNAL by thought and are therefore In Natyacastra, blindly and Bharata pas-acceptsively undergone. But as eight enjoyed basic feelings drama, of human they nature are contemplated, thought which Gnoli upon, translates and as "Permanent their meanings are revealed to the mind which, therefore, while experiencing them in a way, escapes Mental States." These Permanent Mental States The are audience Delight, under- Laughter, Sor- them in a significant sense. goes the emotions depicted row, Anger, on Heroism, the stage Fear, Digust in a way; people cry and laugh and Astonishment. as they When do transmuted in life, by but they feel these urges not as real urges but dramatic action on the stage into Rasas as symbols, charged with meanings. This is the secret, we are told, of aesthetic (or tastes of delight.2 the emotion of real life), they are given terms which distinguish The legendary author, the Rasa from Bharata, the Permanent who Mental is said to have directed State: the plays Erotic, the in Comic, heaven the Pathetic, the the Furious, gods, the Heroic, and the Terrible, thus for the delight of drew on practical experience the Odious and the when Marvelous. composing his Natyacastra, did not exhaust Later speculation generally admits a ninth the possibilities in his Permanent discussion Mental of State, Rasa. Serenity, for It was a custom among subsequent Hindu scholars and aestheticians, instead of which the corresponding Rasa is the Quietistic. writing fresh treatises on dramaturgy, In real life, these Permanent Mental to embody their own thought in "commentaries" on Bharata's epic work. States are brought on by three fairly distinct phenomena: causes, effects and Hence, the entire Natyacastra consists concomitant elements. The causes are of Bharata's original manuscript plus the facts and mental images which produce the State; the effects are the visible certain interesting additions by subsequent philosophers, two of whom, reactions caused by the State; and the Bhatta Nayaka, (circa 900 A.D.) and concomitant elements are the accessory Abhinavagupta (born between 950 and 960 A.D.) considerably expanded and clarified the concept of Rasa. The best commentary in English on Abhinavagupta's analysis of Rasa is to be found in a thin volume by Raniero Gnoli entitled The Aesthetic Experience According to Abhinavagupta.3 In the introduction to his translation, Gnoli pervades and enchants him. mental disturbances accompanying the State. When represented on the stage, Hindu aestheticians use a new set of terms: causes are Determinants; effects are Consequents; and concomitant elements are Transitory Mental States. Rasa is produced in the audience by actions on the stage describable as Determinants, Consequents and Transitory notes that in India, the study of aesthetics was at first limited to the drama. Mental States, but these are not in the Drama is regarded as a synthesis usual between the visual and aural arts; in when its causes have disappeared. The sense causes; an effect can exist relation of Rasa to the factors which drama, dance and poetry collaborate at arousing in the spectator a state of compose consciousness which is conceived intuitively to an old Hindu adage, with that of a it may be compared, according and concretely as a juice or flavor beverage (Rasa) to the black pepper, candied which, when tasted by the spectator, sugar, camphor, and so on which compose it, but of which as such, no trace remains in the liquor as drunk. 2 Ibid., p Serie Orientale Roma XI, 1956, published Gnoli concludes his summary of the by the Instituto Italiano per il Medio traditional ed view of Rasa by saying, "The Estremo Oriente, Roma.

