7. CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER TWO

The Great Synthesis of Bhoja, 1025-1055

2.1 ONE RASA UNDERLIES ALL MULTIPLICITY

Necklace for the Goddess of Language of Bhoja (c.1025) with the Commentary of Bhatta Narasimha (undated); Light on Passion of Bhoja (c. 1050)

King Bhoja of the Paramara dynasty ruled in the city of Dhara (in today's Madhya Pradesh) for nearly half a century (d. 1055). His court would later become the stuff of legend on account of the many literati who flocked there in search of patronage from the greatest literary connoisseur of the age-and perhaps the most creative, given the number of poems and treatises ascribed to him. Kings often took credit for the compositions of their courtiers, but there is reason to think that at least a few of the works that now bear Bhoja's name are genuinely his, or rather-since authorship in this world could be complex-that he participated in some central way in their creation. The Light on Passion certainly bears the voice of a single author, and it is hard not to think of this voice as Bhoja's when we read, for example, in his exposition of the first verse of the work, that "it is not just anyone" who has enunciated it, but "a great king appointed by his elders to protect all that has been inherited, and who in this verse beseeches God that there should be no transgressions against the established order or against caste or life-stage practices while he is engaged in the composition of this book."1 This is less assuredly the case with the Necklace for the Goddess of Language, but its author shares the same conception of literature in general and of rasa in particular as that found in the Light. Two factors make Bhoja's literary works extremely difficult to interpret. One is simply the novelty and complexity of his thought. Bhoja offers an intricate, even counterintuitive, theory of rasa, set within an intricate, though comprehensive, literary system. The second factor is the absence of any detailed tradition of exegesis, which magnifies the problems produced by Bhoja's conceptual novelty and intricacy. Although both his literary treatises were read widely, at least in southern India-we can see their influence in a number of later works2-the Light was never commented on at all, and the only commentaries on the fifth (or rasa) chapter of the Necklace, those of Bhatta Narasimha and of an anonymous author, are each available in one poorly preserved manuscript.3 As a result, even the most learned of Bhoja's modern students have been confounded by his work.4 And if readers cannot fail to be astonished by Bhoja's virtuoso interpretations of Sanskrit poems, where the analytical and interpretational force of rasa theory is deployed to remarkable effect, they also stand bewildered before his ubiquitous and seemingly arbitrary lists: the "twenty-four powers ensuring the presence of rasa," the twenty-four types of figures of sense, and of figures of sound; the twelve types of word, and of meaning, and of "unity."5 But the component that has proven most difficult to understand is also the most fundamental, his theory of rasa. Bhoja's views on rasa are typically regarded as the most unusual and provocative that the tradition has to offer.6 For one thing, he takes issue, often with disputatious irreverence, with Bharata's foundational text. Something so new appears to be going on

here that even later traditional scholars, such as the celebrated early fifteenth-century exegete Mallinatha, viewed it with disdain ("Insofar as Bhoja's work is fatally impaired by its contradictions with the foundational works of Bharata and so on, simply ignoring it ... is the best critique").7 Bhoja himself is clear about his iconoclasm: "The conventional wisdom that the term 'rasa' refers only to the heroic, the fantastic, and the remaining six [traditional rasas] has ... only been accepted because of the intellectual conformity typical of the world, and our intention in this work is to put it to rest." At the same time, he clearly inhabits a thought world radically different from what was to come-or rather, had already come (his relationship to Dhanamjaya and Dhanika will be discussed in chapter 3). How exactly we are to place him in the intellectual history of Indian aesthetics has therefore been an open

question. As the title of the greater of his two works announces, the focus of Light on Passion, Śrngāraprakāśa, is śrngāra, and in much of the text this term is understood in the sense common to earlier literary theory: "In this treatise the erotic rasa will be discussed. It is of two sorts, the erotic enjoyed and the erotic thwarted."8 But what Bhoja perceived, as no one earlier did and few later have,9 and what prompts a reorganization of the entire logic of his analysis, is that the psychological force at work in śrngāra in that narrow sense, "the erotic rasa," actually can be found across the entire spectrum of emotions; there clearly exists some more basic principle that all the rasas share. "Rasa in this treatise is defined as love," he argues. "For all forms of emotion, desire and everything else, once they reach their full development, ultimately turn out to be nothing but this. Thus people are said to 'love sex,' to 'love quarreling,' or anger, or joking."10 To this more fundamental principle he gives-confusingly for us-the same names, śrgāra and rasa (to distinguish the particular phenomena, śrngāra2 or rasa2, from the general śrngāra1 or rasa1 from which they arise, I translate the latter as "passion"). But he also calls it, with greater analytical import, "sense of self" or "ego," notions we need to pause over given their centrality to Bhoja's thinking. The terms are taken from Samkhya philosophy, which was foundational to Bhoja's thought, and the explanation for them offered by Vachaspatimishra, a great Samkhya exegete two generations before Bhoja, repays attention. His comment on the Sāmkhyakārikā verse "'Ego' is one's 'sense of self'" runs as follows:

Sense of self is the awareness that one is empowered to act with respect to one's experiences or thoughts; that one is capable of doing so; that phenomenal objects are meant for oneself, that no one but oneself is empowered to act upon them; accordingly, that one exists. Sense of self is equated with ego because it is unique to oneself. It is in dependence on one's sense of self that the intellect comes to determinations, that is, reaches decisions such as the thought "I must do this."11

As Bhoja describes it in the Light on Fundamental Principles, his handbook on Shaiva-Samkhya philosophy, "Ego has three forms: existential, agentive, and emotive. It is the connection with ego, so long as it exists, that enables one to engage with phenomenal existence."12 It also has three aspects depending on the nature of the person-sensitive, volatile, and stolid (the three constituents of all physical and mental reality, according to Samkhya)-which are generally intermingled. In its purest state, ego, or "passion," is unevenly distributed: it is something that "awakens in the heart of those in whom sensitivity predominates"; "a transformation born of a special kind of untainted property." Not everyone has that sort of passion, and hence not everyone has rasa. In short, passion, ego, or sense of self is a general psychological orientation enabling one to act in the world, something like Rousseau's amour de soi, and with none of the ethical disparagement carried by his amour propre, let alone by the English term "egotism" (for which Sanskrit would generally use the term asmita). And this is why Bhoja can view it as something fundamental. Emotions for Bhoja are, radically, "things produced" (bhava) through a process of "production" (bhāvanā) and hence are secondary; what underlies them and hence exists beyond the "plane of production" is the true (and singular) rasa, the core nature of personality.13 This more basic principle represents, accordingly, the psychic energy at the core of all feelings, a capacity for affective intensity as such, something enabling one to experience the world richly, which is singular and can rightly be taken as the origin of all other emotional states, or rasas plural. Because the desire that underlies passion is "the paradigmatic emotion," it may stand, metonymically, for them all.14 Hence light on "passion" sheds light on rasa as such.

At first glance, and especially in view of the transformative developments in theory around his time (chapter 3), it has appeared to most scholars that Bhoja is concerned in the first instance with understanding the passion of readers, and what makes it possible to respond to literature. But given both the overall framework of Bhoja's analysis and the specifics of his argument, that is a serious misinterpretation. The Light, like the earlier Necklace, is, according to its prologue, a work about "unity" (sāhitya), or the various processes by which sound and sense unite to produce the peculiar kind of verbal communication called literature. Bhoja very carefully differentiates among the terms he uses for what he sees as sāhitya's four main principles: literature must be "without flaws," that is, flaws, being copresent with language and thus a congenital threat, must be eliminated; "qualities must be used," that is, the verbal (phonemic, syntactical, and lexical) character of the literary utterance must be carefully constituted with due attention paid to style and rasa, otherwise it will be flawed; "figures of sound and sense" may or may not be joined to the work; finally, the work must show a "presence of rasa." It is precisely because rasa is an instance of this formal unity, in fact its essential condition, that it is of concern to Bhoja. The effect of this overriding purpose of rasa analysis, consistent with Bhoja's account of the other features, is to constantly redirect attention back toward the text, toward the literary process itself and the production of literary communication. Whatever else Bhoja might have thought about rasa as a readerly experience-he never directly refers to that experience anywhere in his treatises-the aspect of the rasa problematic he invested with analytical primacy was inside the text, the experience of the character, as the primary and "real" (not metaphorical) participant in the rasa experience. At every step Bhoja is concerned with the emotion of the character and not the reader. It is the character (Rama) who is said to "have rasa," and it is for this reason that the words he speaks can be said to be "rasa-laden." It is the character who is said to experience the latent predispositions when these are activated by the foundational and stimulant factors. It is his stable emotions that are said to arise. A "developed rasa" is accordingly "that which the protagonist, who occupies the chief role in the narrative, comes to have in reference to a commensurate object." Bhoja wants above all to understand how literary characters can be shown to experience and express the emotions they do, what that tells us about their special psychosocial qualities, and by what means specific to it the literary artwork produces the sense of a feeling. Ultimately, as with Anandavardhana, this entire account implicitly subserves readerly pleasure, which no doubt interested Bhoja for reasons that would be as clear to him as to any other reader. But his principal focus is resolutely on the text: this is a point that Bhatta Narasimha, commenting on Bhoja's rasa theory in the Necklace, is keen to make when he reconstructs the larger terms of the argument (retrospectively, of course; Bhoja was not arguing against views he could not have known). Neither the rasa chapter nor anything else in his two treatises directly and unambiguously addresses the aesthetics of reception, a development in the theory of rasa of which Bhoja seems ignorant (or, at the very least, in which he was uninterested). Thus, while Bhoja wishes at times to contest or even overturn Bharata's classifications and their restrictions-about, for example, the limit on the number of stable emotions, or the notion that rasa is the stable emotion when strengthened, or the generative relationship between emotions and rasas15-one could argue that he is simply introducing the flexibility necessary to account for the criticisms already made by others such as Rudrata.16 The same attitude informs his approach to Dandin's Looking Glass. Much of Bhoja's treatment of rasa may seem like a simple appropriation of that work, but that is far from the case, as his use of Dandin's "emotion tropes" fully demonstrates. But whether Bhoja uses the past contentiously or creatively, it is a past with which he is conceptually akin. In this sense his continuity with his predecessors can be said to remain largely unbroken; both his analytical focus and his radical difference from the innovators who were to come-or, in Bhatta Nayaka's case but unbeknownst to Bhoja, had already come-together invite us to think of his account as a true classical synthesis. The core commitment to the formal analysis of rasa, which had lasted nearly a millennium and was about to be displaced for all the major thinkers in the field, is something Bhoja evinces throughout his two great books. Keeping this commitment in mind will help us understand other aspects of Bhoja's very peculiar rasa analysis. One is the larger framework within which it is situated, that of a discussion of ornaments. Rasa, no less than language qualities and figures of speech, can be called "ornaments" insofar as these can be understood as factors of beauty in literature, rather than just figures of

