8. CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE

An Aesthetics Revolution, 900-1000

3.1 FROM RASA IN THE TEXT TO RASA IN THE READER: CORE IDEAS

*Commentary on the Treatise on Drama, and Mirror of the Heart of Bhatta Nayaka (c. 900)

Unquestionably the greatest loss to students of Indian aesthetics is Bhatta Nayaka's Hrdayadarpana, Mirror of the Heart; its true title may have been Sahrdayadarpana, Mirror for the Lover of Literature, so little do we really know about the work. It was long thought to be a commentary on the Treatise on Drama, but it seems likelier to have been a monograph at once modeled on and critical of Anandavardhana's Light on Implicature, Dhvanyāloka, which was also known as Sahrdayāloka, Light for the Lover of Literature. Various citations ascribed to Bhatta Nayaka by Abhinavagupta in his New Dramatic Art, however, suggest that Bhatta Nayaka did also write a commentary on the Treatise. Astonishingly for a work of such transformative power, the Mirror was lost by the thirteenth century at the latest, and no one who spoke about it thereafter did so on the basis of direct acquaintance.1 The pitifully few surviving fragments (twelve authentic verses, a few very doubtful ones, three very brief prose passages, and one more extended), most of them transmitted by his critics, and the subtlety of thought these indicate have made it nearly impossible for scholars to make coherent sense of Bhatta Nayaka's doctrine. A close examination of the Ten Dramatic Forms and Observations (late tenth century), however, reveals that, though never referring to Bhatta Nayaka by name, Dhanamjaya and Dhanika offer a crucially important restatement of the Mirror's key ideas. Beyond the fact that Bhatta Nayaka wrote in Kashmir sometime between Anandavardhana (c. 875), whom he critiques, and Dhanamjaya and Dhanika (c. 975), we know little about him. Kalhana's chronicle of Kashmir, the River of Kings, is almost certainly referring to our author when it states in reference to Shankaravarman (r. 883-902), "The king put in charge of his two new Shiva temples a Brahman named Nayaka, who was at once learned in the four Vedas and himself a veritable temple for poets, the tribe of Sarasvati."2 As Kalhana is here suggesting, not only did Bhatta Nayaka have a stunningly original voice on literary matters, he was also an astute scholar of Mimamsa, or scriptural hermeneutics. Stray references by later critics confirm what the surviving fragments clearly show, that he had close affiliations with this discipline, which literary thinkers beginning in the middle of the ninth century had begun to utilize to powerful effect.3 Bhatta Nayaka did not just borrow a term here or an idea there, however, as scholars like Ananda had done; he used that discipline to rethink the entire conceptual scheme of another-aesthetics.4 The fundamental thrust of Bhatta Nayaka's theory and the source of its transformative power lay in his directing attention away from the process by which emotion is engendered in the literary text-away, that is, from the formalist analysis dominant across the entire tradition, up to and including the grand synthesis of Bhoja-and toward the subjective experience of the viewer/reader.5 As a student of Mimamsa, he would have been concerned with one of its core questions: What accounts for the fact that we readers, here and now, find ourselves impelled to reenact scriptural commandments that are shown in the Veda itself

to concern other people at other times and places? As a student of literature, he was prompted to pose a related one: What accounts for the fact that we readers, here and now, find ourselves reexperiencing emotions that are shown in the literary work to concern other people at other times and places? Putting the experience of the reader front and center in his analysis meant that all the earlier questions about the aesthetic experience, which were locked into a linguistic account of literature and hence were text-centric, became largely irrelevant. If the key thing about rasa is one's own subjective experience, it ceases to be interesting, perhaps even intelligible, to argue about whether rasa is engendered, inferred, or "manifested" in the character-indeed, the last theory, that of Anandavardhana, elicited Bhatta Nayaka's sharpest criticism (fragment #10). Talk of engenderment, inference, and manifestation makes sense only in reference to the character; you do not, as reader, "infer" that you are feeling rasa. You begin to ask how literary language transforms a discourse about the emotions of people you do not know (Rama, Sita) into something you as reader somehow come to participate in, and how that process-the term Bhatta Nayaka coins for it is "commonization"-enables an altogether unique kind of experience. And what aids in answering this question is the analytic method already highly developed for scripture. For analogously, scripture gives commandments that, while not directed to you personally (not even "Thou shalt" is used in India, but rather "One should"), are nonetheless meant for you and that you somehow make your own and act upon. According to Mimamsa, scriptural language, like language in general, is action-oriented: all Vedic statements ultimately resolve into a command to perform (or avoid) some act. The general theory to account for this verbal force is organized around the notion of bhāvanā, "actualization," which consists of three parts: every statement can be analyzed as indicating some thing to be produced by the action, by means of some instrument, and in some manner. Thus for the Mimamsaka, the sentence "One who desires heaven should perform the fire sacrifice" signifies "One should actualize, or produce, heaven by means of a sacrifice in the manner required for the fire sacrifice." Insofar as literature is a subset of discourse as such, any adequate theory of literature, as Bhatta Nayaka appears to have conceived of this theory, will necessarily accord with bhāvana analysis and therefore be called upon to specify what literature is "actualizing," whereby, and how. Bhatta Nayaka accordingly proceeded to explain the literary experience as a tripartite process of actualization, and he gives newly coined or reformulated terms for its three components. The first is "expression," which here comprises all uses of expressive language, including figures of speech with their secondary meaning, so that it is best understood or even translated as "literary language," a form of discourse entirely different from any other.6 The second is the "capacity for actualization," which is (sometimes confusingly) referred to by the covering term bhāvanā, but which Bhatta Nakaya seems to distinguish as something separate: it is, he says, "another order of actualization," and at the same time "unique," utterly different from the scriptural-hermeneutical sort. This actualization capacity consists in the "making common," or "commonization," of the emotional states of the literary text with those of the reader. The third component, "experience," or (yet another coinage) "experientialization,"7 leads to a kind of absorption in the literary event. These three represent the "what" (experience), the "whereby" (expressive language), and the "how" (commonization) of literary actualization: one actualizes an aesthetic experience by means of an emotional commonization made possible by the unique powers of literary language.8 In invoking actualization, Bhatta Nayaka wants to argue that the very same mechanism enabling us to become the subject of a commandment of scripture enables us to become the subject, so to speak, of a literary text. This process constitutes for him the essential or most distinctive trait of literariness.9 Moreover, just as a scriptural sentence unifies its parts, the words, into a whole that generates action, so the literary text can be thought of as a kind of large sentence that unifies its parts, the aesthetic elements, into a whole that generates its own action, namely, aesthetic experience. Another way to think of Bhatta Nayaka's theory is to contrast it with Anandavardhana's "manifestation." In fact, the very names of the two works signal the shift in their perspectives. The Mirror of the Heart provides a true "reflection," or account, of what is occurring in the mind of the viewer/reader during an aesthetic experience, in contrast to the Light on Implicature, which aims to reveal the mechanisms by which aesthetic objects produce their effects. Thus, against the assertion of a new language function for the communication of rasa (and which knows nothing of action, since Ananda was not interested in reception), Bhatta Nayaka

reasserts normal language functioning (or, normal literary language functioning), but in an expanded version, where the aesthetic text-event itself is understood as a quasi sentence. As in a sentence, we have a verb, so in the literary text we have the stable emotion; as in a sentence, we have the nominal case forms, so in the literary text we have the aesthetic elements. When these are all 'syntactically" construed in the act of reading (or viewing), we have a kind of sentence meaning, which equates with actualization, which in turn explains the experience of rasa. The point of Bhatta Nayaka's postulating this "discourse" theory of rasa is to lay the foundation for the "action" aspect of rasa. Rasa is not a thing but an action-a uniquely pleasurable experience-and one is prompted to action by sentences;10 the literary "sentence" meaning functions just like a Vedic sentence meaning: it summons the reader to action. From this new standpoint-a hermeneutical standpoint, in the philosophical sense of the term-the rasa experience must be an action on the part of the viewing subject, not a formal feature of the text. But since an action must come about from sentences ("the meaning of a sentence is 'actualization,' " says Kumarila, the seventh-century scholar of Mimamsa), literature as such must constitute a "sentence," or discourse.11

The last component of Bhatta Nayaka's grand theory relates to the nature of aesthetic "absorption." "Experiencing" the emotions that have been made "common" by the power of literary "expression" and thus rendered accessible to the reader- horror without the danger of real horror, desire without the impropriety of real desire-is profoundly cathectic, since no phenomenal reality is there to trouble us. This absorptive experience is an event unique to aesthesis, and completely different from normal experience. It is, as a later thinker put it, "a state of rapture that is the true nature of one's consciousness," rendered so completely joyful and luminous that it is akin to the ecstasy of religious self-transcendence, given that "the self-other differentiation has vanished."12 For Bhatta Nayaka, however, religious experience is in fact inferior: "Nothing can compare with [aesthetic rasa], not even the rasa spiritual adepts bring forth." Bhatta Nayaka's views of literary response are, clearly, as complicated as the phenomenon itself. But his key move, to redirect attention away from the text and to reception, changed thinking about rasa forever. His victory was so total that many later writers, to say nothing of modern scholars, could no longer grasp even the possibility of a theory of rasa that was not reader- centered, and so failed to make intellectual-historical sense of the truly innovative nature of Bhatta Nayaka's contribution. When, for example, in the mid-seventeenth century Jagannatha argued that Bhatta Nayaka's "experientialization" is no different from the doctrine of "manifestation,"13 he was correct but had things reversed: "manifestation" became no different from "experientialization" once the original doctrine of Anandavardhana, designed to explain the linguistic phenomenon of rasa, had been recoded by Abhinavagupta into something intended to approximate experientialization, thanks to his appropriation of Bhatta Nayaka's own doctrines. If we can move beyond the conceptual and intellectual-historical obstructions that have obscured Bhatta Nayaka's theory and its influence and look as clear-eyed as we are able at the thousand-year history to which he was heir, we can begin to appreciate the revolution he initiated. One early commentator understood this well when he wrote: "When Nayaka argued that, since we experience the stable emotions, we experience rasa itself, did he not touch the very essence, the very core, of rasa?"14 In preparing the selections below, I preferred to err on the side of inclusiveness, even where it seemed improbable that the attribution was genuine. For the same reason I have provided every significant restatement and every resonance of Bhatta Nayaka's thought. Nothing that might help us understand better what this remarkable thinker was trying to say should be ignored.15

