Books / A Rasa Reader Classical Indian Aesthetics Sheldon Pollock

35. 244. Compare Abhinavagupta on Bhatta Nayaka #1a; Ruyyaka on #3a.

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  1. Compare Abhinavagupta on Bhatta Nayaka #1a; Ruyyaka on #3a.

  2. That is "but not equal, because of the commingling." Commentators like Shrivatsa state that the difference between the state of mukti and the rasa experience is the continued fusion in the latter with the aesthetic objects (KP p. 602; Nagesha speaks of vibhāvādisamvalitānandāmśa-, KP [BHU ed.] p. 120); see also Kumarasvamin p. 210, above, and KD p. 152.4.

  3. Jagannatha misquotes here, reading caiva for cānya (see above, Bhatta Nayaka fragment #10).

  4. "Manifesting," vyakti; "manifestation," vyañjanā. The claim that bhoga is in essence rasadhvani is made repeatedly by Abhinavagupta himself (DhĀL pp. 189.4, 52.7-8, 188.3).

  5. If the desire were real, it would continue to exist even when the actualization through the aesthetic elements was not taking place; if it were unreal, it would never be experienced (Ojha).

  6. Both here and in the clause the follows, Ojha and Madhusudan Shastri take the referent of sva to be rati, which makes no grammatical sense to me.

  7. I read carvaņīya- (with mss., for varņanīya-); compare vyañjitaś carvaņīyaḥ in KP p. 574. 251. Jagannatha adds, "the 'veiling' being specified as the object of qualification when one has the sense of being qualified by desire or other stable emotion," from which I derive little sense.

  8. Again, the term is being used in the experiential as opposed to the linguistic sense.

  9. Presumably either the trouble of acquiring the cream in the first place (harvesting it from snake-infested sandal trees) or its crusting as it dries (Mathuranath Sastri).

  10. Literally, and awkwardly: "For this reason the weeping ... makes sense."

  11. The father of Rama, grief-stricken when forced to send his son into exile.

  12. It is unclear who is meant (only the rejection of implicature pertains to Mahima Bhatta).

  13. In this interpretation, it is the viewer's awareness (e.g., of being Dushyanta, who feels desire for Shakuntala) that is rasa, not his stable emotion; rasa is identical with the savoring of rasa. It is never made clear how, in the absence of the Vedantic analysis of ontological undecidability, these scholars justify the cognitive error (Ojha).

  14. That is, not based on perception or other reliable cognitive instrument (Ojha). 259. More simply: the sense in the reader that (1) "I, who am filled with desire for Shakuntala, am Dushyanta"; or (2) "I am Dushyanta, who is qualified by a desire for Shakuntala"; or (3) "I am qualified by a sense of being Dushyanta and by a desire for Shakuntala." Although the upshot is the same in all three cases, the first takes the form of "I am Dushyanta," where "being Dushyanta" is predicated of "I"; the second takes the form of "Dushyanta is me," where "I" is predicated of "Dushyanta"; in the third, "being Dushyanta" and desire are both posited as qualifications of one's self (Mathuranath Sastri).

  15. One infers the existence in Dushyanta of desire for Shakuntala; cognitive error conceals the difference between the viewer and Dushyanta, and effects an identification between the viewer and the desirous Dushyanta. This purely mental sense of identity with the desirous character, then, for these "other" scholars, is rasa (Mathuranatha Sastri). In this part of the argument, "manifestation" refers (as in Anandavardhana) to the linguistic process, not (as in post-Abhinavagupta thought) to the mental

state.

  1. Largely the ancient view, associated with Bhatta Lollata, though there is no evidence that Bhatta Lollata viewed rasa as an object of awareness on the part of the audience.

  2. The expression is loose: the desiring Dushyanta is superimposed, not just the desire.

  3. Literally, "representations of the foundational factor and other aesthetic elements," but this is an imprecise formulation: Dushyanta may be the foundational factor for desire in Shakuntala, but the point of this discussion is his desire for her.

  4. Shri Shankuka.

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  1. Theories 7, 10-11 are probably borrowed from DhĀL p. 186 (Raghavan 1975: 138 also noticed the connection); the source of the other two is unknown, and may in fact have no historical antecedents but be purely speculative.

  2. The point of this distinction escapes me (perhaps related to the actor/performance, rather than to each other).

  3. Presumably: because the rasasūtra says so.

  4. Ironically, this is not the original reading of NS 6.15, given above.

  5. SRA 7.1360.

  6. KP 4.29 and 35 (sūtras 44 and 47).

  7. vairāgya, which Jagannatha is equating with nirveda (dispassion).

  8. The middle step in this argument ("and since it is desire that is not normative-not being that between a young heterosexual couple-and hence cannot be consummated in the normal way, it cannot fully develop into a rasa and so must remain an emotion") is the unspoken assumption in the defense that follows.

  9. KP 4.35.

  10. Madhusudan Shastri's -ayogat (for -yogat) may be correct.

  11. Jagannatha is clearly unfamiliar with the arguments of Bhoja, e.g., SP p. 615, above.

  12. Pun intended.

  13. This is less a sūtra-like definition (as formatted in the printed editions) than simply an older position under examination.

  14. In the first case, the cause is the fact of many lovers, all of whom may be appropriate love objects; in the second, the cause is the attitude, not the social status, of one of the partners.

  15. That is, established by social convention.

ENGLISH-SANSKRIT GLOSSARY

  1. Bhoja's substitution for either apasmāra or maraņa.

  2. Bhoja's substitution for either apasmāra or marana; DR's substitutution for asūyā.

  3. The progression is: lust, anxiety, remembrance, glorification, distress, raving, madness, sickness, stupor, death.