speech.17 They accordingly represent components that may be isolated in an analysis of the process of "combination" of features that constitutes the "presence of rasa." For precisely this reason Bhoja is so preoccupied with the "emotion tropes" inherited from Dandin (the affectionate, the rasa-laden, and the haughty expression). It matters little that Bhoja's new hierarchical ordering of their intensity (with the affectionate at the top, whereas for earlier thinkers it represented a stage below the developed rasa) is driven by his own new theory of rasa as love (that is, prema, which is cognate with preyah, the "affectionate"), and has no basis in Dandin's own discussion. His preoccupation again demonstrates that, with Bhoja as with all his predecessors, we remain squarely in the domain of a formalist account of the aesthetic object. Bhoja places enormous demands on the reader, past no less than present. But he has a profound analysis to offer, if we only take the trouble to understand it.

FROM NECKLACE FOR THE GODDESS OF LANGUAGE OF BHOJA (BH) WITH THE COMMENTARY OF BHATTA NARASIMHA (BN)

(Bh) (5.1) The phenomenon called rasa is defined as sense of self, or ego, or passion, and it is the presence of rasa that makes literature beautiful.

(BN)18 Rasa is located in the character who is the subject of the work, Rama for example, and when rasa is "present" in or conjoined with a poem about Rama through an appropriate literary composition, it delights the hearts of the audience.19 One might, however, raise the following objection:20 Rasa cannot be located in the character, since the character is dead and gone; it must be in the audience members, who are alive and present. Moreover, the main point of a literary work is not the character. Writers do not write literature so that characters long dead and gone can "have rasa," but so that the audience can enjoy rasa.21 Therefore, the rasa must be in the audience, not in the character. We would answer: Not in the least. If the rasa were in the audience, the literary work would have had either to produce it in them or to make them aware of it when it already exists in them.22 Which is it? The objector might respond: The literary work does both: the work of a good writer seems to transfer to the audience, right before their eyes as it were, the full complement of rasa elements, the foundational factor and so on, which as an aggregate brings about rasa in their hearts. "Rasa arises from the conjunction of factors, reactions, and transitory emotions."23 Because it communicates this full complement, the literary work can be said to produce rasa. At the same time, it makes the audience aware of rasa by revealing the causal factors that underlie it. To this we would answer: That is incorrect. How can the aesthetic elements communicated by the literary work be the cause of a rasa located in the audience? Causes must necessarily preexist their effects, and when one is listening to a literary work, those factors do not actually exist at all, let alone exist as necessarily prior.24 And as for their making the audience aware of rasa, what difference does that make? Rasa does not come about as a result of being aware of these factors; rather, it essentially is those factors themselves, as has been stated in the Sutra on Rasa ("Rasa arises from the conjunction ... ") .... 25 "Rasa" in the primary sense of the term is what is located in the character; the prevailing sense of the word (that is, with respect to the audience) is only a secondary meaning. Moreover, a single verbal function cannot both produce something and make us aware of it. That which makes one aware of something must exist after that thing has been produced, and words, having once ceased after putatively producing rasa, no longer have the capacity to function in order to inform us of it. Therefore, rasa exists only in the character; it is communicated by the literary text and experienced by the audience. One might object that if it is the characters alone, such as Rama, that are properly to be called rasikas, or those who experience rasa, how can that term be applied, as it in fact is, to the audience? How, that is, does a literary work go about engendering rasa? We would answer that although rasa exists only in the character, a writer is able, by the use of words appropriate to that rasa, almost in actuality to transfer it to the mind of the audience. They experience the rasa thereby transferred ... and so acquire the designation rasika. And the whole point of literature is to produce that experience.

Here one might further ask: But what about literary texts with totally fictitious plots?26 No real character exists that can function as the locus of rasa, only someone invented by the writer's craft. We would answer: There is no law that a writer must talk only about things that really exist; that is not to the point. He can talk about nonexistent as well as existent things. All that really matters is that the character presented as the locus of rasa should delight the hearts of a receptive audience. It is similar to the problem of the language quality called "clarity of meaning." If clarity exists, that is, if the essence of a thing is clearly communicated, it is of no concern to the writer if that thing itself exists in actuality; the only matter of concern is whether, in communicating the thing, whether real or not, he is giving the audience pleasure. What is identical in the two cases is that reality attaches to something that is generically similar to what is being communicated. Thus, the effective communication of the rasa that exists in the character and there alone, with the purpose of bringing the audience pleasure, is what it means for there to be the "presence of rasa"27 in a literary work.

(Bh) (5.2) Rasa is born of a special transcendent power within the selves of beings, and shows itself to be the sole cause for activating the self's proper qualities.

(BN) [Summary comment p. 414.1]: Thus "rasa"28 stands above and beyond all these other particularized forms of rasa. It is singular, and in essence the act of savoring. It is that which activates the qualities in the self, and by these reactions that are its effects, it manifests itself to others. Proved to exist by the person's own experience of it, being located in the character, it is experienced by the audience when communicated through an appropriate literary composition.

(Bh) (5.3) If the poet is filled with passion, the whole world of his poem will consist of rasa; if not, it will be completely devoid of it.29

(BN) One might object: If the literary work only communicates the rasa that is in the character, how can one say that some works are "full of rasa" and some have none? We would answer: While the rasa does exist in the character, its presence or absence in a literary work depends on whether the writer producing the work has or does not have rasa. The reality or unreality of the rasa in the character is immaterial for this.30

(Bh) (5.4-8) In the sentence, "The woman looks," no rasa whatever appears; in "The beloved casts a glance," it can be clearly perceived.31 In "I want you, girl, why don't you want me?" we have a vulgar sense producing an utter lack of rasa; in "The god of love, that wretch, shows me no pity, but happily he bears you no grudge, my sloe-eyed girl," the sense is sophisticated and furnishes rasa. What is required to convey rasa are the following: a new idea; sophisticated, well-turned phrasing; pleasing composition; clear articulation;32 and propriety of meanings33 beyond the purely mundane. From among the forms of discourse that make up literature,34 namely, indirect expression, natural expression,35 and the expression of rasa, I propose to show that it is the expression of rasa that finds favor among everyone. (5.9-12). There are twenty-four powers ensuring the presence of rasa: [1] emotion; [2] generation; [3] continuity; [4] arising; [5] enhancement; [6] mixture; [7] diminution; [8] semblance; [9] cessation; [10] remnant; [11] particularity; [12] supplement .... 36 [23] the ways of combining various ornaments and rasa; [24] the expressions of rasa. Whoever knows their essential nature will be able to produce poetry. (5.13-23) [1] A rasa, when it awakens in the form of desire, for example, through its specific foundational factor, is defined as stable emotion.37 Included in the category are the eight stable