FROM *COMMENTARY ON THE TREATISE ON DRAMA, OF BHATTA NAYAKA

(#1)16 In Bharata's statement "I will explain what was declared by Brahma," the word "Brahma" refers to the supreme being, whereas "what was declared" means "what has been offered as an example." That is to say, drama is exemplary in enabling us to grasp the barren, dualistic

perception produced by our innate nescience. Consider the doings of Rama and Ravana. These are in essence merely imaginary, and precisely for this reason they do not have one single stable form, but rather can all of a sudden produce countless new imaginings. Although they are indeed different from a dream, just like a dream, they can be the source of profound emotional attachment without giving up their illusory character.17 When produced by an actor-and herein the actor is like the supreme being-these doings, however unreal, seem as if actually coming into existence out of some source, albeit a nonexistent one. And though in this way they remain mere appearance, they can become a means of understanding the true ends of man. The same applies to the universe as a whole, which functions in precisely the same way. It consists of a vast elaboration of nothing but names and forms, and yet, thanks to the capacity we derive from it for "learning, meditating," and so on,18 it can aid us in reaching the highest end of man. By thus hinting at the supreme, otherworldly human aim of liberation, this opening verse becomes an indicator of the peaceful rasa that will be discussed later (in the verse "The peaceful rasa arises in dependence on its own specific conditions"),19 and its ultimate purpose is hereby explained.20

FROM MIRROR OF THE HEART OF BHATTA NAYAKA

Direct (and Possible) Citations

(#2)21 Homage to Shiva, the poet who creates the whole universe. Thanks to him, people every moment enjoy the rasa of the world's dramatic performance. (#3)22 Poetic language, like a cow, brings forth this rasa at the thirsty promptings of her calves, and so nothing can compare with it, not even the rasa spiritual adepts23 bring forth. (#4)24 A "poet" is so called because he produces "poetry," since, although there are all kinds of poets, poetry as such remains always self-identical. (#5)25 The poet does not pour forth rasa until he himself overflows with it. (#6)26 Scripture is distinguished by the fact that wording has primacy in it. Historical narrative is a matter of factual meaning. When both wording and meaning are subordinated and the aesthetic process itself has primacy, we call it literature. (#7)27 In the case of literature,28 what every reader actually does is experience rasa, not gain knowledge or come to be persuaded of some moral precept. [(#8)29 We scholars hold that the literary function is threefold: expression, actualization, and experience. Beyond that, we do not accept anything, certainly not what has been called "implicature." Expression is an established fact in the domains of communication;30 actualization refers to the "commonization" of the aesthetic elements, the factors and the rest; experience refers to the unfettered savoring of rasa.] (#9)31 As for the other process called "implicature," which is essentially manifestation, even were it proven to exist as something distinct,32 it would only be a component of literature, not, as claimed, its essential form. (#10)33 [Since implicature is supposed to be found everywhere in discourse,] we would be forced to say that all discourse can be called literature. (#11)34 In literature the "three components" are literary expression, a special type of

actualization, and experientialization.35 To the abode of expression belong the figures of sound and sense. Actualization brings into being what we categorize as rasas, the erotic and the rest.36 If a viewer/reader is a proficient one, the "experientialization" of these rasas will completely pervade him.37 (#12)38 Just as in the Veda, where sentence meaning arises through the syntactic construal39 of the constitutive words-since that meaning must be a unity, given that it bears a relation to a single result-so in literature we hold rasa to constitute a kind of sentence meaning. (#13)40 The purpose of literature is rasa, which is an experience consisting of savoring; it may be said to be "manifested" only by way of a manifestation called awareness, and its domain is the highest consciousness. [(#14)41 A precious object may be damaged by vermin yet remain precious. In the same way, imperfect poetry remains poetry so long as we derive rasa from it.]

Restatements of Bhatta Nayaka's Doctrine

(#1a, Abhinavagupta)42 Bhatta Nayaka argues that rasa can be neither the object of a normal perceptual experience nor some thing that actually comes into being or can be "manifested." [If rasa were perceptible, it would be perceived as either in oneself or in someone else, S.] If rasa were perceived as internal to the viewer himself, then [1] in the case of the tragic rasa, he would feel the actual pain himself [and hence would never again go to see a sad play, s].43 [2] Such a perception would not even make sense, because a character like Sita cannot function as a foundational factor for the viewer [she is a factor for another character, in Sita's case for her husband, Rama, M]. [3] Neither is the viewer reminded of his own beloved in the course of a description of Sita, [4] nor can she share any properties in common with his Sita [in other words, the notion that a common property of being beloved is shared by Sita and the spectator's wife, producing a foundational factor that can stimulate the spectator's predisposition, is impossible, because Sita is a divine being, DhĀL].44 [5] Nor could such foundational and stimulant factors [for the spectator's stable emotion, S] as leaping over the ocean45 and the like ever have anything in common with the viewer. [6] Any putative memory on the spectator's part of Rama's being in possession of such a stable emotion is impossible, because the spectator can never have had the perception of Rama in the first place that is required to ground such memory. [7] Nor can the spectator be said to have "perceived" Rama by some other means of valid knowledge, such as testimony or inference, in order to supply a basis for his memory. Such a mediated perception could no more provide an experience of rasa than would glimpsing with one's own eyes the lovemaking of people in real life, when instead of rasa the spectator would be absorbed in one or another mental state, whether shame, disgust, or yearning.46 If, on the other hand, rasa were perceived as external to the perceiving subject, as present in the actor or the characters, it would be something toward which the viewer would be emotionally indifferent [; it could not be a "taste," that is, something experienced, but would be a mere object, like a pot, M]. Accordingly, it makes no47 sense to say that there is a perception-in the form of an empirical

experience or memory or whatever-of rasa. The same criticisms apply to the view that rasa is something that actually comes into being. And lastly, if rasa were something that existed only in potential form [since it has been ruled out that rasa can be conceived of as already existing, like some material object, M] and was subsequently "manifested,"48 it would be subject both to the gradations of actualizing the object that are inherent in any idea of "manifestation"49 and to the same dilemmas as before, that is, whether it is manifested in oneself or another, and so on. [Literary language, however, is different from all other forms of language due to its threefold constitution, comprising an "expressive" function pertaining to the discourse, an "actualization" function pertaining to rasa, and an "experientialization" function pertaining to the sensitive viewer/reader, DhAL.] "Actualization"50 is marked in poetry by language that shows an absence of flaws and the presence of language qualities and figures of speech, whereas in drama it is embodied in the four different registers of acting (physical, verbal, and so on), and thereby has the capacity to overcome the resistances of one's deep insensibility.51 This "actualization," a second component over and above expression, consists in essence in the commonization of the aesthetic elements, the foundational factor and so on. By this process is produced rasa, which comes to be experienced in the form of an "experience" utterly different from empirical activity or memory or anything else; one marked instead by a melting, enlargement, and expansion52 that depend on the relative degree of volatility and stolidity in the viewer, and marked further by an absorption of the spectator's consciousness consisting of a predominance of sensitivity, light, and bliss, which shares something of the character of savoring supreme being. (#2a, Mammata)53 Rasa is not something cognized, whether as existing in someone external and uninvolved with the viewing subject or as internal to himself. Nor is it something that actually comes into being, or something "manifested." On the contrary, in poetry and drama there is in addition to expression a "process" called "actualization," which consists in the "commonization" of the foundational factor and other aesthetic elements. By this process the stable emotion is actualized and experienced in a third process called "experience," which has the nature of54 an absorption of consciousness consisting of a predominance of sensitivity, light, and bliss. (#3a, Ruyyaka)55 In Bhatta Nayaka's system, all three positions concerning rasa-that it actually comes into being; that it is the content of a cognitive experience; that it is "manifested"-are critiqued, and his own position, that rasa is "experienced," is established .... Against all three he levels a common criticism: if rasa arose in or were perceived as actually existing in oneself, it would have to be experienced in precisely the same way (e.g., sorrowfully in the case of the tragic rasa); if it arose in or were perceived as existing in someone else, one would be indifferent toward it and hence have no taste experience at all; if it were latent and only manifested, it would be subject to the gradations of actualizing the object that are inherent in any idea of "manifestation," and so again one would have no rasa experience. Bhatta Nayaka therefore abandons all three positions and argues in favor of "experience." This consists of relishing rasa and amounts to the same thing as rapture. And it is entirely different from the view that rasa is some thing that actually comes into being, and so on: given that those operations must proceed under the constraints of time, space, and form,56 they all are subject to the many aforementioned criticisms. "Experience," however, is entirely different, hence has a supermundane quality, and thereby escapes those criticisms.

To be precise: there is a threefold "process" of literature; the three components are called expression, actualization, and experientialization. Among these, the first, namely the language process,57 is itself twofold by virtue of the distinction between literal and figurative meaning, that is, whether an unmediated or mediated sense is at issue.58 This twofold process is common to scripture and historical discourse as well, which may be likened to master and friend respectively, insofar as the wording itself has primacy in the former and the meaning in the latter. But the other two components are unique to poetry and drama; whereas, at the same time, literature is differentiated in its language process from scripture and history by being likened to a beloved, since both wording and meaning have primacy.59 With respect to those components, we first discuss actualization. Although it is impossible for Sita, for example, ever to be a foundational factor in and of herself,60 actualization as it comes into being61 brings about a state of commonality. This is made possible in poetry by the presence of language qualities and figures of speech62 and by the absence of flaws, and in drama by the use of the four registers of acting. For things derive their particularity from the particularity of their causal factors, just as the moonstone is caused to melt by the proximity of moonbeams. In the same way, from the particular nature of the set of causal elements in poetry and drama there comes about this process of actualization, which may be defined as "commonization." Once the foundational factor and the rest are "commonized," commonization renders the stable emotion an experiential object on the part of the receptive reader. The concluding process, "experientialization," can be defined as making this emotion an object for the reader's relishing. It is precisely because literature has the capacity to delight such a reader that it is likened to a beloved. This experience is in essence a savoring of the highest bliss, and closely approximates the savoring of supreme being on the part of spiritual adepts. (#4a, Ruyyaka)63 When Bhatta Nayaka says that the process of manifestation is a component of literature he is admitting it brazenly, only for the sake of argument.64 He awards primacy to the aesthetic process as such, with the actual forms of wording and meaning subordinated to this. More specifically, over and above65 the first two literary processes, expression and "actualization," there exists a third one. This is in essence the relishing of rasa, a synonym for which is "experientialization," and he accepts this as the dominant literary element, insofar as it constitutes the site of "absorption."