4 CONCEPT OF RASA IN SANSKRIT DRAMATIC THEORY 251 In such a person, hearing [certain lines from Shakuntula which describe a frightened deer] there appears, immediately after the perception of the literal sense of the lines, a perception of a different order, an inner perception, consist- relation between the Determinants ing of a direct experience (inwhich completely eliminates the temporal distinctions assumed by the theatre) the Permanent Mental the lines of the play. In fact, the young deer States (in real life) and Rasa which is appears the in central problem of Indian aesthetics."4 its particularity, and at the same time, the this perception is devoid of Commenting on the problem actor who plays of the Rasa deer and frightens the audience Bhatta by showing Nayaka himself to be afraid, is unreal. in the tenth century A.D., holds that the essence of this aesthetic As a result, what appears is simply and solely Fear-Fear in itself, uncircumscribed by time or pleasure has no relationship with any space.7 particular ego. The aesthetic state of consciousness does not appear in everyday life but is experienced in complete time or space of the deer, since the deer The audience is thus not in the real independence of individual interest. is merely imitated, nor is it in the time Gnoli quotes Bhatta Nayaka as follows: and space of the actor, because the actor During aesthetic experience, the consciousness is not being himself during the performance de- of a play. When an otherwise of the spectator is free from all practical sires. The spectacle witnessed is no longer Permanent felt Mental State is unaffected in connection with any other particular individual; it has the power of abolishing the lim- by space and time, when it is generalized, it has become a Rasa. ited personality of the spectator, who regains, momentarily, his immaculate being, not To yetquote Abhinavagupta further: overshadowed by Maya.5 To conclude, we may say equally that Rasa a) In the west, Kant appears to have consists of a state of intensification,-using this term to indicate that it is not limited by spatial and temporal data; b) that it is an imita- been the first to clarify this relationship when he said in his Critique of tion,-using Judgment (1790) that aesthetic pleasure operation is temporarily follows that of real life; this expression to mean that its disinterested satisfaction (interesseloses and c) that it is a combination of different Wohlgefallen), "disinterested" meaning elements,-the Determinants, Consequents and lack of interference from desire, or Transitory Mental States.s directness of our access to a work of art, uninterfered-with by immediate utilitarian ends. the theatre, Abhinavagupta achieves the Abhinavagupta6 begins with these unlikely concepts, and develops the idea of Rasa tion of Rasa into one sentence: feat of compressing his defini- into a subtle and self-contained system From whichever point of view it is examined, of aesthetic analysis of audience participation in a theatrical event. Speaking state which is a matter of cognition as the re- Rasa is, in any case, simply and solely a mental of a "qualified person" (a person of sult of a perception devoid of obstacles, and taste, and with experience of the theatre) he consisting in Tasting.9 says: 4 Ibid., p Ibid., p For biographical and critical material on this important Hindu philosopher see Kanti Chandra Pandey: Abhinavagupta, an Historical and Philosophical Study. (Benares City, 1935-) After noting that the elements eliminate obstacles to aesthetic perception in The only matter requiring further discussion is how the various obstacles to Rasa are overcome in the theatre. These are lack of verisimilitude, immersion in one's own thoughts, immersion in one's own sensations of pleasure, defective state of the means of perception, 7 Gnoli, op. cit., p Ibid., p Ibid., p. 78.

5 252 EDUCATIONAL THEATRE JOURNAL lack of evidence, lack it possesses of the pre-eminence, virtue of avoiding a and allowing admission double negative. to doubts. The first obstacle, The lack second of and third verisimil- obstacles to itude, is more familiar to us in the aesthetic perception are those temporal phrase "lack of conviction,"-the spatial audience is unable to believe in the action or pleasurable sensations which inhere exclusively in oneself or in on stage. Abhinavagupta holds that another person. In addition to the principal consciousness of the action on the means by which this obstacle is eliminated are "the consent of the heart"'0 stage, one is distracted in the theatre by and the representation of an event of an anawareness of other forms of consciousness: au- one is afraid of losing his ordinary nature, meaning that the thor must make use of events which find sensation of pleasure; one then desires a ready response in the audience's other, similar sensations; finally, one heart."1 grapples with the urge either to give these sensations of pleasure open expression, or to hide them. That is to say, one is tempted to give expression to one's pleasure in the suffering of the hero and heroine by loud crying; but if no one else is crying, one would appear foolish. "Consent of the heart" is a key phrase in this part of Abhinavagupta's dramatic theory and seems to anticipate in meaning Coleridge's idea of "that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment which constitutes poetic faith"'12 in the theatre. This idea is not fully grasped in some quarters even today. There are still those who would agree This obstacle is eliminated by the conventions of theatrical illusion. These with Samuel