emotions (desire and the rest); the eight psychophysical responses (weeping and so on); and the thirty-three transitory emotions.38 "Stable" emotions are those that "stay" permanently in the consciousness, come to be conjoined with their adjuncts,39 and when amplified, become the particular rasas.40 The mind untouched by volatility and stolidity is here called "sensitivity"; the emotions that, thanks to their connection with sensitivity, have the capacity to contribute to the production of rasa are themselves called the psychophysical responses, or "sensitivities." The "transitory" emotions are so called because they cause a stable emotion to constantly "transit" around in the body,41 and thereby become the causes of the physical reactions. Or perhaps they are so called42 because once present, they do not remain; transitory emotions like remembrance come into existence and go out of existence in love and its various rasas.43 However, we ourselves insist not only that all the stable emotions can become transitory in the case of desire44 but also that the transitory emotions pride, attachment, satisfaction, and sagacity can become stable emotions in the case of four additional rasas respectively: vainglory, affection, peacefulness, and nobility.45 (5.24-34) [2] A rasa is "generated" when, as a result of the nature of the emotion's substratum,46 or the preeminence of its object, or the high susceptibility of the subject's innate dispositions, it has generated in its substratum a reaction, a transitory emotion, or a psychophysical response.47 [3] A rasa's "continuity" refers to the continuation of a reaction and the like when the force of memory has become highly susceptible by virtue of the stimulant factors. [4] The "arising" of a rasa refers to the mere fact of its arising given the conjunction of the factors, physical reactions and psychophysical responses, and transitory emotions. [5] The "enhancement" of a rasa is an intensification brought about by the quality of the object of the emotion, the nature of its substratum, the high susceptibility of the innate dispositions, or the high degree of magnification48 brought about by the stimulant factors. [6] The "mixture" of rasa is a combination when some other emotion arises whose originating cause, moment in time, and strength are equal to the first rasa.49 [7] "Diminution" is a decrease in the strength of a rasa from its being overshadowed by another one or lending its coloring to another.50 [8] We understand "semblance" to be the presence of rasa in characters of low status, animals, antagonists, or entities referenced in a merely metaphorical manner. [9] The "cessation" of a rasa is its complete elimination in the face of some powerful adverse cause. [10] When the rasa is not completely eliminated thereby, by virtue of the nature of the substratum51 or the force of the innate dispositions, it has what is termed a "remnant." [11] We refer to the eight standard rasas, the erotic and so on; the four additional ones, the peaceful, vainglorious, affectionate, and noble; as well as the various stable emotions, desire and the rest, as "particularities" of rasa. [12] The "supplements" of rasa are the factors, the reactions, the transitory emotions, the substratum, and the ten forms of coquetry of lovers (mimicry and the rest) .... 52

We now proceed to definitions and examples. (5.138) Desire is a feeling of pleasure with respect to things attractive to the mind; in the case of a nonintimate relationship it is called affection. An example of a rasa's "stable emotion" [1], here in the form of desire:

Hara lost his calmness for a moment like the ocean when the moon begins to rise, and feasted all his eyes53 on Uma's face with those ruby-red lips.54

Here Parvati's face is made attractive by her full lips and so on, and Lord Shiva feasts his eyes upon them. This act enables us to infer the specific nature of his craving, and this in turn, given the absence of mention of any psychophysical responses, enables us to infer only that a pleasant experience has come about.55 [571] An example of the "generation" of rasa [2], again in the form of desire, when we have the emergence of a psychophysical response:

The groom's forearm had goosebumps and the maiden's fingers began to perspire when their hands met, as if the love god's very existence were split between them.56

Here we understand, from the emergence of the psychophysical responses of horripilation and perspiration, that rasa in the form of desire is coming to manifestation. An example of the generation of rasa when we have the emergence of a transitory emotion:

They cast their glances sidelong and turned them away when brought into contact, their eyes tactfully restrained by shame, hungry though they were to look.57

Here, as the transitory emotion of shame comes into being, it gives us to understand the coming into being of rasa. An example of the same thing with the emergence of a physical reaction:

When Sunanda finished speaking the princess put aside her shame and with a glance purified by grace, like the ritual garland, chose the prince.58

Here a physical reaction, which in this case consists of the bodily action of glancing,59 marks, by its coming into being, the manifestation of rasa.

2.2 ONE RASA UNDERLIES ALL MULTIPLICITY: THE LATE STATEMENT

From Light on Passion of Bhoja60

INTRODUCTION

1. May the body of Shiva, enemy of the Triple City, provide protection-a body that seems to know at once love enjoyed and thwarted: though fused with his beloved, it cannot loosen her belt or gain an embrace or obtain a kiss or see her glowing face.61 2. May Ganesha, blessed lord of hosts, remove all obstacles, the dust of whose lotus feet so burnishes the mind that it becomes clear as a metal mirror to reflect all the more luminously the full wealth of word and meaning. 3. "Passion" is defined as a special capacity of a person's ego; it is the very essence of love. Insofar as a person has the capacity to "taste" it, it is called rasa, or "taste." One who is endowed with the capacity to taste rasa is said to be a rasika, "one who can taste rasa."62 4. It is an indescribable transformation of primal matter consisting of one's sense of self that awakens in the heart of those in whom sensitivity predominates; a transformation born of a

special untainted property, arising by way of predispositions formed by experiences in past lives, and functioning as the single source of the appearance and intensification of the entire range of the self's attributes.63 5. What is above all "savored" in ordinary language is the purport; in a literary work, implicature; among all a lover's qualities his firm devotion; in a woman's body her charm. And what is above all savored in the heart of man with a sense of self64 is passion and passion alone. 6. Authorities traditionally reckon ten rasas, namely, the erotic, heroic, tragic, fantastic, violent, comic, macabre, affectionate,65 fearful, and peaceful. We, however, admit only one rasa, passion, insofar as it alone is what is really tasted. 7. The conventional wisdom that the term "rasa" refers only to the heroic, the fantastic, and the remaining six has come out of nowhere and is hardly more than a superstition, like the belief that banyan trees are haunted by goblins. It has only been accepted because of the world's usual intellectual conformity, and our intention in this work is to put it to rest. 8. The sense of self that produces the experience of the consciousness of pleasure and the rest of the emotions as all agreeable to the mind66 is what we should understand to be rasa, for that is what is "tasted" through the power of the self. To apply the term to emotions such as desire when fully developed is erroneous. 9. The forty-nine emotions, desire and the rest, that arise from the various causal factors, encompass the element of passion and augment it so as to make it manifest, as a mass of flames augments the elemental form of fire to make it manifest.67 10. That which is produced (bhavyate) by a process of production (bhavana) in the mind of a person fully absorbed while the process is occurring, is called a "thing produced" (bhava), or emotion. Rasa, however, transcends the plane of production and, in transfigured form,68 is what is really savored in a heart with developed ego. 11. If desire and the other stable emotions are to be counted as rasas when they achieve full development, then what crime are joy and the other transitory emotions guilty of that they should not get the name rasa, since as emotions they are no different from desire and the rest? If it is because they are supposed to be ephemeral, then, pray tell, how long do fear, grief, anger, amusement, and the other "stable" emotions really last? 12. If an emotion's stability is thought to derive from the preeminence of its object or the nature of its substratum, then what about "transitory" emotions such as anxiety and the like? As for the substratum, that is, the hero's temperament, it remains the same in the case of both "stable" and "transitory" emotions with respect to his self; as for the object, the capacity to excite predispositions is something common to both "stable" and "transitory" emotions.69

It is established, then, that desire and the rest of the forty-nine emotions themselves derive from passion; the doctrine that the heroic and so on are rasas is at bottom false. Passion is the sole rasa, and the only means of fulfilling the four ends of man. Specifying what precisely this rasa is, however, is difficult, since it is knowable only experientially and is not universally accessible. When displayed by skilled actors in correctly performed dramatic acting, it can be ascertained by the audience; when properly70 declaimed by great poets in their compositions, it can become accessible to the minds of the learned. However, [3] things are not so sweetly savored when they are actually perceived as when they are cognized through the language of masters of language. To

quote: "A subject does not expand the heart so powerfully when we see it portrayed as when it flashes forth from the words of great poets declaimed with art."71 Therefore we prize poets far more than actors, and poetry more than dramatic acting. Literature has traditionally been defined as the "unity" of word and meaning; to quote: "Words and meanings unified constitute literature."72 As for the signification of "word," it is that through which, when pronounced, meaning is understood, and is of twelve sorts, beginning with base and affix and ending with sentence, section, and work. "Meaning" is what a word gives us to understand, and it is of twelve sorts, beginning with action and tense and ending with word meaning and sentence meaning. Finally, "unity" signifies a relationship of word and meaning, and it too is of twelve sorts, beginning with denotation and intention and ending with absence of flaws, use of language qualities, connection with "ornaments,"73 and the presence of rasa.

