Books / A Rasa Reader Classical Indian Aesthetics Sheldon Pollock

28. 114. Two additional forms of valid cognition.

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  1. Two additional forms of valid cognition.

  2. I read tatpramity- (with KA, for taptam ity).

  3. For saśabdalinga- KA gives śabdalaksanalinga -.

  4. The factors must be restricted to the stimulants, since the foundational can of course be and typically are sensate.

  5. Abhinava will not return to the question of the hindrances until ABh 1.278, below.

  6. That is, the stable emotions.

  7. Or, in many of its aspects, "power." For the linkage between rasas and ends of man, see also ABh 1.261, below.

  8. I read kāma- (with Kangle, for kāmah or [KA] kāme). The editors of both NS and KA mispunctuate the passage as a whole.

  9. So KLV p. 309.27 (see ABh 1.276.4 below).

  10. The addition of the ninth rasa, and of course the homology with the ends of man, force Abhinava to abandon Bharata's

own scheme; see N 1.289, given above.

  1. The hierarchy among the stable emotions is nowhere discussed, but the ends of man with which they are associated are indeed hierarchically related (morality takes precedence over wealth, wealth over love), and that may be what is intended here.

  2. The reference is to Samkhya philosophy, and its doctrine of the three constituents of reality: stolidity, volatility, and

sensitivity.

  1. kațu kimnā is a misprint for katukimna, but which is itself difficult to construe (the true reading may be katukima, but the corruption would be hard to explain).

  2. KA moves the following discussion (to p. 277.21), with substantial modifications, to his formal discussion of the sthāyibhāvas in 2.18 (p. 124).

  3. Cited in IPVV v. 3 p. 174 (with the reading -āsvādarasādaraḥ).

  4. The reading anucita- (for aparicita-) seems further corroborated by 1.277.1, ucitavişayaniyantritā, and by KA, ayuktatayā (De and Kangle, perhaps overcleverly, -jigisuh [for ārjijisur, or perhaps better arjijisur] api jita-). (KLV construes this qualification with fear, thereby mistakenly deleting utsāha, p. 310.2.)

  5. The participial phrase is otiose (perhaps a gloss that has crept into the text).

  6. The formulation is as vague in the Sanskrit as in the translation, and the exact nuance is unclear to me (and KA's tattatsvaparakartavyavaicitryadarśanāt is not much help).

  7. For example, only characters of high status can be the subjects of an erotic or heroic literary work, only characters of low status can be the subjects of a humorous or disgusting one.

  8. I read -vibhāvābhāvāt janmamadhye (with Triv., KA, for -vibhāvāt jaganmadhye).

  9. More clearly KA: "for the simple reason that desire and so on will (always) have yet additional objects and so cannot be depleted" (p. 125.13).

  10. Yogasūtrabhāsya 2.4 (p. 60; cited also in IPVV v. 2, p. 178; Caitra = John Doe), where the discussion concerns the punctuated but persistent nature (vicchitti) of the disturbances (klesas): even though discontinued under the force of a conflictual disturbance, or concentrated on a single object, a disturbance can in the one case reappear and in the other be simultaneously directed toward some other object.

  11. The same image is used in 1.334.27-28, where the string corresponds to the self.

  12. I read vicitrārthāh (with Gnoli, for vicitrārtha-).

  13. I.e., and not engender (KLV).

  14. Or: coloring the particular character of the stable emotion. The reading svarūpoparañjakatvam (though also given by KA)

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seems dubious; the correct reading may well be samuparañjakatvam (see 1.278.8).

  1. That is, by stipulating the method of elimination as concentration on the stable emotion.

  2. I read -nirūpaņayā (with KA, for -nirūpaņāyā). KA also adds, "on the part of the sage [Bharata]."

  3. NŚ 1.293.13, above.

  4. For KLV, the general definition runs from the rasasutra to p. 288.2; and the particular, from p. 289.1 through the account of the various rasas.

  5. I read -dhrtyādi- (with KA, for -vīksādi-), despite the fact that transitory emotions are typically not held to be signs for inferring but rather what is inferred (the reading katāksavīksa- ignores the vyabhicāribhāva, is redundant, and appears to be hapax).

  6. NŚ 7.

  7. Abhinava is glossing the word samyoga, "conjunction," in Bharata's rasasūtra.

  8. artha. KLV glosses "stable emotion in the form of a predisposition" (p. 310.14).