J) (p. 8) Some scholars have argued [9] that "manifestation" is beyond the domain of speech and therefore indefinable.66 To this view Ruyyaka now turns. "Brazenly," i.e., and not providing a definition. That is why the assertion is brazen: he accepts something only for the sake of argument, which cannot (he says) be defined. "A component of literature," i.e., not its essence, as (Bhatta Nayaka) says, "As for the other process called 'implicature .... ' "67 What Bhatta Nayaka means by "process" is poetic creation itself.68 Otherwise, that is, if literature were not something entirely different-a "process"-it would be impossible to differentiate literature either from the Vedas, where wording itself has primacy, or from historical discourse, where meaning has primacy. As Bhatta Nayaka has said, "Scripture is distinguished by the fact that for it, the wording has primacy." He has declared that literature consists of three components: "Expression, actualization, and aesthetic experience." He sets forth the sphere of the first two components in the verse "To the abode of expression ... " and the third component in the verse "If a viewer/reader is proficient .... " This last component consists of a relishing of the other two that is experienced by lovers of literature. And when he states, "Although this experience is something entirely phenomenal ... " he accepts this experience as the site of "absorption," being something similar to relishing supreme being.

(S) (p. 9) "Expression," which here includes literal and figurative meaning, is common to literary and nonliterary language. Bhatta Nayaka's two other processes are specific to literature. [10] The one, "actualization," is the generalization of the factors and the other components of rasa; the other, "enjoyment," is a literary process that exists over and above these two, and is described as in essence the relishing of rasa. While both the author of the Vital Force of Literary Language and Bhatta Nayaka equally hold the language process to have primacy, the former awards this primacy to expression when artistically qualified, whereas the latter awards it to manifestation as related to rasa, for which a synonym is "experience."69

(#5a, Mallinatha)70 Bhatta Nayaka's doctrine of aesthetic experience is as follows: the "language process," which pertains to poetry and drama both, assists the "actualization process," whereby the aesthetic elements, the foundational factor and so on, are "commonized."71 Here the stable emotion is brought to consciousness as something common to the reader, since anything that pertains specifically to the actor and so on72 is eliminated. And it is thereby experienced by the "actualization" process,73 also known as aesthetic experience, which consists of an awareness that is pure sensitivity, light, and bliss.

Resonance of Bhatta Nayaka's Doctrine

(#1b, Simhabhupala)74 A foundational factor (such as Sita) attains real existence through linguistic communication, its actual external reality being irrelevant.75 Furthermore, whereas with reference to the historical hero (Rama, for example) such a factor was, originally, wholly particularized (Sita being a specific individual for Rama), the process that in a poem or play is called "actualization" consists of "commonizing" the foundational factor by means of the process of expression,76 and thereby enables it to be imagined by the spectator as connected with himself. It thereby becomes almost present77 in the mind of the spectator doing the imagining or "actualizing," without there being any contradiction with its persistence as a foundational factor (that is, for Rama). Thereby, the stable emotion that Rama feels can be experienced by the spectator, and without the least disruption through impropriety,78 in an experience whose nature is a pure blissful absorption.

3.2. FROM RASA IN THE TEXT TO RASA IN THE READER: ELABORATION

The Ten Dramatic Forms of Dhanamjaya (c. 975) and the Observations of Dhanika (c. 975), with The Lamp (on the Ten Forms) of Bahurupa Mishra (undated) and the Brief Annotation (on the Observations) of Bhatta Nrisimha (undated)

To some degree the signal importance, in intellectual-historical terms, of the body of rasa theory presented by Dhanamjaya and Dhanika is tied up with the question of their time and place. And attached to that question are two large enigmas, and a small one. There is no doubt about the date of Dhanamjaya. He was a courtier of the Paramara king Vakpati Munja, uncle of the great Bhoja, who ruled from the city of Dhara (in today's Madhya Pradesh); Dhanamjaya speaks with evident pride of having "participated in the sophisticated assemblies of King Munja."79 Munja came to the throne in 974 or 975,80 and ruled some twenty years until he was captured by Tailapa Chalukya, taken to his capital city, Kalyani, and executed by beheading. It is somewhat more

difficult to fix the date of Dhanika. The documentary considerations discussed by earlier scholars are inconclusive.81 The most important fact for establishing his upper limit is that a poem of his is cited (without attribution) by Bhoja in the earlier of his two literary treatises, the Necklace for the Goddess of Language.82 He may well have been a younger brother of Dhanamjaya (their father's name is identical) and was very likely a contemporary. His only surviving work is the Observations; his Analysis of Literature, assuredly an important work, has been lost. Munja was succeeded in the kingship by Bhoja's father, Sindhuraja, and then by Bhoja himself, whose long reign extended from about 1011 to 1055. That Bhoja should be ignorant of the literary-critical work of Dhanamjaya and Dhanika would seem to be impossible, but ignorant he is. Their names are never cited in his Necklace or Light, and their literary-theoretical ideas (in contrast to their poetry, or at least a few verses of Dhanika's) left no trace in either text.83 The two scholars cannot possibly have outlived Bhoja and written after 1055. It is only slightly less improbable that their works were composed abroad, if as courtier-intellectuals associated with Munja they were not retained by Bhoja (although others, such as the poet Dhanapala, certainly were) These chronological considerations would not loom so large were it not for the fact that Bhoja's system of aesthetics (chapter 2) stands in such fundamental contradiction to the positions advanced by Dhanamjaya and Dhanika. And we have every reason to expect that Bhoja would at least have acknowledged, if not critically assessed, the very powerful conceptual challenges they present, had he known about them. But he clearly does not, and for all his innovations in technical terminology, categories, and concepts, Bhoja's view of rasa is still essentially the classical one. To understand this view and the frontal assault made upon it by Bhatta Nayaka and, in his footsteps, Dhanamjaya and Dhanika, we need to grasp its two core aspects, the one epistemological, the other ontological, which bear repeating here. All early theories about the nature of rasa-the "origination" position of Bhatta Lollata, the "inference" position of Shri Shankuka, the "manifestation" position of Anandavardhana-concern epistemological disputes: Do we perceive rasa arising before our eyes? Do we somehow infer it? Is it something "manifested" or "suggested"? This controversy has of course long been noted by scholars, but what has not been sufficiently stressed is the fact that all such epistemological theories at the same time presuppose a particular ontological theory: that rasa is, in the first instance of analysis (though not necessarily exclusively), to be seen as a phenomenon internal to the literary work, whether that work is textual ("heard," i.e., poetry) or performative ("seen," i.e., drama). Once this ontology is discarded, the epistemology associated with it must be discarded too;84 and this is precisely what happened once rasa came to be viewed also, or instead, as a phenomenon largely external to the literary work, as a subjective experience of reception. The two ontological positions do not present mutually exclusive truth claims. Viewed phenomenologically, rasa is at once internal and external to the text; which of these one foregrounds is a function of analytical method and theoretical interests. Consider the view that rasa can only be "suggested." Dhanamjaya and Dhanika leave no doubt they held the very idea to become impossible if rasa is located-as they insist on locating it-in the viewer/reader and not, as earlier (for Anandavardhana himself), in the character:

(Dhanamjaya) Rasa belongs to the spectator experiencing the rasa, and to him alone, because he is alive and present. It does not belong to the character.

(Dhanika) ... All this being the case, the view that rasa can be "manifested" stands refuted. For an entity can only be manifested by something after it has been brought into being by something else: a pot, for example, can only be manifested by a light when it has already been produced by the clay. It is certainly not possible for an entity to be brought into existence by the very things that are supposed to manifest it, and this at one and the same moment.

Since rasa had become something pertaining to the audience, a new epistemology appropriate to that new ontology was required. Bhoja was entirely innocent of this conceptual revolution85-hence our first enigma: how could this be if the text that

embodies the revolution had been produced at his uncle's court just a generation earlier? The Ten Dramatic Forms along with the Observations may be said only to "embody" an intellectual-historical revolution rather than "inaugurate" it because of the second conundrum presented by these two works: the fact that, in their discussion of rasa, they present what is not an altogether original contribution, but one that bears the impress of the ideas of Bhatta Nayaka, the early tenth-century Kashmirian author of the Mirror of the Heart. Dhanamjaya and Dhanika never mention his name, but their fourth chapter, both base text and commentary, offers a systematic restatement of the main ideas of his lost masterpiece. Since his "hermeneutical turn" transformed Indian aesthetics and provided the basis for Abhinavagupta's reconstruction, the Forms with the Observations represents the most important extant document-given the disappearance of the Mirror itself-in the history of rasa theory between Bharata's founding statement and Abhinava's later synthesis of the hermeneutical school. The turn is especially clear in the Observations, where Dhanika is intent on a radical recentering of the whole discourse- including all the aesthetic elements-onto the viewer/reader. For example, the reactions are now to be considered, not just the effects of rasa displayed by the actor (which, ex hypothesi, does not actually exist), but causes of rasa in the viewer (on 4.3ab). Indeed, the aesthetic emotions in general now are said to permeate the mind of the viewer, not the character (on 4.4ab). A new distinction is accordingly required, Dhanika suggests, between "real-world rasa," the rasa of the storyworld, and "drama rasa" (natyarasa), the rasa experienced by the viewer of the drama. How far the distance has been opened up from Bhoja's views may be seen in the juxtaposition of their explanation of "rasa-laden" discourse. According to Bhoja, "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"; for Dhanika, "it can only be the audience members who are the 'rasikas,' those who taste rasa; the literary text can be said to be 'rasa-laden' only insofar as it brings about the unfolding of that sort of blissful consciousness." A third, if lesser, enigma about Dhanamjaya and Dhanika's works, to add to those relating to their earlier relationship with Bhatta Nayaka and to their later relationship with Bhoja, is the identity of Bhatta Nrisimha, the remarkable commentator on the Observations (and, occasionally, on the memorial verses of Dhanamjaya as well). We have no information about him, and the only question for which we can hope to find an answer on the basis of currently available evidence is whether he is identical with Bhatta Narasimha, author of the important commentary on Bhoja's Necklace.86 There Bhatta Narasimha provides us with the most lucid exposition available of the problem of the locus of rasa (rasaśraya) as this relates to Bhoja's aesthetic system.87 On Dhanika's Observations (4.38), however, Bhatta Nrisimha repeats the Necklace commentary almost word for word, this time only to reject it. The contradiction in the views of Bhatta Nrisimha/Bhatta Narasimha is undoubtedly a result of the contradiction in the views in the two works upon which he is commenting, and not grounds for postulating the existence of two different, equally brilliant scholars of literary theory who share essentially the same name.88 The Observations, written by someone who was almost certainly a contemporary of Dhanamjaya, if not his brother, has long had a special claim to authority as an exegesis of the Ten Dramatic Forms, and it would have taken a remarkable degree of self- confidence to attempt to displace it. Only one person sought to do this, Bahurupa Mishra, but his egoism exceeded his learning. I have translated from this work only what little it adds to the discussion (he belongs to a different conceptual world from that of Dhanamjaya and Dhanika, sometimes alluding to the rasa of the character, for example, which is precisely what Dhanamjaya rejects). The commentator is later than Sharadatanaya, whom he cites, which would place him after the fourteenth century; his upper limit cannot be determined.

