14. 6.3 DEVOTEES EXPERIENCING RASA

6.3 DEVOTEES EXPERIENCING RASA

Pearls of the Bhagavata, of Vopadeva (c. 1300) with the Lamp for Transcendence of Hemadri (c. 1300)

Pearls of the Bhägavata, a now little-studied but historically influential work from late thirteenth-century Maharashtra, was composed by a scholar known principally for his elementary Sanskrit grammar. Basically an anthology of citations from the Bhāgavatapurāņa, the late tenth-century masterpiece of religious poetry, the Pearls is arranged so as to illustrate, on the basis of selected verses from the purana, core themes in Vaishnava theology: the nature of the deity, the character of devotion and its subsidiary practices (learning the deeds of Vishnu/Krishna, singing hymns about him, and so on), and the definition and illustration of the kinds of devotee. What is significant is that the various emotional attitudes the devotee can have toward Vishnu are now all conceived of by way of rasa theory. The canonical rasas are redefined as simply nine aspects of a single "devotional rasa," a concept mentioned in passing in earlier texts but developed for the first time in the Pearls.37 More valuable for our purposes here than the text of Vopadeva is the commentary of Hemadri, who appears to have been his teacher.38 He is known to us principally for his work on law, the massive Philosopher's Stone of the Four Ends of Man (Caturvargacintamani), but also as chief minister of the Yadava kings of Devagiri in their last decades of autonomy before absorption into the Delhi Sultanate (1294). Hemadri's account is a spirited and innovative defense of the new rasa, a concept that in the following centuries was to be elaborated far beyond the Pearls and that found wide resonance in Bengal with the rise of new religious movements in the sixteenth century. The devotional rasa in the Pearls is not one thing but a category that covers the whole spectrum of emotions that devotees experience when confronted with the deeds of Krishna. But here again is the ambiguity that has persisted, in one form or another, throughout the long history of the discourse on rasa. Is the rasa Vopadeva and Hemadri are analyzing something they think is located in the characters who are themselves in their multifarious ways devoted to the god? Is it instead, or in addition, located in everyday devotees listening to or watching the stories-or indeed, such devotees who thereby become themselves veritable characters in the Krishna story? The Pearls never raises the third possibility-that would be the great innovation of Bengali theological aesthetics-and its exposition of the first and second gives no decisive answer. Vopadeva's base text itself is decidedly in favor of the first option. In the illustrations of the erotic provided below, the author makes clear he is interested in the devotional erotic of the women, in its four principal aspects: the aristocratic women of Hastinapura, who are seeing Krishna as he leaves the city; the village women of Vraja, who are described (by the Hastinapura women) as touching Krishna; the women freed by Krishna from a demon's captivity and then betrothed to him, who have intercourse with Krishna; and again the women of Vraja, who have the enjoyment of conversing with Krishna. It is undoubtedly the reactions of the various classes of women that are key for Vopadeva; even in the absence of explicit comment, their juxtaposition is enough to make the argument. It may be that the illustrations are sometimes adduced to show us not the devotees in the original Krishna storyworld experiencing the various rasas, but instead the various kinds of poems that produce the nine rasas experienced by real-world devotees. And this seems to be Hemadri's understanding. While he himself reviews, if only parenthetically, the different possibilities of the location of rasa and declines to assert his own view, his defense of the devotional rasa is in part based on "The very fact that the audience comes to have the devotional rasa with its full complement of aesthetic elements." And he is more emphatic elsewhere: "What exists in the characters, Janaki, the goodly Rama, and so on is only desire or other such emotion, not rasa," which must, accordingly, exist in the viewer/reader alone. It would not do to conclude that author and commentator disagree, not only because we have so little evidence about the former's view but also because the two aspects of rasa are, as we have frequently noted elsewhere, in the end inseparable. The longer-term historical development of the devotional rasa, however, would largely render the older dichotomy irrelevant.

FROM PEARLS OF THE BHĀGAVATA, OF VOPADEVA (V) WITH THE LAMP FOR TRANSCENDENCE OF HEMADRI (H)

(Chapter 11) The Section on the Devotee of Vishnu. First, the definition of "devotee," and the various types. (V) (11.1) Whoever in this world find their thoughts directed to Krishna just once, if only to his lotus feet, and thereby become enamored of him, if only of his qualities, will become devotees. They will have undergone all expiation and so will never, even in their dreams, behold Yama, god of death, or his noose-bearing minions.39 (p. 164) There are nine kinds of devotee, precisely because the experience of the devotional rasa has nine forms: the comic, erotic, tragic, violent, fearful, macabre, peaceful, fantastic, and heroic. Such are the general definition and the varieties of devotee in the Pearls.

