Books / A Rasa Reader Classical Indian Aesthetics Sheldon Pollock

21. 299. pratyagratā -; for the usage see VJ p. 45.6.

Page 297

  1. pratyagratā -; for the usage see VJ p. 45.6.

  2. VU 4.2. King Pururavas has fallen in love with the divine nymph Urvashi.

  3. Compare p. 158.5.

  4. samanvaya-, translation uncertain (a favorite word of Kuntaka's, used some forty times; see e.g., pp. 96.4 and 111.15).

  5. VU 4.6.

  6. As a divine being Urvashi would never actually touch the earth.

  7. In Tāpasavatsarāja King Udayana, neglecting statecraft in his infatuation with his queen Vasavadatta, is tricked by his ministers Yaugandharayana and Rumanvat into believing she has died in a fire; whereupon he becomes an ascetic, only to be reunited with her at the end. The dominant rasa of the play is the erotic, but here there is the subordinate rasa of the tragic (rather than the erotic thwarted), since as far as Udayana is aware, there is no hope of recovering the queen. In this verse, the king is addressing the queen's pet deer.

  8. Tāpasavatsarāja 2.11.

  9. Tāpasavatsarāja 2.13.

  10. After adducing as an example a naturalistic description of a lion, Kuntaka cites the opening verse of AS, in which the deer hunted by King Dushyanta looks back at him in terror (p. 141). He goes on to point out that animals, as well as insensate things such as trees, enhance literary beauty especially when they are functioning as stimulant factors.

  11. I conjecture -sarasatvarūpam (for -sarasam svarūpam; compare 2.35).

  12. The second (more technical) point is discussed on p. 147.15-24, which I omit.

  13. Kuntaka, citing BKA 3.6, proceeds to show, by an analysis of the compound "rasa-laden," that must in fact refer to the

poem itself, not the ornament.

  1. KĀ 2.278.

  2. KASS 4.3.

  3. udāracaritair; or perhaps conjecture uccāritair, "just by pronouncing the words."

  4. That is, and not to be put on a par with regular figures of speech.

  5. DhA 2.5, above.

  6. I add this (and "he concludes" below) in order to indicate that this constitutes Ananda's view, which Kuntaka will reject.

  7. Given Kuntaka's important revision of Ananda, I include this section, though it bristles with uncertainties, with which I must take liberties in order to clarify for the reader. He wants to make two points: first, the rasa here cannot be an ornament but must be the main point of the verse; second, the erotic is also present in the verse, as either an equal or a complementary component.

  8. Dhà p. 193, above.

  9. Ananda specifically cites the verse to illustrate the case where the rasa is "unmixed" with any other rasa or figure.

  10. The husbands.

  11. For the nature of conflictual rasas, see Mammata's analysis in chapter 4.3.

  12. And hence, have survived. The erotic thwarted is possible only when the lovers are alive; if one is dead, the rasa is the

tragic.

  1. I conjecture -cārutvasvarūpa- (for -cārutvam tatsvarūpa-).

  2. The first of Ananda's examples was omitted here.

  3. It is not reasonable according to Ananda's own theory that rasa can only be implied, not expressed.