From The Ten Dramatic Forms of Dhanamjaya (D) and the Observations of Dhanika (Dh), with The Lamp of Bahurupa Mishra (BM) and the Brief Annotation of Bhatta Nrisimha (BN)

(Dh) (p. 167) Now, then, the varieties of rasa will be described. (D) (4.1) When, by means of the factors, the physical reactions and psychophysical responses,

and the transitory emotions, a stable emotion is brought to the state of being savored, it is said to become rasa. (Dh) The factors, the physical reactions and psychophysical responses, and the transitory emotions, whose natures will all be described in due course, are presented either in a literary work or through dramatic acting. The stable emotion, the definition of which will also shortly be provided, becomes almost present89 within the minds of readers and viewers, and when brought within the sphere of savoring-a state of intensely blissful consciousness-it becomes rasa. Therefore, it can only be the audience members who are the "rasikas," those who taste rasa; the literary text can be said to be "rasa-laden" only insofar as it brings about the unfolding of that sort of blissful consciousness; it is no more than a metaphorical usage, as in the expression "ghee is life."

(BN) [168.8] The "rasikas" are those who actually experience rasa, and when Dhanika identifies them with the audience members, he is refuting the view that it is the literary characters, Rama and the like, who have rasa .... By using the expression "ghee is life," he means to say that we can refer to something that is the cause of a thing as that thing itself.90

(D) (4.2) The "factors," first of all, enhance the stable emotion by becoming objects of our awareness. They are twofold, foundational factors and stimulant factors. (Dh) [168] To become an "object of awareness" means to be conceived of in a form given specificity by literary language-that is, tropes such as hyperbole and metaphor-whereby a given man is said to be like this, a given woman like that.91 A factor is either foundational or stimulant. An example of a foundational factor is the leading male or female character of the work; an example of a stimulant factor is the appropriate time or place. To quote: "'Factor' means making aware."92 We shall relate factors to rasas duly and as occasion arises. Now, these factors attain their respective states as factors without reference to any entity actually existing outside the text,93 but precisely through their embodiment in language.94 They thereby take on a general form and come to be conceived of by each person actualizing the emotion95 in such a way that it is connected with himself; they become almost present in his mind and thereby attain the state of being either a foundational or a stimulant factor. Hence, they are not in the least devoid of their own reality. To quote Bhartrihari: "One6 grasps characters in literature such as Kamsa97 as causally active, almost as if they were right before one's eyes, when in fact their forms are merely a linguistic construct and they themselves are only objects of thought."98 [169] And the author of the Six Thousand99 also says, "Rasa arises from these elements in conjunction with the quality of generality."100

(BN) [169.21] Just as the actually visible forms of Kamsa and so on are causes with regard to their respective effects, so viewers/readers regard their forms when mediated by literary language as causes of the apprehension of rasa. 101 .... (D) (4.3ab) A "physical reaction" is a change that intimates an emotion.102 (Dh) (p. 171) Things such as weeping, the play of eyebrows, or sidelong glances that enable the audience members to experience the stable emotions103 and thus bring the rasa experience to full enhancement are called reactions. The reactions accordingly can be said to belong to poetry no less than to dramatic acting.104 Whether they are called reactions (anubhava) because they are directly

"experienced" (anubhūyante) on the part of the rasikas-the viewers/readers actualizing the emotion-or because they are an "after-experiencing" (anu-bhavana) by them,105 the reactions are still something to be referred to the rasikas. The definition in the memorial verse, "a change ... that intimates a stable emotion," is given from the viewpoint of real-world rasa;106 here, by contrast, the reactions are understood to be an actual cause of the rasas.107 ... 108

(BN) [171.71] "After-experiencing" means "after the act of 'actualization.' " ... We should note that the two etymologies of the word "reaction" have reference to Dhanika's own opinion (the second) and that of the author of the sutras (the first). The final sentence ("The definition ... ") is meant to remove any suspicion that the two are in conflict.

(D) (4.3cd) These two, the one a cause, the other an effect, are empirically given. (Dh) Factors and reactions, causes and effects respectively with regard to real-world rasa, are empirically given and require no separate technical definition.109

(BM) Since the "sensitivities," which are about to be defined, are emotions, the author prefaces this with a general definition of emotion:

(D) (4.4ab) "Emotion" is the permeating of one's feelings by things such as pleasure or pain. (Dh) (172) "Emotion" is when the pleasure, pain, and the like presented by the poet as belonging to the character "perfumes," or permeates, "one's feelings," that is, the mind of the viewer/reader actualizing the emotion.110 As Bharata remarks, "People will say, 'Ah, this whole thing is 'caused to be' by this taste or that fragrance,"111 when what is meant is "perfumed." As for Bharata's more specific uses of the term "emotion"-such as, "Insofar as they bring into being (bhāvayanti) the rasas" or "Emotion" (bhāva) is also so called because it serves to 'bring into being' (bhavayan) the poet's inner emotion (bhava)"112-they are describing the semantic field of the word "emotion" in the context of dramatic acting and poetry.113 These are the stable and transitory emotions, to be discussed shortly.

(BN) [172.15] "One's" here refers to the audience member.

(D) (4.4cd-4.5ab) The psychophysical "sensitivities" (sāttvika), since they are also reactions, are categorized as emotions distinct from the others. They are called sensitivities because they arise from one's psychic sensitivity (sattva). They similarly permeate one's feelings.114 (Dh) (p. 173) "Sensitivity" is when one's heart is completely amenable to "actualizing" another's115 sorrow and joy. As Bharata says, "Psychic sensitivity as defined here is something that arises from the mind; it is said to be the mind in a state of heightened awareness."116 It is precisely because of one's sensitivity that weeping, horripilation, and the like are produced in the presence of sorrow or joy, and because they are produced by this sensitivity, these emotions are accordingly called "sensitivities"; they are emotions since they likewise "permeate one's feelings." Insofar as they arise from this sensitivity, weeping and the like, physical though they may be, are considered emotions; insofar as they are actual transformations that indicate emotions, they are considered reactions.117 Hence they have a dual nature.

(BN) [173.10] "One's heart" again refers to the audience member.

(Dh) These are: (D) (4.5cd-4.6) The following eight: paralysis, fainting, horripilation, perspiration, pallor, trembling, weeping, and a broken voice. Here "paralysis" means immobilization of the limbs, and "fainting" loss of consciousness. The rest are clear. 118 .... (Dh) (p. 174) Now the transitory emotions. First the general definition. (D) (4.7) Transitory emotions (vy-abhi-carinah) are so called because they move (car) in especially (vi-) close proximity (abhi-mukhya) to the stable emotion. They emerge from and are submerged into the stable emotion like waves on the ocean. (Dh) Just as waves arise from and disappear into the ocean, which itself remains unchanged, so the transitory emotions, despair and so on, "move," or exist, "in close proximity" by reason of their emergence from and disappearance into the stable emotion,119 which persists unchanged.

.... 120

(Dh) (p. 196) There are other discrete mental states, but these need not be separately mentioned since they can be subsumed under the basic forms of the factors of, or reactions to, the transitory emotions already mentioned.121 Now the stable emotions. (D) (4.34) A stable emotion is one that is uninterrupted, whether by conflicting or nonconflicting emotions. On the contrary, it assimilates other emotions, as the ocean assimilates rivers.

(BM) Rasas in conflict are the erotic and the macabre; the heroic and the fearful; the violent and the fantastic; the comic and the tragic. Those not in conflict are the comic and the erotic; the tragic and the violent; the fantastic and the heroic; the macabre and the fearful.122 The stable emotion remains the same throughout the course of the work.123

(Dh) A stable emotion is the one presented in such a way that it is not overshadowed by either related or unrelated emotions. In "The Great Tale,"124 to give an example of the case of related emotions, the protagonist Naravahanadatta's passion for Madanamanjari is not overshadowed by his passion for any of the subordinate female protagonists. For an example of unrelated emotions, take the cemetery scene in Malati and Madhava. Here Madhava's passion for Malati is presented in such a way that it is not overshadowed by revulsion, that is, when he thinks:

For such was the overwhelming earlier impression on my senses, that there remains alive in me as a perpetual memory a perception of my beloved that no conflicting perception can obscure, so that my consciousness takes on the very shape and substance of her.125

These instances show us that no actual conflict is caused by the inclusion of other emotions, whether conflicting or not.