.... (p. 373.26)74 We have already argued that purport is a kind of sentence meaning that pertains to ordinary language, whereas implicature is restricted to literature. What is the actual difference between these two? Earlier we asserted that

[374] Ordinary language is the direct language of scholarship and everyday life; the indirect language found in "declarative statements"75 and the like has the designation "literature." Purport is a feature of meaning, when the essential intention of a speaker is understood from his utterance; implicature, by contrast, is a feature of words. Purport is an internal quality of the goddess of speech, like a woman's sexual attraction; implicature is the goddess's external quality, like a woman's radiant physical beauty.76 Because the difference between them is slight, both are sometimes called by both names, just as the two months Surabhi and Vaisakha may be referred to by either of the names for spring, Madhu and Madhava.77

True, one might object, this has been asserted, but it has yet to be expounded with appropriate examples. I will do so then; hear me out.78 The entire preceding passage79 should be understood as relating to implicature in literature. "Purport" in ordinary language is of two sorts, depending on whether it is the language of scholarly discourse or of everyday life.80 An example of the former is found in memorial verse 3 of the introduction. The first sentence there ("Passion' is defined ... ") is based on received knowledge of the type known as an "authoritative testimony." The second sentence ("Insofar as a person ... ") is based on personally verifiable perception, in a way that conforms with the technical term ("perception") itself. The third sentence ("One who is endowed ... ") is an inference of the sort known as "necessary assumption." That is to say, the perfectly just, everyday description of a few exceptional persons as "ones who can taste rasa," in the sense that they have a connection with rasa when this has nothing to do with their ability to taste flavorful foods, could never be made unless we assume that a relationship with an existent thing called rasa obtained that could be personally validated. The communication of this intended sense by means of the three sources of valid knowledge constitutes the explicit sentence meaning.81 There are three kinds of people with whom one may communicate: one who has no understanding of a given matter at all; one who has a contrary view; one who is uncertain. Now, just as one prepares a meal on the assumption that, between a sick and a healthy man, it is the healthy man who is going to accept food, so here it is out of consideration for the man who has no understanding that received knowledge is introduced even before the other two. The doubter and the contrarian will of course not accept received knowledge, and for them a proof stronger than all

the others, namely perception, is accordingly adduced. But the last, the man of opposing views, will not accept even perception because of his contrariety, so to instruct him the ultimate weapon, universally applicable reasoning, is adduced. This intention of the author's, which leads him to adduce as he does the three means of knowledge, constitutes the implicit sentence meaning.82 Lastly, from the Samkhya viewpoint adopted here-shown by, among other signs, the adducing of the only three means of knowledge it accepts83-derives the purport of the communication:84 that passion is something that must preexist and merely becomes manifest, not something previously nonexistent that then comes into being, and that it has three means of valid knowledge.85 [375] For Samkhya thinkers argue that only something already existent can "come into being"; primal matter alone is active, spirit is passive, and matter approaches spirit, passive though the latter is, to furnish experience. It may be objected that the Samkhyas typically adduce their proofs in the order perception, inference, and authoritative testimony, and that we should therefore explain our "purport" in adducing received knowledge first. We have of course already stated that we do so out of consideration for the man lacking all knowledge of the matter. But we might add that adducing it first is meant to suggest our belief that things grasped by perception do not please so much as they do when grasped through the words of masters of language.86 And by abandoning the traditional order of proofs, we also want to indicate that we are not 100 percent Samkhyas, for literary art is thoroughly nonsectarian.87 In memorial verse 4 we indicate the causes that help manifest passion as well as the effects of passion, another term for which is sense of self. Passion is the "very essence of love" (compare memorial verse 3), the third of the ends of man and the reward of the other two, namely wealth and morality. It is, moreover, a "special capacity of a person's ego" (memorial verse 3) subsisting in the self by way of reflection. Thus: it arises in consequence of undiluted good karma from past lives, and once arisen it is the cause of the "appearance" of the "entire range of the self's attributes"88 (memorial verse 4) that will be defined below. Passion is something strengthened by the innate dispositions produced by the experiences of countless past lives, and when thus strengthened it becomes the cause of the "intensification" of the entire range of the self's attributes. Passion is the "single" thing of this kind, it is a "transformation" of primal matter consisting of a developed "sense of self"; and in exceptional individuals it awakens, in the form of reflection, as if from sleep at places where darkness, or stolidity, is breached.89 Such is the explicit meaning of the sentence. With the phrase "single source" we indicate that there exists no other source of the entire range of the self's attributes, and thereby mean to say that passion alone is the means of fulfilling the four ends of man.90 By using the figure of waking after sleep in the verb "it awakens," we mean to suggest that passion subsists in suspended animation even when as yet unmanifested, and thereby we want to deny that it then ceases to exist. Our indicating its miraculous character by the word "indescribable" in the memorial verse intends to suggest how difficult it would be to describe passion's exceptional quality even if one had a thousand lifetimes to try. "Consisting of one's sense of self" indicates that the foundation of passion, which is in essence awareness, is awareness itself, and thereby excludes any other ground for it. Such is the implied sentence meaning. The purport of the sentence is to encourage readers who seek to fulfill the four ends of man to apply themselves to this,91 since the fact that passion is the means to achieve those ends is the sort of thing we have striven to communicate. In the same way one can analyze the explicit meaning, the implicit

meaning, and the purport of nonscholarly, everyday utterances. The foregoing explains those rare instances where literature and ordinary language, and thus "implicature" and "purport," are actually mixed together in a single text, as for example in memorial verse 1.

Chapter 11: Discourse on the Presence of Rasa

[613] The body of the poem, like that of a beloved, must, in accordance with what has been said up to this point, be without flaw, endowed with qualities92 and with ornaments. But the presence of rasa93 is the principal source of its real beauty. That is,

All a woman's adornment-her lovely form, good family, youth, beauty, firm devotion, affability, character, sophistication, modesty, breeding-all counts for nothing if she does not have deep love for her lover.94

And,

"My lady may be adorned with good birth, character, and jewelry, but I don't find her attractive unless in a crowd of women she holds her head high with the pride derived from being honored as a hero's wife."95

Now, rasa in this treatise is defined as love. For all forms of emotion, desire and everything else, once they reach their full development,96 ultimately turn out to be nothing but this. Thus people are said to "love sex," to "love quarreling" or anger or joking.97

There is no way to counteract a predilection that has no cause. There is some thread of affection that knits living things together deep within.98

Thus,

"A man who loves a woman thinks she does everything to please him, unaware that he finds pleasing whatever it is she does."99

Moreover,

"The person need do nothing at all, the mere joy of being together dispels sorrow. What a gift it is, to have someone who loves you."100

Or:

"A person one loves gives pleasure even when causing pain. Breasts thrill with delight even while throbbing from a lover's scratches."101

[614] This is something we have already argued (memorial verse 8). Now, one might object: You just said that, given such expressions as "to love sex" or "to love quarreling," all emotions when fully developed ultimately turn out to be love, and that therefore in this context rasa itself is defined as this love. How can you then say in the memorial verse: "To apply the term to emotions such as desire when fully developed is erroneous"?102 My answer is that rasa is not "emotions such as desire when fully developed," but instead, precisely the passion that underlies them. What we mean by "passion" is a particular aspect of the ego; the seed of any heightened state of "the entire range of the self's attributes" [memorial verse 4] that make manifest the particular preferences, views, and acts of the self; in other words, the "cause of ... intensification" [v. 4] of intellect, pleasure, pain, predilection, aversion, volition, innate dispositions, and the rest. When this passion is "tasted" by a responsive person it is called rasa. When it exists, the person is said to be a rasika, "one who can taste rasa"; when it does not, he is said to "lack rasa."103 The "emotions," which make passion manifest, are in fact derived from it. They are forty-nine in number .... 104 [615] On this point some have argued that the erotic rasa originates from desire; in our view, the erotic-that is, passion-is itself the origin of desire and all the other stable emotions. After all, these arise only in the man of passion, not in the man lacking it; it is only the man of passion who experiences desire, amusement, determination, or attachment.105 Desire and the rest are emotions and not rasas precisely because they are things that are brought into being; indeed, it is because they are, to the degree possible, produced (bhavyamana) that they are called "things produced" (bhava), or emotions. Rasa, however, goes beyond the plane of production and hence is one's very "sense of self," that is, the experience of pleasure even in the presence of pain and the like, which thereby become agreeable to the mind.106 Since the stable emotions, when fully developed, are therefore a source of pleasure only indirectly, the name rasa is applied to them in a secondary sense. They are, accordingly, not themselves rasa but rather precisely emotions, because they are the object of the process of bringing-into-being.107 The assertion that rasa comes about when only a stable emotion like desire is brought to its full development also has no substance.108 For that can apply to any of the thirty-three transitory emotions too, such as fatigue, which can be "brought to full development" through overexertion and the like. And these transitory emotions are as "stable" as the others, since they too activate109 powerful innate dispositions. Now, such innate dispositions can be activated in consequence of either the preeminence of the object of affect or the temperament of the character.110 A character's temperament is one of the three kinds, sensitive, volatile, or stolid, and thereby a corresponding experience will be brought into being. Accordingly, these transitory emotions too may be referred to as "stable."111 There is actually no warrant for a division into eight stable emotions, eight psychophysical responses, and thirty-three transitory emotions, since the function of any one of these factors can be executed by any of the others. A given emotion can be now stable, now transitory; in fact, depending on the circumstances, all can be stable or transitory emotions or even "sensitivities," that is, psychophysical responses, because they all derive from the mind, and sensitivity is nothing but an unobscured mind.112 It is also foolish to assert that it is only a stable emotion that becomes rasa through its conjunction with factors, physical responses, and transitory emotions [616], since you can find the