(H) Devotion may arise either from scriptural injunction or spontaneously,40 but at all events, when it reaches the highest pitch it becomes rasa. To quote: "Emotions when fully developed become rasa."41 One becomes a devotee from the experience of devotion, in the same way as one becomes a satisfied person from the experience of satisfaction. There are nine sorts of devotee by virtue of the nine modalities of rasa. In other words, the comic and the rest, when employed with respect to the Blessed One, achieve the state of being rasa, given that all those emotions are encompassed by the definition of devotion, as the scripture tells us ("Therefore, one must by some means or other direct one's thoughts to Krishna").42 The comic43 and the rest will be defined in due course. The nine rasas arise from particular combinations of the three constituents of reality: pleasure, pain, and insensibility.44 To explain: the first three (the comic, erotic, and tragic) are based on volatility; the second three (the violent, fearful, and macabre) on stolidity; the last three (the peaceful, fantastic, and heroic) on sensitivity, for rasas are derivatives of these three constituents (which are discussed in BhPu 11.25) .... As noted, the violent, fearful, and macabre rasas consist of stolidity, hence are inauspicious, and for that reason are not mentioned first in the above list (those rasas are themselves listed in order of least to most objectionable). One might still wonder why the erotic is not placed at the head of the list here ("the comic, erotic," etc.), for at least two reasons. For one thing, the erotic is the leading rasa, according to the doctrines of the teacher of dramaturgy,45 since everyone knows that a person in love is enviable. For another, the very etymology of the term "the erotic" (śrngāra)-"what goes to" (iyarti), i.e., attains, the "peak" (śrnga), i.e., the primary position-betokens its primacy. Why then should the comic have been placed at the head here? There is some truth to this objection, but in fact the teacher46 did not mention it first precisely in order to indicate that in the Bhāgavata, a sacred work concerned with spiritual liberation, the erotic is subordinate to [165] devotion and as such cannot be predominant. In view of this, and the fact that something must of necessity be listed first, the comic is mentioned since it is the least complex.47 ... The devotional rasa is thus experienced in these nine varieties, the comic and so on. But how, one might ask, can devotion be a rasa at all when it is not defined as such-as for example in the Ten Dramatic Forms and its commentary-with its specific factors and reactions ?... 48 [167] But surely, whenever there is a conjunction with all these, rasa must arise. (On one view, rasa in the primary sense of the term is something that exists in the character, Rama for example, thanks to the power of the actor; on a second view, it exists in the actor alone; on a third, in the audience; on a fourth, in the actor as well as in the audience since the consciousness of rasa finds equal footing in both. For some, rasa is something produced; for others, it is something made known or experienced or manifested. The curious can get details from the treatises themselves; I refrain from dilating on the matter here lest this work grow too long.) The argument some make that devotion cannot be a rasa because it lacks the full complement of aesthetic elements has been rejected by others who aver that this can very well be posited of devotion. Hence the author gives his reply:

(V) The "devotional rasa" is the rapture produced from hearing or otherwise experiencing the

deeds of Vishnu, as described by Vyasa and others, or of his devotees, and is of nine different sorts.