(BN) [197.21] In citing the two examples Dhanika indicates that this proposition applies to both traditional narratives (The Great Tale) and narratives invented by the author (Malati and Madhava).126

(Dh) To explain: How could conflict ever arise? Conflict, or contradiction, must be either [1] the impossibility of two things coexisting127 or [2] the negation of one thing by another.128 It certainly cannot be both types at once,129 since in aesthetic experience, which consists essentially of savoring, emotion manifests itself as a unified whole.130

(BN) Leave aside for a moment the conflict between two stable emotions. The critical issue is what to do about the potential conflict between the stable emotion and the aesthetic elements that are introduced to enhance it:

(Dh) [1] As for conflict between a stable emotion and an aesthetic element,131 this cannot be a case of the impossibility of their coexistence, to take that first. It is established in the self- awareness of anyone "actualizing" an aesthetic emotion that the mind can indeed remain imbued with a single stable emotion such as desire while transitory emotions, both those that are in conflict with it and those that are not, are simultaneously presented, after the manner of a variegated flower garland strung on a single thread.132 Just as this melange of emotions is proved to exist by one's own self-awareness, so it can apply in the case of the literary character, by means of the full complex of poetic processes [197] and, through a subsequent fusion with the spectator's own awareness, it can bring about the requisite blossoming of that blissful consciousness.133 Therefore, one cannot argue that the coexistence of a stable emotion134 can ever be held to be impossible. Now as for [2], the sort of conflict that consists in the "negation" of one thing by another, that would have to be constituted here by [2a] the overshadowing of one emotion by another. But an emotion that is truly stable cannot conflict in this way with transitory emotions; nor can emotions that are transitory conflict with a stable emotion, for the simple reason that they are subsidiary to a stable emotion: it would be illogical to say that something functions as a subsidiary to a dominant when it is in conflict with it.135 By the same reasoning,136 we can also dismiss as impossible [2b] the sequential conflict of a stable emotion and another aesthetic element. Accordingly, in Malati and Madhava, even the presentation of the macabre rasa in act 5 after the erotic in the foregoing acts has nothing contrary to rasa about it. All this being the case, the only real source of conflict could be where a single foundational factor subserves two conflicting rasas. But even that factor137 will not produce conflict when the rasas are presented with some other, nonconflicting rasa interposed between them.138 Take the following verse:

Lucky those women who get to wear fragrance of the finest scent. My husband only transfers to me the foul smell of his battle wounds.139

Here, the inclusion of the macabre rasa ("foul smell") within the erotic is not in conflict thanks to the interposition of the heroic rasa ("battle wounds"). If such a procedure were not adopted, the conflict arising from having a single locus for two conflicting rasas would indeed be a problem to be avoided. [199] One might still raise the following objection: Where other emotions, whether conflicting or not, are subordinated to a single purport, there may well be no conflict given that those other emotions are admittedly subsidiary. But how can that be the case where multiple emotions are

presented in the narrative as equally dominant? Consider the following poem:

On one side, his weeping wife, on the other, the blare of war drums. The soldier's heart oscillates between love and battle lust.140

Here, desire and determination are presented in the narrative as equally dominant. In the following,

Let honorable men put bias aside, and reflect on what to do, and speak forthrightly: Is it better to seek out the flanks of a holy mountain or the flanks of woman smiling with love?141

desire and impassivity are equally dominant. In the following,

Here that beautiful woman, sole habitation of the world's adornment; and there that wretched villain who wronged my sister. From one, this wild passion that I feel, from the other, this vast blaze of rage and this disguise that I have taken on. How can this be? My mind is perturbed.142

[200] desire and anger are equally dominant. In the following,

With guts for bracelets, and elegant flower chains of hearts, and women's lac-painted hands for red lotuses at their ears, with thick blood for makeup, the demon women join their lovers and drink in skull goblets the marrow wine.143

desire and revulsion are equally dominant, and moreover with a single object.144 In the following,

One eye is folded like a bud, shut tight in concentration; the second, heavy with the weight of love, rests on Parvati's breasts and face; the third is ablaze with the fire of anger at the god of love drawing back his bow- may Shiva's three eyes, their rasas mixed at that hour of meditation, protect you.145

impassivity, desire, and anger are equally dominant. In the following, "With one eye filled with anger ... ,"146 grief and anger are equally dominant. How, then, in these instances can there be no conflict? Because, we respond, in all these instances there is in fact only a single stable emotion. To elaborate: in the poem beginning "On one hand, his weeping beloved," the reference at once to the wife's weeping147 and the battle drums serves to enhance the heroic rasa and that alone. It does so by expressing the dilemma, which points toward "perplexity," functioning here as a transitory emotion of the heroic. This predominance of the heroic is communicated by use of the word "soldier." Moreover, it is illogical to suppose that two equally dominant rasas-rasas devoid of any relationship of principal-and-accessory between them-could in any way be unified.148 And last, when a brave soldier heads off to battle, for him to be attending to other matters would suggest

indifference toward the aforementioned battle and thereby produce gross impropriety. Therefore, because the husband's passions are directed solely toward battle, his tragic feeling toward his wife149 serves in the first instance to manifest his bravery and [201] to enhance the heroic rasa. Similarly, in the poem beginning "Let honorable men put bias aside," an inveterate disposition toward desire is referred to as something reprehensible, and because of this the single dominant stable emotion is quiescence, which is clearly revealed by the words "speak forthrightly." In the same way, in the poem beginning "Here that beautiful woman," the reference to desire and anger points toward the violent as the single dominant rasa, first because Ravana is the antagonist and, being a nightstalker, a creature given to deception; second, because desire and anger occasion perplexity, which can function as a transitory emotion of the violent rasa. In the poem beginning "With guts for bracelets," the single dominant rasa is the macabre. In the poem beginning "One eye is folded like a bud," although Shiva is in a permanent state of impassivity undisturbed by any other emotions, by showing he can achieve a form of meditation unlike that of any other spiritual adept, the poet demonstrates that impassivity constitutes the single dominant emotion. This is made especially clear by the words "at that hour of meditation."

(BN) [202.8] Although Shiva is ever characterized by impassivity, he engages in meditation to distinguish himself from all other dispassionate spiritual adepts, and referring to that here is meant to show that the dominant emotion is impassivity.

(Dh) And, last, in the poem beginning "With one eye filled with anger," the entire sentence concerns the impending mood of the erotic thwarted. Nowhere, then, is there more than a single purport. In verses based on extended puns we may indeed have multiple purports, but there is no flaw in such cases, since the dominance of two significations is based on two separate sentence meanings and their complete independence .... 150 Thus, in accordance with the earlier argument, there can never be conflict wherever the stable emotions are presented in the narrative. As for sentences where no151 explicit reference is made to desire or any other stable emotion, we shall show in due course that it is still the stable emotion that constitutes the main purport. [202] The stable emotions are the following: (D) (4.35) Desire, determination, revulsion, anger, amusement, amazement, fear, grief. Some also include impassivity, but in drama this cannot be enhanced.152

(BM) Since impassivity signifies the cessation of all activity, it comprises no reactions and so could never be acted out in drama.

(Dh) With regard to the peaceful rasa, scholars offer a variety of conflicting views. Some say there is no such thing as the peaceful rasa, because the teacher Bharata neither described its foundational and stimulant factors nor even defined it. Others go further and argue that it is an actual impossibility, insofar as passion and hatred flow to us in a stream through beginningless time and cannot be eliminated. Still others claim that it is subsumed under one or the other rasa, the heroic, the macabre, and so on.

(BN) [203.3] An example of the heroic for these scholars would be Jimutavahana,153 who in his compassion for all beings was

at peace regarding their virtues and vices. As for repugnance, a man who feels repugnance despises all creatures as mere corpses, turns away from them all, and thereby attains the state of peace.

(Dh) All these scholars reject impassivity as such as a stable emotion. Be that as it may, drama consists of acting, and by no means can we accept that in drama impassivity can function as a stable emotion. Impassivity signifies cessation of all activity and so cannot have any connection with acting. [203] Some have countered by arguing that quiescence functions as the stable emotion in a drama like How the Nagas Were Pleased. But that stands in contradiction first with the passion of the play's hero for Malayavati, which extends throughout the whole work, and second with the fact that his attaining lordship over the demigods is the end result of the play's action. Moreover, we never find passion for the things of this world and dispassion from them existing simultaneously in one and the same character with respect to the same foundational factor.154 So the stable emotion that we must accept as present throughout that play is determination, in connection with the rasa of the type "heroic in compassion." There is no conflict in this rasa either with the erotic being a subsidiary component or with the attainment of lordship being a concomitant result. Earlier155 we made the point that when someone becomes a "conqueror"-that is, in actuality, one who acts in the service of others, on the grounds that he must everywhere do what is desirable-he will as a result achieve other beneficial results concomitantly with conquering. Accordingly, there are only eight stable emotions. 156 An objection might be raised: In line with the argument that "Insofar as the teachers have identified ... "157 [204] other scholars have accepted additional rasas, and accordingly have posited additional stable emotions. But this determination is erroneous. The author now addresses this point: (D) (4.36) Despair and the other transitory emotions do not have that feature, and therefore cannot be stable emotions and cannot be savored. Their enhancement can lead only to the contrary of rasa. Therefore, there are but eight stable emotions. (Dh) Despair and the other transitory emotions, given that they are not uninterrupted whether by conflicting or nonconflicting emotions, cannot be stable emotions. Accordingly, were they to be enhanced even though punctuated by other transitory emotions such as anxiety, they would produce a state contrary to rasa. It is not because they have no purposeful end result that they are not stable emotions, for that would entail that the comic158 and the like would also cease to be stable entities; and in any case, despair can be indirectly purposeful. Rather, it is because they are not stable emotions that they cannot be rasas.

(BN) A "purposeful end result" ... means a result pertaining to the group of the three ends of man.159

(Dh) What, however, is the communicative relation that exists between these stable emotions and poetry per se?160 It cannot, first of all, be one of direct denotation, since the stable emotions are not expressed by using the actual words for them. We do not, after all, find words such as "desire" or the words for the rasas such as "erotic" [205] used in erotic poetry, whereby the stable emotion (desire) or its heightened state (the erotic) might be directly expressed. Even if the words were in fact to be used, it would only be via the aesthetic elements that the stable emotions become rasas,

and not simply because they are expressed by their proper terms.161 Nor can this relation be one of connotation,162 because again the words163 themselves are not used, which would be necessary if they were first to express the emotions or rasas as universals and then connote them as particulars.

(BN) [207.18] A noun that expresses a universal, such as "cow," has the capacity, insofar as the universal itself can have no relationship with a given verbal action, to connote some individual entity that is capable of such a relationship. But in the case of a stable emotion or rasa, no use is made of the actual words ("desire," "erotic," etc.) whereby a universal could be expressed, enabling such connotation to exist.