Johnson when he attacked consist for the most part of the preliminaries (rites and ceremonies at the be- the unity of place by arguing that it doesn't matter if Act I is laid in Athens ginning, before the play starts); the prologue (a dialogue between the director and Act II in Rome, because we in the theatre know we are not in Athens anyway. But the opposite of this,-the de-actress); and the many stylized dances of the play and a jester, or a young lusion of the naive that the stage actionwhich break up the unfolding of the is real-is likewise not the right explana-storytion of the audience's immersion in a This concept, of the need for a barrier of ofsome kind between performer play. Consent of the heart to partake aesthetic experience appears to be and a useful way of expressing the relationship ment of clearly anticipates Edward Bul- spectator to assure aesthetic enjoy- audience to play in the theatre; at least 10 Not everybody, Abhinavagupta observes, has the intrinsic capacity to taste a poem. Individuals possessed of aesthetic sensibility are called possessed of heart, that is, they possess the faculty of self-identification with events represented on the stage. Or, to put it another way, poetic sensibility is the faculty of entering into the heart of the poet. See Gnoli, op. cit., p This coincides with Aristotle's probability theory, in which authors are advised to make their actions above all probable, even the impossible being preferable to the improbable. See Bakker's edition of Aristotle's works, 146oa Biographia Literaria, ed. J. Shawcross (Oxford, 1907), Vol. II, p. 6. lough's valuable idea about "psychical Distance," first published in the British Journal of Psychology in 1912, and since widely reprinted. Bullough's famous argument is that "Distance... has a negative, inhibitory aspect,-the cutting out of the practical side of things and of our practical attitude to them,-and a positive side: the elaboration of the experience on the new basis created by the inhibitory action of Distance." And Distance is obtained by "separating the

6 CONCEPT OF RASA IN SANSKRIT DRAMATIC THEORY 253 object and its appeal from particularities one's in own connection with either self, by putting it out of of gear these with objects.15 practical needs and ends."13 In our own experience, we have all Bullough then notes that noted a that work in the theatre, of it is an obstacle proportion to aesthetic enjoyment as if we are art appeals to us in direct its intellectual and emotional personally peculiarities correspond to the idiosyncrasies Past memories and of associations occupy acquainted with the actor. our own experiences; absence our attention of and this he ceases to be "cancelled general out" by ex- the role he is playing. concordance is the most planation for differences Similarly, in "taste." if an This actor portrays a person principle of concordance we have requires been acquainted a with, for instance, a famous leads to political figure, or an qualification, however, which the antimony of Distance. artist As of an reputation, exam-thple, Bullough cites the true: case we of recall a man the person himself, and reverse is usually watching a performance of are thus Othello. unable to The allow the actor to man has reason to believe that his wife cancel out the existence of our acquaintance.16 the is being unfaithful to him. Since play is on the subject of infidelity, Abhinavagupta's it complete explanation canof the fourth obstacle reads as fol- should appeal greatly to him; he see himself as Othello, and his wife as lows: "Moreover, if the means of perception are absent, perception itself will Desdemona. But in fact, the play merely renders him acutely conscious of his also naturally be absent.""? own jealousy, and he receives anything One is driven to conclude from this but enjoyment from the performance. By observing how close the play is to his own experience perspective is reversed; he no longer sees Othello betrayed by Desdemona but himself, betrayed by his In regard to pleasures and pains which the spectator perceives to be inherent in the actor, or in the person cryptic observation that the Master had in mind such inconveniences, well known in the modern theatre, of inaudible actors mumbling their lines into the footlights, and that equally own wife. This reversal of perspective endearing aspect of some of our more is due to the loss of Distance.14 venerable houses, such as the Schubert in Chicago,-the seat in the second balcony situated behind a post which totally blocks the ticket-holder's view of the actor is portraying, Abhinavagupta the stage. thinks the actor's headdress, his costume The fifth obstacle to Rasa occurs if and makeup enable the audience to the spectator reads the play instead of negate the specific temporal and spatial seeing it. "The presence of the words characteristics of both the actor (himself) and the character (as created by alone, by means of which the reader infers the acts narrated, is not enough the playwright.) In fact, the one distracting idea (actor) cancels out the to make the reader identify himself with the subject and the characters of the other distracting idea (the character he play."'8 Drama must be experienced in is portraying) and the spectator is left in possession of Rasa, unencumbered by 15 Gnoli, op. cit., p Abhinavagupta offers us nothing to reflect 13s British Journal of Psychology V (1912) on if pp. we know both the actor and the person 87o-9o. This concept explains the aesthetically is portraying. unsatisfactory nature of arena theatre. 17 Ibid., p Ibid., p s Ibid., p. 84.

