13. CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SIX

Rasa in the Early Modern World, 1200-1650

6.1 A READER READING FOR RASA

Elixir for the Rasika, of Arjunavarmadeva (c. 1215)

A king in the lineage of Bhoja of Dhara-he calls himself "lamp to the family of Bhoja"1-Arjunavarmadeva shared his ancestor's passion for poetry, put on full display in his only known work, Elixir for the Rasika, a commentary on the seventh-century collection of erotic lyrics ascribed to the poet (or, likelier, anthologist) Amaru. Aside from insisting that rasa is the central concern of Amaru's oeuvre, Arjunavarmadeva is concerned in his commentary on the first two poems to distinguish between rasa poetry and "emotion" poetry.2 In the first poem, an invocation to the mother goddess, the predominant element is not any emotional charge the verse may deliver to the reader, but rather the "subject matter" itself. The subject matter, or express sense, however, is at once the goddess's heroic capacity to destroy evil in the world and the celebration of that power on the part of the poet, that is, his own emotional attachment to the goddess. The subject matter in both aspects is the dominant theme of the poem; the heroic rasa becomes, as it were, an ornament enhancing its impact, an assessment of rasa when subordinate that goes back, through Anandavardhana, to the beginnings of rasa theory. The same is true, though in an even more complex way, in the second poem, a prayer addressed to Shiva as destroyer by fire of the Three Cities, which according to ancient myth had been constructed by cosmic demons. Arjunavarmadeva builds on earlier interpretations (of Anandavardhana and Mammata) but has something of his own to add.3 In this poem the erotic rasa-the fire is represented as a wayward and repentant lover-and the tragic rasa-the wives of the demon king are seeing their husband being burned alive in a cosmic conflagration-would appear to stand in tension with each other. There is a further complication from the conventions of Sanskrit poetry, for the tragic rasa occurs when the beloved is dead, never to return, and in such circumstances the erotic is impossible. Here, however, the tragic and the erotic are both subordinated to the heroic rasa, embodied in Shiva's determined act of righteousness, which neutralizes the contradiction between them. But even that rasa is subordinate to the "subject matter" of the poem, which is at once the grandeur of the god and the expression of wonder and devotion on the part of the poet,4 and for this matter, the rasa can again be thought to function as an "ornament."

FROM ELIXIR FOR THE RASIKA OF ARJUNAVARMADEVA

(p. 1) The first of Amaru's poems is an invocation to the goddess:

Bathed in rays of light from her gleaming nails

as her hand takes the pose called "drawing a bowstring," may the mother's sidelong glance protect you, her eyes two bees hungry for the blooming flowers at her ear.

[2] The poem has a higher meaning beyond the literal, and in quest of this sensitive readers will seek to make sense of the poem's secrets as follows. First of all, the rasa that the poet has set out to create in his collection undoubtedly rises to its highest pitch when it is swelling with the waves of the mutual and truly felt love between a man and a woman. Yet the predominant component therein is the female character, and hence the poet has put in the first position of his work an invocation written to the goddess, his chosen deity-as represented appropriately by her glance- in order to indicate that predominance. Only in the second position comes a poem about Shiva. Then too, what other treasure house is there of love-which among the ends of man is superior to wealth and morality and only barely inferior to spiritual liberation-than woman, who by presenting a man with a son provides the means to set him free from the debt owed to his ancestors ?... Moreover, there is nothing wrong even if the erotic rasa in a poem concerns the wife of another man,5 for in the end such poetry is providing a kind of instruction: "This is how a woman's character can be destroyed," we are being told, "so she must be carefully guarded." Why else, in fact, would the great sage Vatsyayana6 have written about the procedures for seducing a married woman? As has been said: "If a man becomes familiar through an authoritative work with the ways of adultery, he will never be deceived about his own wife." Now, although the "pose" mentioned in the verse is discussed in the science of archery, what is meant here is the hand gesture used as a refinement in dance-and hence an important distinction is being drawn: we come to understand that the goddess can destroy the almost invincible forces of evil in the world merely by her erotic dance, and we thereby grasp her extraordinary power .... Some pseudo-critics have chosen to debate finer points of archery here: which among the five kinds of bow grips this might be, which among the five styles of fighting, and on and on.7 Well, here is our position: Amaru is concerned with one and one thing only, the erotic rasa; indeed, when in another poem he writes, "The face of a woman making love on top / ... will save you. Who needs Vishnu or Shiva or Skanda or any other god!" he goes so far as to suggest that the very invocation of a deity is beside the point. So who except someone immune to sex would bother to dilate upon archery ?... [3] In the subject-standard relationship of the simile in the poem, the subjects are the glance and the light rays from the gleaming nails, the standards the bees and the blooming flowers respectively. The charm of the darting glance dappled by the soft lacquered hands and spotless nails communicates the beauty and allure of the goddess that serve to delight Shiva. That poets are preoccupied with describing the beauty of goddesses is purely out of the desire to communicate why their husbands should love them so much; any other desire would be immoral .... [4] Perhaps precisely because the simile indicates none of the physical transformations expected when preparing to destroy the demons (frowning, reddened eyes, and like), the figure here communicates the high resolve of the goddess that crowns her beauty and allure. Hence the figure would be expected to be subordinate to the rasa "heroic in war" (the heroic rasa, defined as consisting of determination and of three types [the heroic in war, munificence, and compassion or morality], is further manifested by the dense nominal compounding and other signs of the