(Dh) Nor do we comprehend the stable emotions by a secondary connotation produced by a first one.164 To cite the definition of the sort of connotation at issue here: "A word that cannot properly be construed with its verb is said to 'trip' over its primary meaning and to secondarily connote a meaning that does become construable."165 Take as an example the phrase "A village on the Ganges." Here, the primary meaning of the word "Ganges," namely a body of water, cannot function as the location of a village. The word therefore trips over its primary meaning and secondarily comes to connote a meaning invariably associated-here by metonymy-with the primary one, namely, "bank." But in poetry, the words for the leading male character and the other aesthetic elements166 do not trip over their primary meaning, so how could they secondarily connote something else? And no one, when the primary meaning is available, resorts to a secondary usage without any occasion or purpose, as one must, for example, in the metaphorical statement, "the boy is a lion." For the same reason we do not understand the words for the leading character and the other aesthetic elements metaphorically, either.

(BN) [208.6] For secondary connotation to occur [1] the primary meaning of the word must be blocked; [2] there must be some logical relationship with a secondary meaning; [3] there must be a condition (and a purpose) for that usage. Although in a dead metaphor there is no such purpose, there must be one in every other case. In the present instance, however, there is neither condition nor purpose in resorting to secondary meaning .... In the collocation "the boy is a lion," the primary meaning of "lion" is impossible; hence it connotes qualities like courage that are invariably associated with a lion, but since those are irrelevant in the present context we are led to understand that it is the boy himself who has these qualities.

(Dh) Moreover, if rasa could be comprehended as something directly denoted, then anyone with a mind capable of grasping direct denotation would be able to appreciate and taste rasa.167

(BN) [209.5] Not everyone who understands the meaning of the words will necessarily comprehend the aesthetic elements.

(Dh) But neither is the comprehension of rasa something entirely imaginary, since there is complete agreement that sensitive readers do experience the savoring of rasa. It is for all these reasons that some scholars argue for yet another linguistic function above and beyond the powers posited by others, namely, direct denotation on the one hand and metonymic and metaphorical connotation on the other. They call this function "manifestation" and say it pertains not only to rasa but also to figures of speech and narrative elements. To explain their position further.168 If the comprehension of rasa arises from the factors,

reactions, and transitory emotions, how could it possibly be directly denoted? Consider a verse such as the following:

The Mountain's daughter revealed her feelings too, the down on her limbs growing stiff like plantain trees, standing there with downturned face, her lovely face, with eyes half-closed.169

Here the apprehension of the erotic emerges without its ever being literally referred to, merely from the description of the foundational factor-the Mountain's daughter-exhibiting reactions, namely the specific states generated by her passion. The very same procedure can be extrapolated to other rasas. And this applies not only to rasas but also to the bare narrative. Thus in the poem,

[206] You're free to go wandering, holy man. The little dog was killed today by the fierce lion making its lair in the thicket on the banks of the Goda river.170

the fact that we comprehend a prohibition, though not expressed in so many words, is based on the power of "manifestation." The same can apply to figures of speech:

In the presence of your face, which fills all space with the light of its beauty- this smiling face of yours, woman with such large and darting eyes- the fact that the ocean doesn't swell, not even for a moment, makes me see how obvious it is that it should be called a mass of water [or: insensate stuff].171

The fact that in this verse we comprehend a figure of speech such as a simile-the woman's face is like the moon-is also brought about by manifestation. In none of these cases is the comprehension derived from the means of valid knowledge known as necessary assumption,172 because there is nothing in the verses that does not make sense as things stand.

(BN) [209.21] We have a case of "necessary assumption" when some fact we encounter that does not stand to reason entails the existence of something else to make it reasonable.173 Here, however, it is the sentence itself that suggests a second meaning, without this being entailed by something unreasonable in itself.

(Dh) Nor is direct denotation involved here, because manifestation operates at a third stage of meaning.174 That is to say, in the poem "You're free to go wandering," there is another meaning that transcends the first stage (the denotation of the individual words) as well as the second (the sentence meaning, here a command based on the construal of a verb and the nominal case forms) and that clearly manifests itself at the third stage. This is the implied meaning consisting of a prohibition, which is based on the power of manifestation. That new meaning cannot, accordingly, be the mere sentence meaning.175 One might counter that in a sentence such as "Eat poison!" where the sentence purport is actually a prohibition though not directly enunciated,176 it is sentence meaning that is actually in the domain of what is being called the third stage.177 Even those who accept the concept of manifestation would not wish to deny that the prohibition is the ultimate sentence meaning here, because they argue that this is not a case of implicature but of sentence purport, and implicature

and sentence purport are altogether different phenomena.

(BN) [210.3] The opponent of the theory of implicature objects that implied meaning cannot have its domain of functioning at a third stage (beyond the stage of word meanings and that of syntactically generated sentence meaning). In a sentence such as "Eat poison!" where we can determine the purport to have the sense "Do not eat in that man's house" even when this is not enunciated, what the implicature theorist regards as a third stage is actually the stage of sentence purport. Even he would not deny that in the sentence that commands eating poison, the actual meaning, that of a prohibition, falls within the scope of sentence purport. Accordingly, since both positions agree, the prohibition and not the command must be the meaning of the sentence. In other sentences, then, no less than in this one, the meaning that is presumed to be a result of "manifestation" must in fact be simply a function of sentence meaning.

(Dh) But the proponent of implicature would reject this argument, precisely because in the example adduced there is no third stage at all, since the literal meaning of the words does not "come to rest"-that is, does not make sense-at the second stage, that of sentence meaning.178 It is at that second stage where the prohibition is being expressed, insofar as at that stage the literal verb-object construction would make no sense at all as a commandment, given the context: the speaker is a father, who would never enjoin the addressee, his son, to eat poison.179 Moreover, with respect to rasa sentences, we do not understand rasa at the second stage, where we comprehend the aesthetic elements.180 To quote:

If a sentence does not come to "rest stably"-i.e., if it makes no sense-in its literal meaning,181 it can hence rightly be said that the meaning where it finally does make sense constitutes its sentence meaning. But where a sentence does indeed come to rest in its literal meaning and thereby attains stability but still proliferates meaning, in all such cases this is something that occurs only through implicature.182

[207] Thus, the implicature argument goes, rasa in all cases can only be the object of "manifestation," whereas narrative elements and figures of speech are given sometimes by direct denotation, sometimes by manifestation. Furthermore, only where the comprehension derived from manifestation is predominant do we have actual "manifestation"; elsewhere, we have "subordinated manifestation."183 There are two main types of implicature: (1) where the literal meaning is set aside and (2) where the literal meaning is retained but subordinated to the suggested meaning. The former is of two types: where the literal meaning is completely set aside, and where it transmutes into some other meaning. The latter is also of two types: quasi-instantaneous and gradual. Rasa, when our comprehension of it is dominant, is always the object of a quasi-instantaneous manifestation; when it is subordinate, we have discourse in which rasa functions more as a figure of speech. [211] To this entire foregoing argument the author now responds: (D) (4.37) Just as a verb-whether directly expressed or understood as being present by virtue of context or other similar factor-constitutes sentence meaning when construed with the nominal case forms,184 so a stable emotion constitutes a "sentence meaning" when construed with the other aesthetic elements.185

(BM) Just as in the Vedas186 sentence meaning consists of a verb-whether literally expressed or derived from the context-in a form qualified by nominal case relations, so in literature we likewise have "sentence meaning," namely, the stable emotion

qualified by the factors, reactions, and transitory emotions. This proves that, even in the absence of words such as "desire" or "the erotic," we can comprehend a stable emotion and a rasa in a pertinent sentence-which is precisely why sentence meaning where the verb is understood from the context is adduced as an analogy.

(Dh) In everyday sentences, the verb complemented by nominal case forms constitutes the meaning of a sentence, the verb itself being brought to our awareness either because it is directly expressed (i.e., where the verb is actually used, as in "Bring the cow!") or because it is understood from the context (i.e., where it is omitted, as in "The door, the door!"). In just the same way, in literature too, the stable emotion constitutes a "sentence meaning." This emotion becomes virtually present187 in the mind of the viewer/reader actualizing the emotion either from being directly expressed, as it sometimes is (e.g., "My beloved bride becomes even more beloved ... "188), or, when it is not directly expressed, from being taken from the context, where it can be understood because it is invariably concomitant with the aesthetic elements when these are enunciated as present.189 And it is brought to the highest pitch through the stimulation of a chain of innate dispositions in the viewer/reader when the appropriate foundational and stimulant factors, reactions, and transitory emotions for each are presented in the appropriate language.

(BN) [213.22] One particular disposition is brought forward by the factors, another by the physical reactions, yet another by the psychophysical responses or by the transitory emotions. This constitutes the "chain" of dispositions.

(Dh) The counterargument that something like rasa that does not consist of actual word meanings cannot constitute a "sentence meaning" has no real force. For what defines sentence purport is the capacity to issue in some action. To explain: every sentence, whether authored by a human or authorless (like the Veda), is directed toward action; it would otherwise be like the babble of a madman, completely without value.190 In the case of the language of literature, we must conclude that its "action-outcome" is nothing other than arousing the bliss proper to it,191 since positive and negative evidence reveals no other performance-oriented purpose with respect to its signified and signifier. As for this outcome, it arises, we come to understand, when the stable emotion is "syntactically construed" with the aesthetic elements. Accordingly, the expressive capacity192 of such a "sentence" is elicited193 by a given rasa, and eventuates at last in producing it through communicating the specific aesthetic elements appropriate to its particular character. In this process, the elements may be taken to stand for words, while the stable emotion syntactically construed with them forms a sentence meaning. Thus, literature as such is a Vākyapadīya,194 a work concerned at once with word and sentence, the "words" and "sentences" being those just indicated.