same conjunction in any of the transitory emotions, such as joy and so on. Therefore, desire and the rest of the "stable" entities are nothing more than emotions, whereas passion and passion alone is the sole rasa. And this rasa, when coming to light thanks to these emotions in combination with their full complement of factors and reactions, can be savored especially intensely. With respect to this point, some113 have argued that the rasa called the erotic is not something brought to manifestation by desire and the other emotions; they claim instead that desire (and this would hold true for the other stable emotions), having first arisen through the foundational factor and reached intensification through the physical setting and other auxiliary causes, itself turns into rasa and so acquires the name "the erotic." But those who hold this view may be asked the following: Do these stable emotions, each of them arising by reason of its specific foundational factor, arise the same for everyone, or only for some? If for everyone, then the whole world114 would be rasikas-able to experience rasa-which is patently not the case, since we can see for ourselves that some individuals are able to experience rasa and some are not. And no postulate that is contradicted by perception is admissible. So desire and the other stable emotions do not come into play for everyone, but only for some, and for this variance we must identify some cause. It will have to be either something empirically verifiable or something transcendent. It cannot be the former since there is nothing to be observed there; as for a transcendent cause, it must be either common or unique, and if it is common, we are back with the first problem, namely, that the whole world would be able to experience rasa. If, however, this causal condition is a unique transcendent thing, it would have to be the effect of some property115 to which the individual's beginningless predispositions are related. And it is precisely this that we call the "special capacity of a person's ego" (memorial verse 3), which we simultaneously refer to as passion, sense of self, and rasa. It is in consequence of this that the stable emotions, desire and the rest, come into play. And it is only those persons endowed with passion who can savor this rasa when it comes to be manifested by the fully developed stable emotions; it is the same as with the element of fire, which is only manifested by a mass of flames.116 Rasa, which arises through such conditioning factors, is of three sorts: "developed," "in the form of an emotion," and "semblance of rasa." A developed rasa is what the leading character, the protagonist who dominates the narrative, experiences in reference to a commensurate object of affect. Rasa that remains in the form of an emotion is what a supporting character experiences and is not fully developed. Semblance of rasa is what the antagonist experiences, or what is ascribed to an animal. The aforementioned "presence of rasa" is of two sorts: at the level of the individual passage or of the whole composition. [617] So far we have discussed-whether in strict accordance with the rules of discourse or randomly as an outgrowth of other discussions-the presence of rasa at the level of the passage by way of [1] the avoidance of flaws (reference to what is indecent, inauspicious, disgusting, vulgar, and so on); [2] the use of language qualities (luminosity, "wherein the rasa appears with great brilliance,"117 and the like); and [3] the conjunction with 'ornaments"118 (the "graceful" and other dramatic modes, and the "southern" and other verbal styles). But the presence of rasa in a passage actually reaches its full development only when these various ornaments exist in combination, since rasa is produced by a special constellation of language qualities and ornaments. Generally speaking, we never find language qualities, or figures (whether of sound or of sense or of both sound and sense, which comprise, respectively,

alliteration, etc .; naturalistic description, etc .; and metaphor, etc.)119 existing singly in the body of a poem, any more than we find only single pieces of jewelry-whether bangles, armlets, or earrings -on a woman's body. It is only in combination that they are considered to be fully developed ornamentation. As in the case of prepared food, where we have the combination of sweet, sour, salty, and the "six-spice" substance; in the case of dress, the combination of garments, creams, garlands, jewelry; in the case of incense, the combination of sandalwood, aloe, camphor, and sal- tree resin; in the case of musical performance, the combination of dance, instrumental music, singing,120 and recitation; in the case of love, the combination of anger, repentance, forgiveness, and the pleasure of reunion; in the case of family life, the combination of acts fulfilling the four ends of man, morality, wealth, love, and liberation-so in the body of the poem it is the combination alone of the three types of figures (metaphor and the rest) along with the set of language qualities121 that, being the thing savored most, is the cause of the presence of rasa. 122 (p. 624) This "combination" was earlier defined as a mixture "of various 'ornaments.' "123 One might have called it simply a "mixture of 'ornaments,' " and the fact that we use the qualification "various" is meant to indicate that language qualities, rasas, and so on are also "ornaments" insofar as these also make a poem beautiful. This is in accordance with Dandin's pronouncements.124. Now, while it is reasonable to say that language qualities themselves are "ornaments," it may be thought unreasonable to claim that rasas and the rest (emotions, semblances of emotions, etc.) can be ornaments, because unlike the qualities, these are not explicitly referred to as such by Dandin. But in fact it makes perfectly good sense, since [1] "the haughty," [2] the "rasa-laden," and [3] the "emotional" are actually classified among the ornaments when they are in their intensified state .... 125 Let us examine these in order. [1] When Dandin defines "a haughty declaration" as one where "the speaker's ego is prominent," he is describing the first stage of rasa (otherwise known as "ego," "sense of self," or "passion") as it awakens in the form of a transformation of primal matter consisting of a developed sense of self in the hearts of sensitive persons. With his definition he encapsulates the following: rasa is a special dimension of the ego that is the source of the appearance and intensification of the entire range of the self's attributes; something found in certain special individuals and produced through an exceptional, transcendent cause;126 its durability ("prominence") is owing to innate dispositions derived from the experiences of countless past lives.127 Examples of a haughty declaration:

[625] "O joy! All homage to me! She looked at me, that girl with eyes that flutter like a frightened doe's."128

Or:

"As the lovely-eyed girl stood at twilight in the courtyard, crowded as it was, I could hardly control myself and began to swing my arms. She sighed, her head lowered in modesty, but innocently and shyly in between she sent looks of love toward me that shone more brilliantly than the moon."

[2] When Dandin defines the "rasa-laden statement" as "beautified by rasa," he is establishing the second stage of passion, which, in accordance with the Sutra on Rasa ("Rasa arises ... "), comes to manifestation by means of all the different causal factors and becomes amplified so as to reach its full development.129 An example:

"At this point, the lotus-eyed girl showed rare mastery of Love's lessons: an allure beyond the power of language to describe, every possible emotion, every physical reaction, while casting her reserve to the winds."130

Or:

"By chance I came upon my love like a digit of the moon entering the maw of Rahu, and I snatched her from the arc of that bastard's sword. I nearly lost my mind-broken from shock, melted with pity, agitated with amazement, aflame with anger, and blossoming with joy."131

[3] When Dandin defines "affectionate utterance" as "an expression of heightened affection," he is indicating the highest stage of the ego. For by the use of the term "affection(ate)" he is referring indirectly to desire, which is the paradigmatic emotion, and is indicating further that it transforms into love when it reaches full development and transcends the nature of an emotion ("transcending the plane of production").132 He thereby gives us to understand that all the other emotions as well, upon reaching full development, are transformed into love.133 An example:

"A man who loves a woman .... "134

[626] Or:

"Identity in joy and sorrow, consonance in every condition, where the heart can find respite, whose rasa old age cannot spoil, what alone abides as time removes all veils and pure love ripens- that singular blessing is only bestowed on a good man, and only then with luck."135

Last, by the words "All three, when they reach their intensified state, become ornaments," Dandin gives us to understand that when they are not "intensified," all three function as language qualities, not ornaments, for all three are found listed as such among these qualities.136 137 (p. 626.24) An objection might be raised: Does the suffix -vat ("laden") in the word rasavat ("rasa-laden") have a possessive or a comparative sense?138 The former is impossible, since none of its meanings can apply. Rasas are states of pleasure or pain pertaining to conscious embodied beings. But literature consists of words and meanings and is therefore not itself conscious; accordingly, none of the meanings of the possessive suffix (abundance, censure, etc.) is possible.139 [627] As for the comparative suffix, it too is impossible since its meanings (as an adverb, or in reference to a possessive or locative, signifying "similar")140 are likewise inapplicable. One cannot