"Eastern" style). But what is dominant in this poem is not in fact the rasa but the subject matter: the goddess's power as such, when she resolves upon a task impossible for any of the other three hundred and thirty million gods to accomplish. Accordingly,8 the simile functions as an ornament not for a rasa but for a "rasa-laden" statement .... 9

(Amaru 2) Like a husband whose betrayal is still moist .... 10

In this poem the blessed Shiva, bow in hand, is burning to death the exalted lord of demons with his fiery arrows, and hence the rasa rendered the principal one is the heroic, suggesting the lord's preeminent power. Subsidiary rasas are the erotic thwarted, here in the form of wives' jealousy ("driven away when trying to clutch their hand," etc.), and the tragic, consisting of grief for their husband ("tears brimming," etc.). There is no conflict between these two subordinate rasas, the erotic and the tragic, because both are in service of something else-like those proverbial enemies the snake and the mongoose when they find themselves in a great sage's ashram. To quote: "When the intended rasa has been fully enhanced, there is no harm in giving expression to conflictual rasas if they are blocked from full development or are made subsidiary."11 That is especially the case when, as here, the subsidiary rasas enhance the principal one. The erotic thwarted (in the form of jealousy), first of all, enhances the tragic, and does so to a high degree given that [5] "Things beautiful by nature that have become a source of sorrow make us even more sorrowful when their charms, now past, are called to mind."12 For here we come to grasp that the demon king's wives had once been angered and placated by their beloved with all the different overtures and tactics at his disposal, and are now putting on the same display of jealous anger as they once did even in the midst of a tragedy,13 and are overcome by a blazing fire. And the resulting tragic rasa, though14 it pertains to the antagonist, enhances the heroic rasa of the protagonist- Shiva, enemy of the Triple City, whose triumph is a source of rejoicing and veneration. Resentment and weeping (transitory emotion and psychophysical response, respectively) suit the rasa15 to a marked degree .... In this poem as well, however, it is the subject matter that is dominant, whereas the mixed rasas are subsidiary to it; hence, as in the prior example, we have a case where we have a "rasa-laden statement," which functions as an ornament to that subject matter.16 Our earlier claim that the heroic is principal was made only with reference to the erotic and the tragic.17 ... [6] No other work aside from this one collection of lyrics is ascribed to this poet, and hence he no doubt intends with the book's first two poems to demonstrate his ability to compose in mixed rasas, since all the remainder of the work is exclusively in the erotic. The ability to compose in mixed rasas is the touchstone of a poet-and indeed, we have in these poems as full a complement of stimuli of rasa as we have in complete works. Hence the declaration of the commentator on Bharata:18 "A single verse of Amaru is worth a hundred whole works."

(Amaru 3) The face of a woman making love on top- hair mussed and swaying, earrings swinging, makeup running from her sweat, eyes rolling in ecstasy- will save you. Who needs Vishnu or Shiva or Skanda or any other god!

... In this poem it is not, by contrast, the subject matter that is dominant, but rather the rasa itself. And thus there is no question here of the "rasa-laden statement" being an ornament; instead, it is rasa itself that is ornamented by the figures of speech.