(BN) [214.15] The literary text communicates rasa as its main purpose. It may be thought of as a "sentence," insofar as it communicates rasa acting as sentence meaning. It may also be thought of as "words," insofar as it communicates the aesthetic elements acting as words in relationship to the sentence that is rasa. Therefore, the literary text may be likened at once to both in relatior words and sentences.195

(Dh) And although it is the case that the literary text produces pleasure,16 it would assuredly be false to conclude that, in view of this fact, literature has no more use for the signifier-signified

relationship than does, say, singing. [212] This is because the savoring of rasa comes about only for those who can actually understand the full complement of the aesthetic elements brought into play in their special way, and who at the same time have the capacity for the "actualization" of the particular stable emotion at issue in the work. This fact negates any overextension of the analogy of song. And last, given the description of sentence meaning that we have provided, we conclude that we understand all such sentence meaning exclusively by virtue of the linguistic capacities posited for everyday language-primary meaning, secondary meaning, and sentence purport-and that, accordingly, it is simply wasted effort to posit any additional capacity.197

(BN) The "description of sentence meaning" refers to the argument that rasa constitutes a sentence meaning, insofar as it is the purport or focal point.

(Dh) To quote what I have said in my "Analysis of Literature":198

[1-2] With respect to the sentence in question, "You're free to go wandering, holy man ... ," which can actually be accounted for by sentence purport, the "manifestation" my opponent assumes, as well as "implicature," need not be posited at all.199 For what counterargument could be offered against the overextension of implicature to a case such as the sentence "Eat poison!" where the real purport of the sentence is not directly expressed and yet must be something other than what is in fact said?200 Both the former sentence and this one would wind up being the same in terms of final purport. And since that meaning is the dominant one-and "implicature" is defined as a sentence where the implied meaning predominates over the expressed meaning-how could one deny implicature in the latter case? [3-4] The definition of implicature is when a sentence can come to rest in its literal meaning and still produce further meaning ("You're free ... "), whereas purport is when it does not come to rest, because to do so would be impossible ("Eat poison"). But what justifies thus restricting the scope of purport's production of meaning? No reckoning has been taken of the fact that purport extends as far as necessary to complete its task. [5] The sentence "You're free ... " cannot in fact repose in the idea of wandering, as the implicature theorist believes, since it requires further linguistic activity to shift toward a prohibition.201 [6] Or if the "coming-to-rest" of a sentence is supposed to derive from the fulfillment of the semantic expectation of the addressee, then "coming-to-rest" must be absent in "You're free ... " insofar as the speaker's intention has not yet been achieved.202 [7] Human sentences are dependent on intention-and hence it stands to reason that literature should be concerned with purport as intended by the speaker.

Accordingly, the relation between rasa and literature cannot be one of "manifestation," the former being the entity manifested, the latter the means. It is rather one of "actualization," rasa being what is actualized, literature the means. For rasa does not preexist, on its own; it is something that has to be brought into being by means of literature with the particular aesthetic elements of the literary text, for the viewers/readers who "actualize" it.

(BN) [216.4] All speakers use language to achieve particular ends, to be sure. With respect to literature, the intention of the writer in using language is to ensure that the audience savors rasa, and the audience's apprehension of rasa comes from the words of the text. In this act of actualization, accordingly, the audience is the agent, language the means, and rasa the thing to be actualized. Hence, it is the intention of the writer that may be described as the actualizer of the audience's rasa by means of his literary text. No other kind of relationship need be postulated.

(Dh) [213] It would not do to argue that, because this peculiar relation of "actualizer and

actualized" does not exist in any other domain of language, there is no reason why it should exist in literature. For it is in fact accepted by those who champion the operation known as "actualization."203 And even if it were not to exist elsewhere, so be it, since we would have then both positive and negative evidence, namely, that it exists in literature and that it exists nowhere else .... 204

(BN) "Those who champion" argue that in a Vedic sentence such as "He who desires heaven should sacrifice," the thing to be actualized is some end result, such as, here, heaven; the sacrificer is the agent of actualization, while the sacrifice is the means. And hence the operation here is "actualization," namely the relationship of thing actualized and means of actualization that exists in the case of heaven and the sacrifice .... By the actor's acting out on stage the pleasure, pain, or other emotion of the character, the rasas are generated, which the spectators then actualize. Hence the emotions can be said to generate the rasas, and the relationship between the rasas and that which generates them can be said to be one of actualizer and thing actualized.205

(Dh) But, it might be asked, how do we comprehend intangible things like the stable emotions from words (such as "desire") when no connection can be grasped between the word and the thing itself?206 Here is our answer: in everyday life, when men and women behave in a particular way, we come to know that they are experiencing emotions such as desire since a given emotion is invariably associated with a given action. In literature, similarly, when we find the same situation presented and hear words that express behavior invariably associated with desire or some other emotion, we have a comprehension of desire that can be understood as a metonymical one, based on an invariable association with the denotative meaning. In what follows we will explain how the meaning of a literary text "actualizes" rasa.

(BN) Words for a foundational factor such as the hero, and so on, are connected only with their primary meaning, and are not directly connected with emotions such as desire.207 When in such words as "desire" we do not grasp the relevant connection, how can they possibly express the emotions in question ?... The words that express behavior and the like have as their final purport the expression of the stable emotions that are invariably associated with them. Thus, the linguistic function of literary language is the metonymical communication of emotion, since we apprehend these emotions as being invariably associated with the behavior that constitutes what is being denoted by that language.

(D) (4.38-39) That same entity is called rasa, "taste," because it is something that is savored. Rasa belongs to the spectator experiencing the rasa, and to him alone, because he is alive and present. It does not belong to the character, because [1] he is no longer alive and present; [2] the ultimate aim of literature cannot pertain to the character; [3] we would otherwise have the absurd situation of the spectator being overcome with shame, jealousy, passion, or hatred-just as if he had seen a man in everyday life in the embrace of his beloved-or else having a merely indifferent apprehension.208 (Dh) [217] The referent of "that same entity" is the stable emotion produced to overflowing by the elements of the literary work and existing in the rasika, the viewer/reader experiencing the rasa. It becomes rasa when it reaches the state of "being savored," that is, intensely blissful consciousness. It exists in the rasika because he is present; not in the character, Rama for example, because he is not. Now, it was said that although the character is not actually present, he appears to be so when mediated by language.209 But it is only we and others who are experiencing the

character's semblance of presence;210 it is as good as nonexistent as far as the character's own capacity for savoring rasa is concerned. Rama's semblance of presence as a foundational factor for us, however, is something we fully accept.211

(BN) [218.4] It is has been claimed that only by being mediated by language can the protagonist and so on function as a foundational factor, and in that mediated form he is actually present .... Nonetheless, as far as the capacity for savoring rasa is concerned, the protagonist's form is as good as nonexistent. It is only the character's experiencing rasa that is being denied, and which instead is being predicated of the audience. Even if the character can be said to experience rasa while existing in a verbally mediated form, that form serves no purpose with respect to the actual savoring of rasa, but only with respect to constituting him as the protagonist. For of course in that form there can exist no element of conscious awareness.

(Dh) Moreover, literature is not something in which writers engage in order to produce rasa in characters like Rama, but rather in order to make sensitive people feel aesthetic bliss-and rasa is something that all viewers/readers are directly aware of. If the erotic rasa truly did belong to Rama rather than the viewer/reader, the sight in a drama of the erotic protagonist in the embrace of his beloved-just as if one were to have such a sight in everyday life-would produce in the spectators the mere apprehension that the protagonist is having an erotic experience; rasikas, however, would not be savoring anything at all. It would also follow that good people would feel shame and the like, and others resentment, passion, or even a desire to take possession of the woman themselves. All this being the case,212 the view that rasa can be the object of "manifestation" stands refuted. For an entity can only be manifested by something after it has been brought into being by something else: a pot, for example, can only be manifested by a light when it has already been produced by the clay. It is certainly not possible for an entity to be brought into existence by the very things that are supposed to manifest it, and this at one and the same moment. But that rasa can be "actualized" by means of the factors and the rest in the spectators has already been cogently argued.213

(BN) It is precisely the kind of purport we find in everyday communication that is achieved in literature by way of the "actualization" relationship, and so there is no need to admit any additional linguistic capacity in literature such as manifestation.

(Dh) [218] But if rasa resides in the audience, what functions as its foundational factor? Take the case of Sita, who is a goddess:214 how can there not be something fundamentally wrong in her functioning as such a factor? Here is the author's response:

(BN) [219.3] To restate the main question: Granted that the substratum of rasa is the audience and not the character, why still insist that the form of a foundational factor such as Sita is a purely linguistic construct, and cannot be the actual individualized form? (BM) If rasa does not arise for us when we see a man in the embrace of his beloved in the real world, why should it arise when we hear about people of the past such as Rama, who most fully experienced the rasa?215 To this question the author now speaks:

(D) (4.40-41ab) What characters such as Rama216 communicate is a particular typological state, such as being a protagonist of the "noble" variety. They thereby "factor"217 the stable

emotions, which are then able to be savored by the rasika. Accordingly, it is such states,218 emptied of all elements of particularity, that are the causes of rasa.

(BM) It is not the specific referent of "Rama" that is the foundational factor of rasa-if it were, rasa could never come into being, since that referent is no longer present. Instead, the word "Rama" loses any intended particularized reference and communicates a typological state represented by the character, in this case that of a "noble" protagonist. And it is this that becomes the foundational factor of the stable emotions such as desire .... Accordingly, when the erotic enjoyment of the hero Rama, who most fully experienced the rasa,219 is communicated, the innate predispositions of the audience members are activated in the highest degree. They shed the distinction between self and other, and with their minds inclined toward the contemplation of the various acts of erotic enjoyment, they experience a pure savoring. And so, although in an ultimate sense Rama does not exist, his form can enter the mind-and precisely when this happens, he becomes the cause of rasa.

(Dh) Unlike a spiritual adept,220 a poet is not able to behold with the "eye of insight" and to present a character like Rama in a state of sheer individuality, as is the case with historical discourse. Rather, he creates a typological state, such as the "noble" protagonist, which is given presence through the poet's imagination by means of the process of "commonality" that each viewer experiences,221 the state itself simply providing a substratum for a given rasa. [219] Consider here a word like "Sita": it is emptied of all its particularities, such as being the daughter of King Janaka, and signifies nothing more than "woman"-and how could anything untoward222 come of that?