say, for example, that a literary work is rasavat because it "functions like" rasa, nor is there anything in it or of it "similarly as in" rasa or "similarly as of" rasa. I would respond that it can be whichever one likes. The suffix can have a possessive sense, despite the objection. Someone like Rama has rasa, and his speech, since its source lies in his very rasa, may itself be said to be "rasa-laden" or have rasa; when an imitation of such a person is created by a poet, there is a complete identification between the real person and the character, such that the imitation of his speech may likewise be said to be rasa-laden. Or it can have a comparative sense, again despite your objection. Another of that suffix's meanings, "capable of,"141 is perfectly applicable: a literary text is "rasa-laden" if it is capable of expressing rasas. When the speech of someone like Rama, who has rasa, is being imitated by the poet, it is capable, given the illusion of identity between the real and the imitated speech, of expressing rasas and so can be said to be rasa-laden. A possible objection: All desirable elements enhance the beauty of a literary work and could therefore be considered "ornaments." Since there would thus be no specificity to "ornament" as such, one should speak only of "combination" or "mixture."142 My answer is that that would not be possible, for if we did not specify "ornaments," then, since Bharata's Sutra on Rasa speaks of a "conjunction of factors," that mixture might be mistakenly taken as the "combination" we intend.143 This misinterpretation is forestalled by our use of the word "ornament." The aesthetic elements themselves are not ornaments, but rather particular entities that engender "ornaments," which here comprise the emotions, rasas, and the semblances of emotions and rasas. One might grant this but still object that if "aesthetic elements" and so on are considered qualities of signification, they would still turn out to be "ornaments."144 True enough, but given that they are appropriated with something else in mind-that is, rasa-they are subsumed under that other thing. In the same way, the constitutive words of a sentence do not individually manifest themselves when we are grasping the meaning of the sentence as a whole.145. ... [628.20] The class of "ornament" is in fact threefold: indirect expression, natural expression, and expression of rasa. The first is present when there is emphasis on "ornament" in the sense of similes and the like; the second, when there is emphasis on language qualities, such as fitness and the rest; the last, when there is the production of rasa by the conjunction just described .... Now, with respect to the last of these, the expression of rasa: "factors" are twofold, "foundational" and "stimulant." The foundational factor is the sight of some loved person in respect of whom pleasure arises, or a hated person in respect of whom pain arises. The experience of such pleasure or pain activates an "innate disposition" that produces recollection, [629] whereas stimulants such as flower garlands, scented creams, and so on stimulate that innate disposition. Once a person has such a memory stimulated by the stimulants, there arise "attributes of the self," i.e., recollection, desire, aversion, and volition, which stimulate actions of mind, speech, intellect, or body. These are termed emotional "reactions" insofar as they are emotionally felt.146 They intensify a stable emotion, desire and the like, which derives from nothing other than passion. As the stable emotion seeks to attain the desired object or avoid the hated object, it is mixed with the transitory emotions-which include, in the case of desire, pleasurable transitory emotions such as joy, firmness, recollection, reflection, and the like. Ultimately, this stable emotion attains progressively greater intensity147 and becomes a rasa, such as the erotic enjoyed. When it fails to attain the desired object (or avoid the hated object), the selfsame stable emotion of desire is mixed

with disagreeable transitory emotions such as disquiet, longing, panic, profound indifference, and the like, and thereby becomes the rasa called the erotic thwarted, which consists of pain. An example of the development of the erotic rasa from the stable emotion called desire:148 "The woman I thought was dead and hoped .... "149 Here, Avanti, that is, Vasavadatta, is the foundational factor. The king of Vatsa feels the stable emotion of desire, which she has given rise to in him. The intensifying factor is her resuscitation. When this intensifies the stable emotion, and when the pleasurable transitory emotions such as joy, firmness, recollection, perplexity, and the like arise, the stable emotion becomes the erotic enjoyed. The king's words, "The woman ... ," which are his reaction to this, are said to be "rasa-laden" insofar as they are generated by the erotic rasa. An example of the development of the comic rasa from the stable emotion of amusement: "My friend, you'd better move your blouse .... "150 Here the foundational factor is a woman who is angry with her husband and yet whose breasts are marked with the scratches he has caused during lovemaking with her. The stable emotion of the comic arises in her girlfriend, who here is making fun of her. The intensifying factors include the friend's reminding the woman that she is supposed to be angry, and this intensifies the stable emotion. Hereby arise transitory emotions in the friend, which include doubt, dissimulation, merriment, stammering, and the like. Amusement, the stable emotion here, thereby reaches its full development and turns into the comic rasa. Her words, "Aren't you supposed to be still angry?" and so on are said to be "rasa-laden" insofar as they arise from the comic rasa in her. An example of the development of heroic rasa from the stable emotion of determination: "Without having conquered land and sea .... "151 Here the stable emotion, determination, arises from the foundational factor constituted by conquest and so on. It is intensified by the speaker's brilliance, firmness, resoluteness, [630] and other intensifying factors; and when his transitory emotions arise-recollection, reflection, perplexity, and so on-the stable emotion is fully developed and turns into the heroic. The speaker is filled with heroic rasa and the words he speaks as a result of this rasa, "Without having conquered ... " are said to be "rasa-laden" insofar as they are generated by the heroic rasa in him. An example of the development of the rasa of the fantastic from the emotion of amazement: "On the trees in the garden of the gods .... "152 The physical form of normal trees consists of sprouts, flowers, fruit, and branches, but the trees of Nandana, garden of the gods, have instead silk cloths, jewelry, drinks, and palaces. What a marvel! Thus, these things function as the foundational factor for the speaker of the verse who is visiting the world of the gods. From these arises the stable emotion of amazement, which is stimulated by his seeing the parts of the trees. When the transitory emotions arise (joy, horripilation, perspiration, stammering),153 the stable emotion is fully developed and turns into the fantastic, and the words spoken as a result, "On the trees ... " are said to be "rasa-laden" insofar as they are generated by the rasa of the fantastic in him .... 154 [631.18]155 Now, the teacher Bharata holds that it is only these eight stable emotions that receive the names of rasas, that is, the designations "the erotic," "the heroic," and so on, when they reach full development;156 further that, just as [1] these rasas arise from emotions, and [2] emotions arise from rasas, in the same way [3] rasas arise from rasas. As for [3], here would be an example of the comic arising from the erotic:

"This Shankara,157 universally acclaimed for abstinence,

now bears his wife with half his body, afraid to be without her. And people say he conquered us?" With this, the god of love squeezed his wife's hand, and laughed-and may his laugh protect you.158

An example of the fantastic from the heroic:

"And now listen to what happened at the cattle raid- I touch your heart,159 indeed, your own son was a witness: When armed and massed we attacked, we saw but a single Arjuna, but then there arose as many of him as us who were waging battle .... "160

[632.13] This view, however, is wrong. For the emotions such as desire, however fully developed, would themselves then be just emotions and not rasas; otherwise one would wind up having to assume (which Bharata does not do) that the transitory emotions such as joy and the like, which can be as fully developed as desire and so on, could also be rasas (compare memorial verse 11 above). Nor is there any law that there can be only eight rasas. Some people161 count as rasas also the peaceful, the affectionate, the vainglorious, and the noble.162 The designations of the four kinds of protagonists, the peaceful, romantic, proud, and dignified, are based on the existence of these additional rasas. An example of the peaceful rasa founded upon a peaceful protagonist:

"He possesses all treasures who has a contented heart. To the man wearing soft leather shoes, the whole earth is covered in suede."163

An example of the affectionate rasa founded upon a romantic protagonist:

"A man who loves a woman .... "164

[633] An example of the vainglorious rasa founded upon a proud protagonist:

"So long as I am armed, what need of other arms? What other weapon could ever achieve what my weapon cannot?"165

An example of the noble rasa founded upon a dignified protagonist:

"Do not fear I will take vengeance .... "166

The primary stuff or basis167 of the peaceful rasa is the stable emotion impassivity; that of the affectionate rasa, attachment; that of the vainglorious rasa, pride; that of the noble rasa, egotism. And the same conjunction of factors, reactions, and transitory emotions can apply to these four rasas no less than to passion. Others even argue that all forty-nine emotions, arising from this conjunction and fully developed, turn into rasas.168 And if all emotions are thus equally rasas, it makes no sense to apply the technical terms "the erotic," "the heroic," and so on only to those eight stable emotions, desire and the rest, when fully developed. One may do it, but that would then be only a terminological