(H) ( ... The "devotees" of Vishnu are the cowherd women49 and so on. "Otherwise experiencing" means that the rapture can be a matter of seeing, chanting, remembering, or dramatic acting.)50 The very fact that the audience comes to have the devotional rasa with its full complement of aesthetic elements shows that its existence cannot be denied. The full complement of aesthetic elements is as follows: the stable emotion consists of the directing of one's mind to Vishnu by one means or another; the stimulant factors are hearing or otherwise experiencing his deeds; Vishnu or his devotees are the foundational factor; the reactions, shortly to be detailed, are paralysis and so on, as appropriate to the situation, and the transitory emotions, satisfaction and so on. The "means" just mentioned are desire, amusement, and the other stable emotions. "As described by" poets: this implies that the term "rasa" pertains only to matters conveyed by great poets in their compositions. (Accordingly, what actually exists in the characters themselves, Janaki, the goodly Rama, and so on, is only desire or some such emotion, not rasa, since the true form of rasa is transcendent rapture. Moreover, while sometimes rapture exists in the erotic or other such rasas, it is not found among the fearful and related rasas, and hence we should not in fact use the term "rasa" in reference to them.) And that is why the qualifications "if (the principal causes, ancillary causes, and effects of the stable emotion) are used in poetry or drama"51 are provided. I would add that when rasa is conveyed by literary compositions, it tastes much sweeter than when it is displayed through dramatic acting. To quote: "The means of rasa are twofold: a poet's speech and dramatic acting. The former is superior, since it comes about through the grandeur of the narrative's power."52 Now, Abhinavagupta and Hemachandra are wrong to argue that "the same thing can be said of devotion."53 For we have demonstrated that devotion is indeed a rasa, and to deny it, despite the presence of the full complement of factors, is merely the last resort of stubbornness. And there is no point objecting that, although devotion may conform to a rasa formally, it fails to achieve the status of rasa because it is not something universally accessible. For if that reason really proved anything, [168] then all rasas would be cease to be rasas.54 For when ritualists and bloodless interpreters of the Veda enter into the theater they are nothing but boors, given their incapacity for aesthetic rapture. Similarly, men who have attained spiritual peace, religious celibates, and others like them are outsiders to the savoring of the erotic rasa. Men of intense passion are incapable of relishing the peaceful rasa, while people who have never felt the sting of grief sit stone-faced when they should be savoring the tragic. Since, accordingly, only people with the relevant predispositions are capable of relishing rasa, the view that devotion is a rasa is quite unobjectionable. Nonetheless, one might contend that we are minimizing the number when we say the rasa of devotion is "of nine different sorts." For did King Bhoja and others not argue that there are many other rasas?55 Thus, we are told there is an "affectionate rasa," whose stable emotion is attachment, as in the following poem: "A man who loves a woman .... "56 Here we have a romantic protagonist of tender57 nature; the foundational factor is his beloved; the stimulant factors are the beauty of the female object of his affection58 and so on; confusion, sagacity, satisfaction, and the like are the transitory emotions; thereby the attachment is apprehended as love. There is also said to be a "noble rasa" whose stable emotion is sagacity,59 as in "Any other man, however lowborn, / would not hesitate to ask for this girl's hand // let alone a world conqueror, / the great grandson of Brahma."60 Here we a have a dignified protagonist, Rama, exercising his sagacity-"This Sita is fit for me to marry." When stimulated by seeing her wooed by Ravana and by goading from Lakshmana, and combined with the transitory emotions that are then generated (anxiety, perplexity, shame, dissimulation, remembrance) and those that can be inferred as appropriate for what follows (discernment, adroitness, firmness, and so on), this sagacity arises in the form of the noble rasa. Again, there is said to be a "vainglorious rasa," whose stable emotion is pride, as in "So long as I am armed .... "61 The entire foregoing argument is false, however, because one or another of the primary stable emotions themselves is present in each of the above cases. Moreover, Bhoja himself classified "attachment" and so on among the transitory emotions ("pride, attachment ... are the transitory emotions"),62 and "transitory" and "stable" are antithetical terms, like "mother" and "barren woman." Should one nonetheless persist in this argument, the number of rasas would turn out to be the same as the number of

transitory emotions, which is precisely why Bharata and other authorities have not broached this. And for the same reason, [169] the argument for yet another rasa called lustfulness, with pride as its stable emotion, can be rejected. Therefore what the teacher has said, that there are "nine sorts," is indeed correct.63.

(V) (p. 171) The erotic rasa is of two sorts, the erotic enjoyed and the erotic thwarted.

(H) "En-joyment" is the joy the comes about from the "en-gagement" of a man and a woman. This engagement is of four types: seeing, touching, conversing, and intercourse. All other subtypes can be included in these .... The enjoyment experienced by the female is superior to that of the male, given the predominance of affection in her, and this is what the author shows as he introduces the enjoyment of seeing.

(V) The erotic enjoyed is illustrated in the following verses spoken by the women of Hastinapura:64

(v. 7) "There he is, the Primal Man, they say, who was one and alone when his self- the Lord himself, the world's self-lay enfolded, without distinctions, in cosmic night, his powers slumbering before nature's three constituents began their work .... 65

(v. 14)66 In a past life they must have been married to the Lord and worshipped him with vows, ablutions, offerings and the like, dear friend, that those women of Vraja can now drink in the nectar of his lower lip again and again, and grow faint at the very thought of it.67

(H) In the above verse he illustrates the enjoyment of touching.68 ... One cannot say that this is a case of semblance of rasa on the grounds that, whereas the city women are longing for Krishna, the Blessed One is indifferent to them (and one defines semblance of rasa as the absence69 of mutual responsiveness).70 For in the very next verse reference is made to his own affection for them ("As the city women spoke these words, Hari greeted them with a smiling glance as he went by").71 ...

(v. 17) The women,72 having obtained Shri's husband as their own- whose ways even Brahma and the other gods cannot fathom- loved him unceasingly, with boundless joy, though still too bashful to speak when in his presence, with a look filled with love and laughter.73 ...

(H) In the above he illustrates intercourse, which follows upon touching.

(v. 21) Blessed indeed are the women of Vraja that the Primal Being, hidden in the guise of a mortal-decked with a wildflower garland, tending the cows with brother Bala, playing the flute- came to play among them, he whose feet are worshiped by Shiva and his wife.74 ...

(H) In the above he illustrates the enjoyment of conversing .... 75

DIVINE JEWEL OF ORNAMENTATION OF KAVIKARNAPURA (C. 1550) WITH THE COMMENTARY OF