(BN) What Dhanika means is this: with respect to the protagonists (e.g., Rama), the true domain of reference of the words signifying them (e.g., "Rama") is the typological state, such as the "noble" hero. That state alone is the object of rasa.223 It is the audience members who experience the rasa when they "actualize" the rasa upon accessing the states presented in those specific linguistic forms. With respect to being the object of rasa, no use whatever is made of the particularized individualized form .... Spiritual adepts behold a past and future form as if it were actually present, but poets are different. Even though they behold particularized forms of the foundational factors and so on, they do not compose poems in the manner of a historical narrative, in order to describe rasa as having its substratum in those forms.

(Dh) Then why are they taken up at all? To this the author now speaks:

(BN) That is, if no attention is paid to the particularized form of Sita and the like, then why should they be "taken up" in those specific forms?

(D) (4.41cd-42ab) When children play with clay elephants, it is their own stable emotion (determination or whatever it might be) that they thereby savor. This is just what readers do with Arjuna and the rest.224

(BM) When children are playing with clay elephants, no actual elephant exists; the savor of the game comes from the clay form that participates only in the conception of an elephant. In the same way, Rama, Arjuna, and so on do not really exist but are made almost visibly present in language by the poet's skill. Readers thereby come to focus their minds on the contemplation of these heroes' doings, and are overcome by a dissolution of the distinction between self and other-and thereby rasa comes into being.225

(Dh) This is the argument: in literature, the use of such foundational factors as a woman is not like the erotic in the real world. Rather, this use occurs in the manner already indicated, because the rasas of drama are different from real-world rasa.226 To quote: "The rasas of drama are traditionally counted as eight."227

(BN) Dhanika is responding to the following view: if Sita is not used in her particularized form, how can a rasa that has her as its object come into being? For there is no evidence that a rasa like the erotic can have its object in Sita if she is not even held to exist .... If [Bharata] had thought of rasa in the same way as its real-world variety, he would not have said there were eight, since real-world rasas-physical tastes-are six in number.228

(D) (4.42cd) As for the actor, there is nothing stopping him from savoring the actualization of the subject matter of the literary work. (Dh) [220] The actor does not experience rasa on the basis of a real-world rasa, for when he is acting the woman he is perceiving as an object of sexual pleasure is not his own wife.229 But there is nothing stopping him, as he "actualizes" the subject matter of the literary work, from savoring the literary rasa just as the rest of us do.

(BN) The objector holds that this would make sense for the actor since he would have rasa via the real-world rasa in the character, Rama for example.

(Dh) How does the savoring of rasa arise from literature, and what is the nature of rasa? The author now explains: (D) (4.43-45ab) When there is a fusion230 of the mind with the meaning of the literary work,231 there arises the bliss that is the self,232 which constitutes the savoring of rasa. This fusion is of four sorts: an "expansion" of the mind in the case of the erotic rasa, an "enlargement" in the case of the heroic, a "turbulence" in the case of the macabre, and an "agitation" in the case of the violent. Exactly the same responses pertain, respectively, to the comic, the fantastic, the fearful, and the tragic. Hence, the correct interpretation is that the various (i.e., four pairs of) mental states are produced by the various (i.e., four pairs of) rasas.233

(BM) The "meaning of the literary work" refers to the stable emotion "construed with" the factors, the reactions, and the rest. The "fusion" is a mutual interpenetration, as of the waters of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers. Accordingly, the relation between the text and the mind of the audience is thus also one of "actualization," where the text is the object, the mind the agent, it earlier having been argued that the relation is one of communication via the linguistic function of sentence purport.234 Now, some argue that rasa really exists only in Rama and other characters, and that what is communicated by the literary text and exists in the audience members is a semblance of rasa.235 We cannot accept this. For one thing, the joy that consists in the awakening of an absolutely blissful consciousness is proved to exist in the experience of all rasikas; for another, we have already provided an analysis of literature's final purport as lying in the rasa experience of the audience .... The names "expansion" and so on are meant ne actually de to be actually descriptive of the mental states.

(Dh) The "meaning of the literary work" consists of the stable emotion "construed with" the factors and the rest. When there is a "fusion" between those and the mind of the viewer/reader- that is, a mutual interpenetration, in which the self-other distinction vanishes-we have the

genesis of the most powerful form of "the bliss that is the self," namely, savoring. Although in its general form rasa is single, it can occupy one of four different mental planes236 according to the type of fusion produced by the causes-the factors and the rest-that are invariably associated with a particular rasa. These are: expansion in the case of the erotic rasa, enlargement in the case of the heroic, turbulence in the case of the macabre, and agitation in the case of the violent. The remaining four rasas, the comic, the fantastic, the fearful, and the tragic, [221] once they have achieved a high degree of enhancement by means of their appropriate complement of aesthetic elements, have the same four types respectively (expansion in the case of the comic, and so on). Thus, when Bharata states that "From the erotic rasa arises the comic ... ,"237 he means in the first instance to indicate a conditional relationship among these with respect to this fusion, not a causal relationship, since they are actually produced by other causes.238 When he says, "The comic is an imitation of the erotic,"239 he makes it clear that each pair is a unity with respect to the types of fusion (expansion and so on). Delimiting the rasas to eight actually stems from the fact that there are only so many types of fusion.240

(BN) [222.1] "The bliss that is the self": to say that the bliss is the self, that is, one's own consciousness, is to indicate that there is no distinction between the act of savoring and the object of savoring.241

(Dh) The following objection might be raised: The erotic, the heroic, the comic, and some other rasas are in themselves delightful, and so in those cases it is reasonable to say that bliss comes into being from a fusion with the subject matter of the literary work. The tragic and other rasas, however, are in themselves sorrowful, and in those cases, how can bliss be supposed to come into being? To be more specific: when we listen to a tragic work of literature, what is manifested is sorrow; indeed, rasikas begin to weep. And this would not make sense if the experience were a blissful one. Now, there is some truth to this objection, but in fact, the bliss in question consists of both joy and sorrow; it is like a woman saying no when she means yes during the spanking and striking that occur in lovemaking. Literary tragedy is different from real-world tragedy. In the former case, rasikas cannot get enough of it; if it were the same thing as real-world tragedy and really consisted of sorrow, no one would ever seek it out, and great works like the Rāmāyana that consist exclusively of the tragic rasa would have died out long ago. That weeping and the like should appear in the spectators listening to a description of the narrative, just as they do when a disaster like the loss of a loved one befalls them in real life, hardly constitutes a contradiction. Accordingly, the tragic too consists of nothing but bliss, just like the other rasas.

(BN) [223.1] (BN) [223.1] With respect to the Ramayana, the dominant rasa is in fact the heroic, though there is a great deal of the tragic.

(Dh) [223] Although the peaceful rasa has no place in drama, since it cannot be acted out, there is nothing to prevent its presence in poetry, given the existence of language's capacity for communicating anything whatsoever, however subtle or distant in time. That is why it was said (in 4.35), "In drama [impassivity] cannot be enhanced," and it was settled that with respect to acting there can be only eight rasas.

(BM) An objection might be raised: On what grounds has the determination been made that there are only eight rasas? For

some scholars have accepted the view that the full development of the stable emotion called impassivity is a rasa. Even if it cannot be displayed, given the absence of any reactions that might be acted out, still in literature it can function as a rasa. To this the author now speaks:

(D) (4.45cd) At its highest degree impassivity is utterly ineffable. And if it is only joyfulness and other aspects of impassivity that are meant, then in the last analysis that impassivity would consist in one of those four mental states. (Dh) We lose nothing by insisting that the peaceful rasa cannot exist in dramatic acting. For if it is to be characterized as it is in the following verse,

No sorrow is there in it, no happiness, no disquiet, no anger or passion, and never any longing- thus is the peaceful rasa described by the greatest of sages, which has the same warrant as all the other emotions.242

then it is something that manifests itself only in the state of final release, the attainment of the essential nature of the self. And in its essential nature the peaceful is therefore ineffable. That is, scripture itself speaks of it only by way of exclusion of what is other than it, when remarking, "It is not this, not that."243 Such being the nature of the peaceful rasa, no one who has his heart invested in it would ever want to savor it in performance. Now, even if what is intended is the means to the peaceful rasa, namely impassivity-which can be defined as joyfulness, friendliness, pity, and the like-this cannot be "enhanced" in performance and so cannot lead to rasa. If we consider the peaceful rasa in relation to poetry, however, the mind in savoring it will take the form of one of the mental states earlier described, namely, expansion, enlargement, turbulence, or agitation. And this explains the savoring of the peaceful rasa in poetry.244

(BN) [224.4] Rasa is directed toward the rasikas; they are the ones with an attachment245 to plays. Such people have no heart for the peaceful rasa and do not savor it; the dispassionate, on the other hand, do not even watch plays. Thus, the peaceful rasa "has no place" in any of the dramatic forms, where it would have to be acted out in performance.

(Dh) [224] The author now offers a capsule account of the chapter so far, after first mentioning the subordinate literary functions as these pertain to the factors and the rest.

(BM) The factors, reactions, and transitory emotions connected with the rasa of the protagonist, Rama, Arjuna, and so on- namely, things like the moon, horripilation, and despair, respectively-have their existence as such heightened, in poetry, by use of the refinements of language qualities (phonic texture and the like) and figures of sense and sound. These elements, each associated with their specific rasa, enable the stable emotion to be "actualized" and savored by the audience-and that is rasa, as the author now states:

(D) (4.46-47ab) By virtue of literariness, "word meanings" in the form of such things as the moon, despair, and horripilation come to be known as stimulant factors, transitory emotions, and physical reactions respectively. These enable the stable emotion to be "actualized" and hence savored, and that is what is known as rasa.

(Dh) Literary processes like hyperbole and metaphor246 elevate things like the moon into stimulant factors, a woman or the like into foundational factors, despair and so on into transitory emotions, and horripilation, weeping, the play of the eyebrows, and sidelong glances into physical and psychophysical reactions. These resemble word meanings by reason of their subordinate function, whereas the stable emotion resembles sentence meaning. When the latter is "actualized," that is, brought into actual being, it can be savored-and that is rasa. Such is the purport of the preceding section of the chapter.

(BN) [225.1] Although the foundational factors and other aesthetic elements themselves constitute sentence meanings with respect to the sentences in which they are found, nonetheless, with respect to rasa they have a "subordinate function" and thereby come to resemble word meanings. Rasa therefore can be analogized to sentence meaning, while the factors and so on can be analogized to word meanings.