7 254 EDUCATIONAL THEATRE JOURNAL the theatre to overcome the obstacle of The obstacle of doubt is the final inevident perception, it is argued, point in Abhinavagupta's theory of contradiction to Charles Lamb, for instance, who preferred Shakespeare in his tion of the Determinants, the Con- Rasa. Doubt is eliminated by the opera- library. Modern thinkers tend to agreesequents and the Transitory Mental with this idea. Susanne Langer points States on a spectator who, in the course out in Feeling and Form that dramaof his ordinary life, has learned how to operates beyond the boundaries established by literature, citing as an exam- elements of Permanent Mental States, observe causes, effects and concomitant ple the Sanskrit drama itself, which "survived as a popular art for centuries after these the corresponding Determinants, and can deduce from his experience of the Sanskrit... and the various Prakrits Consequents and Transitory Mental in which it was composed had become States as disclosed by dramatic action on dead languages, understood only by the stage. As the Master explains it: scholars. [This] proves that the stage action was no mere accompaniment, but Tears21 may be aroused indifferently by a great Delight, or a pain in the eye. A tiger22 may was instinctively developed by the actors to the point of self-sufficiency, mak- of these elements, however, has an unmistakable arouse either Anger or Fear. The combination ing the precise word-meanings of significance. the For example, when the Determinant speeches dispensable.""19 consists of the death of a friend, the Consequents of wailing and tears, and the Transitory Mental Sixth, if a person's consciousness rests States are Anxiety and Depression, then the on something of a secondary order, Permanent Mental State which results cannot something transitory, then an obstacle be other than Sorrow... [The act of Tasting to Rasa is encountered because the perception would find no rest in itself and is perfect Rasa.23 this Permanent Mental State in the theatre].. would run automatically toward something occupying a pre-eminent position. That is, Rasa is different from a Permanent Mental State and consists solely Hence, only the Permanent Mental in the Tasting of it; in fact, it lasts only States can be the object of Tasting. as long as the Tasting lasts. In Hindu thought, "rest without obstacles" is a condition in which one's Finally: consciousness finds rest in what it contemplates, is totally absorbed in the To conclude: what is aroused by the union of the Determinants, the Consequents and the Transitory object of contemplation and desires noth- and the form of existence, of a non-ordinary Mental States is simply the Tasting; ing different from the thing in which character, which is the matter of this Tasting, is called Rasa.24 it is and from what it is. Abhinavagupta cites an example as follows: Whatever one may be able to make Women, even when they are being bitten of andthis theory, there seems to be no scratched by their lovers, and therefore experiencing pain, find in the pain itself the fulfil- question that Hindu aestheticians have investigated the problem of feeling ment, the realization of all their sexual desire: and emotion in the theatre audience they "rest" in their hearts or consciousness, to the exclusion of everything else. Therefore, this with thoroughness and originality. pain becomes pleasure, beatitude.2o 21 A Consequent 19 Susanne K. Langer, Feeling and Form (New 22 A Determinant York, 1953), p Ibid., p Gnoli, op. cit., p Ibid., p. 104.