22. HISTORY OF INDIAN ÆSTHETIC 25

HISTORY OF INDIAN ÆSTHETIC 25

of Rasas are called jatis. The former position also can further be supported by the fact that the expressions of eyes in representing a basic mental state, as enjoined by Bharata, are different from1 those which he enjoins to accompany complete æsthetic configuration, the Rasa. IMPORTANCE OF RASA IN THE EYES OF BHARATA. ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW. The "production" of Rasa, the æsthetic configuration, is the chief concern of Bharata. All the instructions, that he has given to actors, stage-manager or dramatist, are to enable2 them to contribute their individual share towards the same. And a person is supposed to be qualified to become an actor in proportion to his capacity, not so much of reproducing the physical conditions of an emotion in an emotive situation, as of orienting3 his mind in such a manner as to have the necessary mental states, from which the physical conditions automatically follow. THE NATURE OF THE ÆSTHETIC OBJECT. The æsthetic object, therefore, as presented by Bharata, cannot be classed with any object that we ordinarily meet in the world. It cannot be called real: firstly because it is not a creation of nature and secondly because its causal efficiency is not the same to all the percipients as it is in the case of a jar. Nor can it be called unreal in the same sense as that in which the sky-flower is unreal, because it has its existence. It cannot also be classed as illusory, because, in its essential nature, the illusion is not what it appears to be, but the æsthetic object apparently and essentially is what it appears to be. In short, it has its independent being in its own world, which is different from 1. N. S., 102. 2. A, Bh., Vol. I. 273-4, 3. A. Bh., Vol. I. 16. 4