6.2 A POET WRITING OF RASA

The River of Rasa of Bhanudatta (c. 1500)

A northeast Brahman poet who worked at a southwest Islamicate court, Bhanudatta is principally known to historians of Sanskrit literature-and of Indian painting-as the author of the highly influential Bouquet of Rasa (Rasamañjari). This was both an early example of a subspecies of aesthetics devoted to a close analysis of the "foundational factor" of the erotic rasa, namely the leading female character, and an important stimulus to the nascent painting tradition of seventeenth-century Rajasthan, which found inspiration in attempting to turn into line and color the extraordinary beauty of his poetic examples. The River of Rasa is at once and paradoxically an innovative and a conservative book. It is the first independent treatise, in the millennium-long discourse, devoted exclusively to the subject of rasa, in the sense of providing a complete analysis of the topic in eight chapters (dealing with the stable emotions: the factors, the reactions, the "sensitivities," the transitory emotions, the rasas themselves, and miscellaneous matters such as dominant and subordinate rasas, flaws of rasas, and the like). In accordance with older tendencies that were to prove even more consequential in the early modern period, Bhanudatta seeks not only to define and explain rasa and its components but also to illustrate them with poetry, often very high-quality poetry, of his own composition.19 Although by no means an innovation of Bhanu's (Vidyanatha and Vidyadhara composed most of their illustrations themselves for their eulogy textbooks, though Singabhupala followed the older format and took his from canonical poets), this style of exposition was to become, because of his artistry, a model not only for later writers like Jagannatha but also for vernacular poets, especially in classical Hindi. Bhanudatta's conservatism, by contrast, relates to his actual understanding of rasa, which seems to affiliate him with the oldest traditions of aesthetic analysis. At the beginning of the sixth chapter of the River of Rasa he provides three definitions of rasa, whose differences are certainly subtle (and the argument is not always perspicuous). The first emphasizes the process of tasting the "fully matured" stable emotion; the second foregrounds the state of mental "repose"; the third focuses on the awakening of predispositions. All three-rasa as process, repose, and awakening-reference the viewer/reader's experience as Abhinavagupta would have understood it. Yet elsewhere Bhanu has something else in mind. He describes every rasa as the "fully matured" stable emotion, or its "full development": "The fully matured mutual pleasure of a young couple, or the properly matured feeling of desire, is the erotic" (6.10); "fully matured anger-or a state of intensification of all the senses-is the violent rasa" (7.21), and so on. With this, Bhanu is aligning himself to the most archaic concepts of all. As Abhinavagupta puts it: "The view of the most ancient authorities is that it is the stable emotion alone that, once intensified by the causes, reactions, and the rest, becomes rasa."20 Such was the position clearly enunciated by the first extant commentator on the Treatise on Drama, Bhatta Lollata ("Rasa in the primary sense of the term exists in the character; it exists in the actor only by force of his complete identification with the part").21 And it was this that Abhinava, following Bhatta Nayaka, sought to completely overcome.22 Not only is Bhanu's understanding of rasa archaic, but so too is the location presupposed by that understanding. Bhanu nowhere openly addresses this matter, but his view is suggested throughout. When he states, for example, that "A rasa is the trace memory of a stable emotion when this trace has been awakened," he implicitly explains whose memory is in question when noting that his definition of rasa can encompass people who fall in love at first sight (an assessment that will surprise readers of Abhinava, who first introduced the issue of predisposition in elaborating his theory of reader response). And when he asks, with reference to the physical reactions, "why there should be any need for something that shows rasa being reacted to," and answers that the

reactions are the instruments to make rasa known (3.1), he is clearly talking about the character's experience of rasa, not the reader's. For Bhanu, then-and nothing in the River of Rasa militates against this-rasa is first and foremost a phenomenon pertaining to characters; he nowhere directly concerns himself with viewers or readers. Both rasa as "the stable emotion in a heightened state" and its location in the character would be preserved beyond Bhanu into the vernacular future, for example by the important eighteenth-century Hindi poet-intellectual Dev, who fully concurs with the River of Rasa on the question of definition.23 The intellectual revolution initiated in Kashmir in the tenth century by no means displaced all earlier conceptions everywhere; the theological aesthetics that was to blossom in the generation or two after Bhanu offers abundant evidence of their

