150. 170 CHAPTER III

170 CHAPTER III

brought before his mind's eye through the medium of a statue or something similar to it. It is different not only from the ordinary emotive experience in ordinary life but also from the experience of another's emotion by a yogin at a lower level. (yogi- pratyakșaja-tațastha-parasam vittijñāna). 1 According to Patañjali, there is a spiritual discipline, which brings to a yogin the power to know the states of mind of another person.2 This power is got through concentration and contemplation on and merging in the state of mind, which is known through external expressions of it And we know that æsthetic experience at the Kathartic level is experience of a state of mind of the hero of the piece. One may, therefore, ask "Is it of the type of experience of another's mental state by a Yogin ?" That it is not so will become clear, if we remember that æsthetic experience at Kathartic level is the experience of the universalised mental state by universalised subject. It is, therefore, distinct from the knowledge of another's mental state by a yogin. For, in the latter case both the subject and the object are individual. In the former both are universal. In one case the mental state is definitely associated with another individual, In the other case it is free from such relations. In one case the mental state is known as such, free from all associations with its cause.8 In the other case the mental state is not experienced as such, but as something different from itself, because of its transformation into something else by relation with Vibhäva etc. In æsthetic experience we do not experience Sthayin but Rasa. 1. A. Bh., Vol, I., 286. 2. Y. S., 3-19. 3. Y.S., 3-20.