distinction (compare memorial verse 7 above). Furthermore,169 if emotions like desire when fully developed were themselves rasas, how could Bharata assert that rasas come from emotions? The reverse would then also be illogical, namely that emotions come from rasas. And there do not exist "rasas" in the plural anyway, but only "rasa" singular-that is to say, passion-something we will also argue further below at length. As for Bharata's postulate that rasas arise from rasas, this can only mean one of two things. It can mean, first, that rasas form the foundational factor for other rasas. But the rule that Bharata gives-"From the erotic arises the comic, from the violent the tragic, from the heroic the fantastic, and from the macabre the fearful"170-is not invariable. [634] The comic can be found both to arise171 from some rasa other than the erotic (such as from the heroic)172 and not to arise from the erotic (whereas the tragic can arise from the erotic); the tragic can be found to arise from some rasa other than the violent (such as from the erotic), and not to arise from the violent (whereas the fearful can arise from the violent), and so on .... [635.7] The postulate can also mean that one rasa functions as the primary stuff or basis of another rasa. Here also we have to ask whether the comic is born from the erotic, or whether the erotic itself becomes the comic. The first option is precisely our position, for as we have already stated, no stable emotion, whether fully developed or not, is possible for a person without passion.173 It is only the man of passion who feels desire, determination, amusement, amazement, revulsion, grief, fear, impassivity, affection, pride, and sense of self. But the second alternative- that the erotic, whose primary stuff or basis is desire, should turn into the comic-makes no sense, given that we never use the term "the comic" in reference to the erotic. Now, if "The comic may be described as an imitation of the erotic,"174 we can easily hold, per the above, that an imitation of the heroic can also be comic.175 The same refutation holds for the argument that the tragic comes from the violent. The former neither derives from the latter, nor does the latter become the former. Last, if it is argued that "the tragic rasa may be understood as an effect of the violent,"176 we would deny that this is so and admit only that the violent can be one of its causes; similarly, the fantastic is an effect of the heroic, though nothing stops the latter from functioning in the production of the former. As for the argument that "from the macabre the fearful" arises, the former rasa would then not differ from the foundational factor.177 [636] So the entire doctrine-that rasas come from emotions, emotions from rasas, and rasas from rasas-is just so much chatter. What then is the reasonable position to hold? The one we enunciated above in memorial verse 8 ("The sense of self ... is what we should understand to be rasa"). Therefore, the following can be taken as established. The first stage of rasa is where ego is prominent. The second stage of this selfsame rasa is when an emotion-and this applies to all forty- nine (the eight stable emotions, eight psychophysical responses, and thirty-three transitory emotions)-is fully developed through the conjunction of factors, reactions, and transitory emotions, and comes to merit the technical name "rasa." The highest phase of rasa is love, which is rasa's ultimate resting point, since Dandin's definition of the affectionate utterance as "an expression of heightened affection" actually indicates that just as desire transforms into love, so at their full maturation do all other emotions.178 Let us explain further these first two developmental stages, starting with the first: [1] In the case of the noble rasa, as in the verse in which the speaker says, "You fear for your crimes, but my sword would never dare to fall upon a retreating enemy,"179 we perceive a prominent ego. And this

ego we can perceive in all of the poems we cited for that stage:180 "I have gotten Avanti" (the erotic rasa); "Shame on you, your jealous anger is a joke" (the comic); "I could not be king without conquering the earth" (the heroic); "I have never seen such trees" (the fantastic), and so on .... 181 [2] Now, how does "rasa arise from the conjunction of the stable emotions, transitory emotions, and reactions"?182 [1] The stable emotions are activated in the mind of a person with a deep sense of self when it becomes subject to a given "limiting condition," that is, when the intellect and senses take on the shape of the foundational factor he has encountered. This happens in the same way that a moonstone oozes water in the presence of the moon, or sunstone bursts into flame in the presence of the sun, or crystal dissolves in the presence of camphor.183 An example with respect to the stable emotions desire and so on:184

"Amazing how when I approached the moon-faced girl with lotus-petal eyes, my mind grew numb, and it liquefied like a genuine moonstone."185

[637] An example with respect to anger and so on:

"Then, my lord, from the pain186 of his harsh words Sita, though gentle by nature, grew hard and blazed and spat out bright, sharp flames of language, like a sunstone."187

An example with respect to grief and so on:

"Now, here those evil räksasas, with their trick of the golden deer, committed the deed that still brings heartache though avenged in full. My brother's half-mad acts when Janasthana was left deserted can still make a stone shed tears and break a heart of iron."188

[2] Transformations arise in the mind of a person endowed with a deep sense of self189 when it becomes subject to innate dispositions from earlier experiences, as a result of a given stimulant factor, and these enhance the stable emotions. This happens in the same way that the ocean is agitated when the moon rises, or disease increases as a result of unhealthy behavior, or a good man is deeply pained in the presence of the wicked. An example of these transformations in the case of sudden agitation of the stable emotion:190

His inborn composure gone, he began to grieve, his throat choking with sobs. If even iron melts when heated, how much more the human soul?191

Or in the case of its increase:

As she looked at him, she wept even more and beat her breast. In the presence of kin, the floodgates of grief are thrown open.192

Or in the case of its being counteracted:

"First the god of love torments my heart with a desire I cannot resist or fulfill; and now I have to see mangos sprouting and the south wind ruffling their leaves."193

[3] Various reactions and transitory emotions come into being, under given conditions, in relation to one and the same emotion (desire, anger, grief, etc.); both the reactions and the emotions have internal and external aspects, and mingle, functioning either distributively or as a compound. This happens in the same way that one and the same tree has both components (trunk, branches, twigs, etc.) and derivatives (fronds, leaves, flowers, fruits, etc.); or as one and the same mass of water has mutations (swells, whirlpools, bubbles, and waves) and transformations (pearls, foam, salt, and hailstones); or as one and the same sound has timbres (sharp, normal, low, and screechy) and segmentations (phonemes, words, sentences, and animal sounds such as warbling); or one and the same element, air, has courses (the atmosphere, stratosphere, and the like) and continua (inhaled air, exhaled air, circulatory air in the body).194 [638] With respect to transitory emotions, the internal include disquiet, longing, consternation, and doubt, and the external, perspiration, horripilation, tears, and pallor; with respect to reactions, the internal include recollection, desire, aversion, and volition, and the external, the actions of body, mind, speech, and intellect. Both categories, when they are imitated, receive the technical name "acting," whether psychophysical, physical, verbal, or costuming.195 An example of transitory emotions and reactions arising from desire:

Revealing her emotions with the down rising on her limbs like young plantain stalks, the daughter of the Mountain stood there, her lovely face downturned, with eyes half-closed.196

Or from anger:

His anger kindled by the death of Abhimanyu at the hands of his enemies, Partha's glances, dull with shame and suffused with tears, fell on his bow. He was nearly faint with grief that the killers were still unavenged and the words "My child!" flashed through his mind but did not escape his throat.197

Or from grief:

"Mother, mother, my heart is breaking, my body's joints are coming undone, the world seems empty, and I burn inside with a constant fire. My desolate soul collapses and sinks into deep darkness, and faintness envelops me. What am I to do in my misfortune?"198

[4] The different rasas, then, arise from the stable emotions (desire, anger, grief, etc.) when conjoined with their various factors. This happens in the same way that sap arises from sugarcane and oil from mustard seed; or gold from minerals and iron from ore; or butter from curd and fire from wood, when conjoined with their appropriate causal factors, that is, respectively, a press, a smelting fire, a churn, and a drilling stick.199 For example, "By chance I came upon my love like a digit of the moon .... "200

[5] The rasas produced from desire and so on assimilate the causal elements (the foundational and stimulant factors) of different rasas and are thereby strengthened, in the same way that physical tastes such as salty or sour are strengthened by assimilating sweet things such as grapes when these come in contact with them.201 For example,

[639] "When asked, 'Who are you thinking of?' she said, distraught and weeping, 'Who's left for me to think of?' and made us weep as well."202

[6] The factors, transitory emotions, and reactions all become rasa from their conjunction with rasa;203 in other words, they come to possess a property common to rasa itself. This happens in the same way that, by their conjunction with fire, earth-derived substances such as butter, lac, wax; water-derived substances such as clouds, snow, hail; and fire-derived substances such as tin, lead, silver all become liquids-in other words, they come to possess a property common to water. For example:

With this sorrowful composition the king of Kosala mourned his wife, and even the trees, branches shedding tears of sap, appeared to mourn.204

[7] From the various general rasas that appear in a literary work a specific dominant rasa is produced. This happens in the same way that honey is produced from the nectar of various plants, the six-spice drink from different sweet and other substances, or rum from molasses and other substances. For example

"King Vikramabahu has been made my friend; this treasure of the earth- sole source of mastery over land and sea-my beloved Sagarika has been obtained; the chief queen is overjoyed to recover her cousin, and Kosala has been conquered. With you at my side, great minister, what do I desire that I do not have?"205

[8] Finally, for what is thus a single rasa we have various species (the stable emotion, the specific rasa, the semblance forms of both of these), different functions (such as, in the case of the erotic, the feelings of missing the loved one, obsessing about her, or rejoicing in her presence), and different states of being (genesis, growth, or continuity). This happens in the same way that for a single fire we have various species (earthly fire, heavenly fire, digestive fire) with different functions (burning, illuminating, digesting) and different states of being (smoke, flame, coal, etc.).206 207 .... (p. 644) Here an objection might be raised: Let us grant, then, that one may speak of "mixture" in the case of qualities, since these have three subvarieties-qualities of words, qualities of sense, and flaws that, if intentional, can function as good qualities in a poem-and some of these will be either prominent or not.208 But since you have dismissed the idea that rasa is plural (the heroic rasa, the erotic, and so on), how can this single rasa, passion, allow us to speak of "mixture" when that is something requiring plurality? I would answer: Although passion is indeed the sole rasa, the stable emotions that arise from passion acquire the designation "rasa" too when they are

stimulated by the stimulants and, precisely because they are infused with passion, condition the transitory emotions and reactions. Just as the sense of self conditions the stable emotions and becomes rasa when tasted by the mind, so the stable emotions condition the transitory emotions (joy, resolve, disquiet, longing, and the like), and the reactions (the actions of body, mind, speech, or intellect), and by the same infusion with the sense of self are tasted by the mind and so become rasas in the plural. When different stable emotions are enunciated simultaneously, it allows us to speak of "mixture" of rasas. But in fact, a variety of items is mixed in the case of mixture of rasas, since there are various subspecies in rasa: they are called emotions at their origin, rasas when fully developed, semblances of emotions or rasas contrarily,209 and emotion quiescence or rasa quiescence at the end. So mixture in the case of rasa is actually sixfold, of [1] emotions, [2] rasas, [3] semblances of emotions, [4] semblances of rasas, [5] quiescence of emotion, and [6] quiescence of rasa.210 An example of [1] the mixture of emotions:

"That insult throbs like a sharp thunderbolt in my heart, my mind suffused with shame sinks down as if in blinding darkness, grief at the death of my father consumes me and I can do nothing about it, and pity for poor Sita cuts at my very vitals."211

Here indignation, shame, grief, and love, which we understand as the reactions in the form of a verbalization on the part of the forlorn Rama, are equal (with respect to their mutually independent existence) and mixed together but still separable, like sesame seeds and rice kernels. [2] Mixture of rasas is found in the poem "Like a husband whose betrayal is still moist,"212 where in the description of Hara's power the tragic and the erotic, in a relationship of dominant and subordinate, are mixed together213 inseparably, like earth and water that make up a lump of mud. [3] Mixture of semblances of emotions is found in the following:

"Oh Sita, this face of yours once lit up with pride at the death of my kinsmen who stood lost in hopeless confusion before your arrogant husband. But now I, Ravana, will flood it with tears that pour streaming from your eyes wide with terror and rolling as your high-piled hair is violently pulled."214

Here we see Ravana's semblance of the emotion of desire mixed with a similar emotion of anger like a mirror and the image reflected in it. [645] [4] Mixture of semblances of rasas:

With one red eye filled with anger she stares at the setting sun in the sky, and with the other, engulfed in tears, at her beloved. At the close of day, fearful of separation from her lover, the cakravāka bird displays two rasas mixed, like a skillful actress.215

Here anger and grief, in their full development, revealed as semblances given the comparison of the cakravakī bird with the actress,216 are mixed together like the man portion and the lion portion that make up the man-lion incarnation of Vishnu.

[5] Mixture of quiescent emotions:

When she saw her lover, her anger, like her eye, began slightly to close; when he stood at her side, it was lowered like her face; like her stiffening down, it rose to go when he touched her; it relaxed like her belt when he started to speak, and it fled like her shame when he fell at her feet.217

This concerns a woman who had been specifically instructed by her girlfriend to maintain a jealous anger. When she sees her lover (the foundational factor), there arises in her the stable emotion of joy218 that comes from a powerful erotic attachment; this is stimulated by such stimulants as his approaching her; and as it reaches its highest development through such reactions as her closing her eyes, lowering her face, slipping off her belt, at the same time as pleasurable transitory emotions such as horripilation arise,219 the stable emotion turns into the rasa of bliss.220 Because of the inception of this powerful contradictory emotion, and by the very same factors that produced it, her shame and anger diminish moment by moment, and it is the two forms of quiescence of these two feelings that are here equally mixed like milk and water. [6] Mixture of quiescent rasas:

"Enmity has ceased, and rasa rich with joy flows forth; my brashness is somehow gone, deference overwhelms me; at the mere sight of him I am under his power-why so? But then, like holy places, the great have some greatly precious potency."221

In this verse, the rasas of the heroic, the vainglorious, and the autonomous222 are made quiescent223 when overpowered by the rasas of the blissful, the quiescent, and the heteronymous, in the same way that white threads of a carpet are overpowered by blue dye. Given this, along with the reaction in the form of a verbalization, the simile, and so on that are produced by the grandeur of the sight of Rama and arise in his son Lava through his impassivity and astonishment, these quiescent rasas are found to be mixed together like the paint colors that make up a painting .... 224 [647.22]225 An objection might be raised: One may speak of the mixture of language qualities, of rasas, or of figures of speech, but how can one speak of the mixture of qualities and rasa? The use of qualities is as obligatory as the avoidance of flaws, and the presence of rasa is as essential as the presence of figures. Occasionally, to be sure, figures may be omitted, but never rasa and qualities. Only those entities that have an entirely contingent relationship with other entities can be conceptualized as "mixed" when they unite, such as sesame seeds and rice kernels, or milk and water, but not those entities that are noncontingently joined, such as parts and wholes, or tokens and types. [648] Here is our answer: We do not speak of "mixture" of qualities and rasa in a passage where we can think of their copresence as not resulting from some special effort,226 that is, when they exist in a part-whole or token-type relation, as in the case of paint colors and a painting, man and lion in the man-lion avatar of Vishnu, earth and water that make up mud .... 227 There is no question of mixture in those cases where the language qualities are invariably constitutive of certain rasas or rasas of certain qualities. The sense quality called aurjitya, for example, is an

expression of "highly developed self-consciousness," the word quality bhāvikatva is when an utterance is "prompted by deep emotion"; the sense quality mādhuryam is when a character is described as "showing gentleness" even in anger, the sense quality udāttatva is "nobility" of sentiment, the sense quality preyah is when a character expresses "deep affection" for a thing, the sense quality kanti is when the rasa appears with great "brilliance."228 However, we may indeed speak of mixture in a passage where the presence of qualities and rasas is intentional given their parity in respect of their mutually independent existence, as in the case of sesame seeds and rice kernels, milk and water, image and mirror reflection. There are six varieties of such mixture: where qualities are dominant, rasas dominant, both equally dominant, both equally nondominant, or where either the qualities or the rasas are present in superabundance .... 229 [654.9] With respect to the "mixture of rasas and figures," six types may be distinguished, depending on whether a figure of sound, of sense, or of both sound and sense is predominant over rasa, or whether an emotion, a semblance of emotion or rasa, or a rasa is predominant over a figure .... An example of the second type:

Rama's arrows, shot from hands hallowed by fondling Sita's breasts, made Ravana's body thrill with delight even as they pierced him.230

Here it is the figure of sense known as "supplying a reason" (he thrilled with delight because he was touched by hands that touched the object of his desire) that overpowers the semblance of rasa of erotic passion (Ravana's illicit desire for Sita) and makes the principal impact on the reader's understanding .... 231 [655.3] In the following, an emotion is predominant over a figure:

"Even the anger in her beautiful face at a lapse in love from me can steal my heart away, like a spot of musk on the deer in the moon."232

Here the god Hari, who possesses the rasa, is speaking, and his words are a reaction in the form of a verbalization, which overshadows the two sense figures in the verse, a "supplying a reason" and a simile. This being the case, the predominant meaning we understand is his state of pleasure at experiencing Satyabhama's anger.233 In the following a semblance of an emotion is predominant over a figure:

"Why wouldn't her waist waste away since it will never be beheld by those dark lotus-petal eyes that her high heavy breasts obstruct?"234

The predominant meaning we understand here-since the four figures, "supplying a reason," simile, poetic fantasy, and "transference,"235 are overshadowed-is a reaction, namely, the verbalization of the semblance of rasa on the part of some character, not the protagonist but rather the antagonist or other.236 Day by day he himself is pining away, priding himself on his sexual attraction while he experiences the pleasure of his sense of self, which finds expression here by his complaint against the woman he cannot have.237 In the following verse a rasa is predominant over a figure:

"Don't be so proud, my friend, to be wearing on your cheek a flower drawn by your lover with his own hand. Other women would have the very same thing if a thrill of ecstasy, that powerful foe, had not intervened."

Here again, the predominant thing we understand, over against the figures of speech 'prohibition," "supplying as a reason what is not a reason," and "circumlocution,"238 is a reaction in the form of a verbalization. This arises from the speaker's fully enhanced rasa of desire, which intimates the transitory feeling of trembling and serves to reveal how deep is the love shared with her beloved, in the face of the boasts of her girlfriend, who is so proud of being loved by her own lover .... 239 (p. 658) So much for "presence of rasa" at the level of the individual passage. Now we treat it at the level of the whole composition. That too manifests itself by the elimination of flaws, the acquisition of language qualities, and the mixing of "ornaments," and becomes thereby a source of intellectual delight for intelligent readers. To give brief definitions of these terms: The "elimination of flaws" is the avoidance of impropriety .... [658.21] The "acquisition of qualities" is the artful construction of a composition, achieved through adherence to genre rules pertaining to the different kinds of literary works we will discuss. The "mixing of 'ornaments' " is the careful arrangement of narrative components in these works .... [675.3] There are general and specific language qualities and ornaments, the conjunction with which is the cause for the presence of rasa at the level of the work .... [676.11] The fourth of the five "qualities of meaning" of the work as a whole is the "continuous presence of rasas and emotions." The word "rasa" could have been used alone since it includes emotions, which are the cause of rasa (and therefore are invariably copresent with it). But it is used separately in order to emphasize the mutual cause-and-effect relationship of the two. There must be a "continuous presence" or multiplicity of them to be savored-with rasas producing emotions, emotions rasas, and rasas rasas -so that the literary work does not become devoid of rasa, or insipid, like a meal that has only a single taste.