preservation. Bhanu did seek on occasion to extend his analysis of rasa beyond the doctrines of the old scholars, in rather original ways. He analyzes anew the dual nature of physical reactions (as a means of identifying a rasa and a stimulant factor producing it), and the notion of the "sensitivities." He offers a new account of why affection for a child cannot be a rasa, or even the stable emotion for a new rasa (as it was for many other thinkers), but must be the transitory emotion of the tragic rasa. His distinction between "mundane" and "supermundane" rasa does not reference the earlier theorists who had made use of it, and only with difficulty can be mapped against their views (let alone the redefinitions of the theological aesthetics that was to come). Mundane rasa is produced by "mundane sense contact," or everyday tangible sense experience, supermundane by the more intangible experience of "dreams, imagination, and representation." Since "representation"24 includes poetry and drama, it is presumably here (and only here, and very quietly) that Bhanu is bringing the viewer/reader back into the analysis-which would entail that the "mundane" variety comprises the rasa of the characters. Yet "supermundane rasa" includes the subcategory called "rasa occurring in the imagination," which, in view of his example, must refer to what happens inside the narrative. (It is the character, or more precisely the literary "I"-and not the reader-who is experiencing the rasa, which in this case arises not from a sensory perception of a concrete foundational factor but from imagination.) At all events, that subtype does capture a real phenomenon that Sanskrit literary theory to date had ignored. Being fully aware of the reluctance to multiply categories that marked a millennium-old Sanskrit discourse, Bhanu is careful to adduce a classic poem by Bhartrihari (rather than a new one of his own) in support of his claim and to demonstrate precisely how "we are actually reading about an erotic fantasy." Similarly, in attempting to account for the existence of the peaceful rasa, Bhanu posits a new "rasa of phenomenal reality" (māyārasa, 7.63) to encompass worldly engagement parallel to the peaceful rasa of disengagement. It is hard to see how this would be anything more than a covering term for the eight standard rasas, though this is something Bhanu himself anticipates and denies.25 These gestures at renovation had few historical effects. What counts for intellectual history is Bhanudatta's new affiliation to the oldest tradition of aesthetic analysis coupled with his interest in, and talent for, illustrating this with new poetry of his own making. And it was this analysis and poetic practice, descending directly from Bhanu-for his influence was enormous, among not only classical Hindi writers but also those working in Marathi, Telugu, and Persian26-that would continue to shape the thinking of wide sectors of both the Sanskrit and the vernacular tradition for the next two centuries.

FROM THE RIVER OF RASA OF BHANUDATTA27

(1.5) Since a cause must always precede its effect, it is entirely appropriate to first turn our attention to the cause of rasa, which lies in the emotions and the like. Thus the emotions will be described prior to the rasas. An emotion is a transformation conducive to rasa. "Transformation" refers to a modification and is of two sorts, bodily or internal. The internal is also twofold: stable and transitory. A bodily transformation is a psychophysical response. We reject the argument that "emotion" refers exclusively to a mental transformation and that therefore the use of the term in reference to bodily transformations such as perspiration must be purely figurative. Since the word