  9. For Shri Shankuka, rasa is actually an imitation in the actor of a stable emotion in the character cognized by the viewer through inference; for Bhatta Lollata, rasa is the stable emotion in an intensified state. In DhĀL pp. 155-57, Abhinava ascribes some of the views that follow to a Mimamsaka (which Shri Shankuka was not, see headnote, chapter 1.4), while at the same time

accepting them in a qualified way.

  1. The imitation of an emotion on the stage.

  2. Insofar as that would produce the impossible notion that rasa is simply the stable emotion (KLV p. 310.16).

  3. The NS passage in question is 1.282. In DhAL p. 157, Abhinava explains the congruity as twofold: we relish the predispositions of our mental state in a way congruent with the aesthetic elements pertaining to the character's mental state; and when we come to understand the mental states of others in the real world (which forms the basis of our aesthetic sympathy), it is their stable emotion (such as desire) that we become aware of through the causes (like gardens) and effects (like horripilation).

  4. Another version of part of this passage is found in DhAL pp. 155-56.

  5. KLV agrees that the ablative here is parallel with following two instrumentals.

  6. As Ruyyaka (glossing Mammata's précis) puts it, the mental states of such adepts "are in the end focused exclusively on their inner self" (svātmamātraparyavasitāni, KP p. 579). That said, Abhinava has just stated that the spiritual adept is "free from any coloration of objective reality," and hence the reading in both NŚ and KA (KLV) here and below visayāveśavaivaśyena strikes me as dubious. We might wish to conjecture -vaisamyena ("harshness toward the lure of objects") in view of yogipratyayād vişayāsvādaśūnyatāparusād (ABh 1.284.22, below), and IPVV v. 3, p. 233: amī sukhādyā vicitravaișamyabhājaḥ (see also Mokșopāya 1.28.13: vişam vişayavaişamyam na vişam vişam ucyate).

  7. That is, making or producing as a concrete thing (essentially Bhatta Lollata's view).

  8. This is basically Shri Shankuka's position.

  9. Kangle notes that Mammata reads -siddheh (for -siddhau), "our argument, since we have proven."

  10. The analogy hardly seems "exact," since in the one case it is the super-phenomenal nature of the elements that is at issue, in the other, the composite nature of the drink.

  11. Presumably our deeply implanted intuitions prevent us from seeing Rama himself as completely superimposed on the actor. How such an awareness would function with respect to a fictional character, such as Madhava, is unclear.

  12. I read tata (with KA, KLV, for ata). The elimination is a result of a mutual cancellation-of the true belief in the actor by the false belief in the character, and vice versa (KLV).

  13. So KLV (for this sense of niyata-, see ABh 1.35.17, 273.13, 338.22).

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  1. "Sorrow" (duḥkha) presumably stands for īrșā (envy), which appears in other occurrences of this argument (e.g., ABh 1.35.18). Both in respect to these three states (of indifference, self-involvement, and involvement of a specific other; see also 1.273.6) and in the discussion of commonization that follows, the magnitude of Abhinava's debt to Bhatta Nayaka will be obvious.

  2. The term "sequence of moments"(santanavrtti) is Buddhist in inspiration (see IPVV v. 2, p. 128, where Dharmottara is discussed).

  3. Which can have various relationships of predominance and subordination among themselves (KLV). I understand sādhārāņībhāvanā (for sādhārāņī bhāvanā).

  4. The extended narrative (prabandha) is typically distinguished from both drama and the isolate verse, but obviously Abhinava is including it in the former. (Kangle's deletion is contradicted by KLV.)

  5. KAS 1.3.30-31 (reading with the editions tad dhi citram [for tad vicitram]). The "particular components" are mentioned in what follows (the dialects used in drama, etc.).

  6. Isolate verses do not identify the speaker, who therefore, along with the dramatic situation, needs to be inferred from hints in the poem itself.

  7. That is, "rasa"; see ABh 1.272.20, given above.

  8. Which illuminate everything, however already bright and pure.

  9. Compare above, ABh 1.275.9-12, on the third hindrance.

  10. My understanding of the phrase ("whether ... mental state") is imperfect; the text drśyānyaniyamādau in particular is almost certainly corrupt.

  11. NŚ 1.283.2, above.

  12. Abhinava is glossing NŚ 6.33, above.

  13. That is, with the protagonist.

  14. Compare ABh 1.37 and n. 297, below; and especially IPVV v. 2, p. 179: "When one is tasting honey and the like, physical contact with the object is interposed [between the tasting and the consciousness]. In the case of poetry or drama, however, although such interposition is absent, one's latent dispositions do remain interposed and penetrate [the consciousness]."