"emotion" is found in use equally in both cases, it is impossible to decide the matter one way or the other. After all, one does not decide about the nature of a thing by making it fit with a definition.28 The first, or "stable," emotion is defined as one that is not displaced by other emotions whether similar (that is, stable) or dissimilar (that is, transitory), insofar as it has the capacity to subordinate other emotions to itself; or more simply, as a mental transformation that is not displaced by any other stable emotion; or better yet, as a mental transformation dominant over all others. The definition is not so wide as to include either transitory emotions or physical reactions, because neither has the capacity to subordinate all other emotions to itself. It is referred to as "stable" since it remains stable up to the climax.29 Among these, desire is a mental transformation, not fully matured,30 produced by longing for some wished-for object. It can arise from seeing, hearing, or remembering .... Humor is an incomplete mental transformation produced by an incongruity of speech or dress that is meant for amusement. The definition is not so wide as to include fear or anger brought about by a peculiar type of speech or dress, since the element of amusement is absent there .... (3.1 ff.) Next, the physical reactions will be described. Things that show a rasa being "reacted to"-in other words, that make rasa an object of reaction-are called "reactions." These include sidelong glances and so on. Their being a "reaction" derives from the fact that they are a means, a means being something directly connected with an effect.31 One might well ask why there should be any need for something that shows rasa being reacted to. True enough, rasa is defined as a fully matured stable emotion, but since it is an internal phenomenon we can have no knowledge of it without something else to make it known, hence the necessity of a physical reaction. But one might also ask why sidelong glances and the like are not reckoned stimulant factors since, when a sidelong glance is seen, a mental transformation in the two lovers becomes fully matured-this is proven by experience and so cannot be denied. Moreover, there is a consensus of the ancients on this point .... This is all true. Insofar as a sidelong glance is a means, it can be classified as a reaction; insofar as it is an object of perception, it can be classified as a stimulant. That is, a sidelong glance directed toward the protagonist is a reaction insofar as it is a means of showing the rasa being reacted to in the female protagonist herself. When the glance itself becomes an object of perception, it brings about a mental transformation in the two lovers and hence acts as a stimulant factor .... (6.1) The rasas will now be described. When a stable emotion is represented by the factors, the physical and psychophysical responses, and the transitory emotions and thereby becomes fully matured, it is "tasted" and thus becomes a rasa. Another definition: rasa is that upon which the mind is brought to focus by the emotions, the factors, the physical reactions, and the transitory emotions. Yet a third definition: a rasa is the trace memory of a stable emotion when this trace has been awakened, and what awakens it are the factors, the physical reactions, and the transitory emotions. This last definition is not so narrow as to exclude the love at first sight of two young people, on the grounds that they have no previous experience (and hence no memory). For even in their case there exists an earlier experience-namely, in a former life. Rasa is of two sorts, mundane and supermundane, the former produced by mundane contact, the latter by supermundane contact. Mundane contact is of six types32 and depends on a material object; supermundane contact is mental. That is, the mental state itself supplies the contiguity,

either directly, when its causes and so on have actually been experienced, or by way of latent memories, when the causes have been experienced but not in the present life. Supermundane rasa is of three sorts: occurring in a dream, in the imagination, or in a representation. The last is found in the beauty of drama as well as in the beauty of the words and themes of poetry; both forms consist of bliss that is pure and unmixed.33 While it is fair to object that "rasa occurring in the imagination" has no traditional standing, consider a poem such as the following:

Fortunate are those who dwell in mountain caves and contemplate the highest light as birds alight in their laps without fear and drink their flowing tears of joy. As for me, my life wastes away in endless pursuit of diversions in pleasure groves or on the ledges of pools or palaces imagined only in my dreams.34

In this verse we are hearing about what is actually an erotic fantasy; moreover, the bliss here, one of the three reckoned in authoritative texts,35 cannot come into being without rasa.

(6.7) One might wonder why affection for a child, covetousness, devotion to a god, or even ....

avarice are not rasas, given the presence in them of the stable feelings of attachment, craving, faith, and greed, respectively. The answer is that affection for a child and so on are not stable feelings but instead transitory emotions, all of them aspects of desire. One might then well ask what rasas they are supposed to be transitory emotions of. The answer is that in the case of affection for a child, the rasa is the tragic; in the case of covetousness, the comic; in the case of devotion to a god, the peaceful; in the case of avarice, likewise the comic. But why, in the case of love for a child, shouldn't desire as a transitory emotion alone be in operation-why is it necessary to bring in the tragic rasa? For in the former case the phenomenon is actually in existence, whereas in the latter it has to be postulated through there being an emotion that is transitory for it, and it is more parsimonious to postulate a property (in this case, desire) than an entity (in this case, the sorrowful rasa). The reason is that the desire expends itself in producing grief, since grief comes from desire .... 36 (7.63) Now, there are two basic states of mind, engagement and disengagement. In the case of disengagement we have the peaceful rasa, and analogously in the case of engagement we would appear to have a "rasa of phenomenal reality," for we cannot argue that rasa arises in the former case but not in the latter .... Furthermore, this rasa of phenomenal reality cannot be purely the genus of which the other rasas are species, for the peaceful would have to be excluded and thereby turn out to be a semblance of rasa. Instead, like flashes of lightning, desire, along with amusement, grief, anger, determination, fear, revulsion, and amazement, arise and vanish in this rasa of phenomenal reality, and hence all these stable emotions function for it as transitory emotions. The definition of the rasa of phenomenal reality is this: it is a latent impression, consisting of nescience, that comes to be awakened. This nescience is its stable emotion; its foundational and stimulant factors are good and bad karma, which underwrite experience in the world; whereas its reactions are such things as a child, a wife, success, or preeminence.