  15. The Shaiva hindrances; compare, e.g., IPVV v. 2, p. 178.

  16. Whereas the erotic thwarted preserves the hope that the lovers will be reunited.

  17. I understand tannimittam (see KLV p. 311.27) raudraḥ, sa cārthapradhānaḥ (for tannimittam cārthapradhānah raudraḥ, sa cāmarsapradhānaḥ). For the linkage of anger with wealth/power, see ABh 1.276, above, where the other ends are linked with other eABh 1276, abo rasas.

  18. NŚ 18.43.

  19. See Bhatta Lollata fragment #2a.

  20. We have no record of this position in earlier literature (see also Raghavan 1975: 123).

  21. I read ganayitum (conjectured by L. McCrea, for gamayitum).

  22. Normally Nyaya speaks of eight gunas (among the twenty-four) that pertain to the ātman: buddhi, sukha, duhkha, icchā, dveșa, prayatna, dharma, adharma; presumably Abhinava here adds samskāra. The Samkhyas' eight are dharma, adharma, jñāna, ajñāna, vairāgya, avairāgya, aiśvarya, anaiśvarya, and the four types of apprehension, viparyaya, aśakti, tusti, and siddhi (Kangle 1973: 438).

  23. NS chapter 22.

  24. I read viśeşāśrayāt (with Kangle, for viśeșāśrayatvāt), but the text of the preceding compound is dubious (and hence marked

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with an ellipsis).

  1. I am not entirely certain this refers to "commonization."

  2. I read abhisanga- (Kangle's conjecture, for șadja-).

  3. artha, taken as "enterprise" in NS 1.266 above, is here left untranslated given Abhinava's exegesis.

  4. Abhinava is glossing pra + vartate.

  5. NŚ 6.33.

  6. For the citation omitted, see Bhatta Tota fragment #5, above.

  7. Presumably because of the genre constraints of the courtly epic (not the "incapacity" of the poet to become a playwright, Kangle, p. 196).

  8. tāvatīva hrdyam, translation uncertain.

  9. NS 14.2. "It" in the v. refers to language, not "[the group of] ten forms," and hence the force of the quote is dark to me. Perhaps Abhinava is simply saying that Bharata uses the word nātya to refer to what others call daśarūpakam.

  10. rotrpratipattr -. I see no reason to emend the text (pratipatti- is easy but does not explain the corruption; Kangle's -prītipari- is a mere guess), though the collocation appears nowhere else in Sanskrit, and it is accordingly uncertain that Abhinava actually means to contrast listener/listening (śrotr/ akarnana), that is, to a recitation of a play, with watching a performance (nataprakriyā),

as I translate.

  1. -mukurahrdaya-, the sole use of the simile in Abhinava. Quite different is the figure hrdayadarpana in Bhatța Nāyaka; see headnote to chapter 3.1.

  2. I take sādhāraņa- almost in the sense of sādhāraņya (Kangle reads 'sādhāraņa-).

  3. More or less the view of Shri Shankuka, at least insofar as he takes rasa to be an imitation in the actor (of an emotion in the

character).

  1. I read nanu (with Kangle, for na).

  2. I read -pātre (with Visvesara, for -mātre).

  3. The section is not extant.

  4. The emendation natakarmarūpam (for națadharmaḥ karmarūpam) has been proposed (see Kangle ad loc.).

  5. The aesthetic elements include the transitory emotions as well as the psychophysical responses, which are classed as

emotions.

  1. Shri Shankuka fragment #1, above.

  2. This earlier refutation (ABh 1.35.10) is translated below; see also Bhatta Tota, #1a, above.

  3. In the Sutra on Rasa.

  4. "To say that rasas cause emotions to come into being is to say they make them, that is, enable them to be identified as aesthetic elements" (ABh 1.287.21-22). The standard example is that the son is the cause of his father being a father.

  5. Mahābhāsya 1.1.1.4, and elsewhere.

  6. It is the bhävas, not the rasas, that are configured with forms of representation. I therefore read -baddhāh and gatāh (for - baddhan and gatan). See above on NS 6.34.

  7. NŚ 6.34; see above.

  8. And hence it is only the creation of rasa that allows us to identify its causes as emotions in the aesthetic sense, as Abhinava

goes on to explain.

  1. Abhinava's understanding of NŚ 1.266, given above.