32. HISTORY OF INDIAN ÆSTHETIC 35

HISTORY OF INDIAN ÆSTHETIC 35

Similarly we can account for the attribution of an explanation of æsthetic experience from æsthetic object to Bhatta Lollața by late compilers on the basis of early works on poetics, such as Mammata and Viśvanātha. From the time of Srīsankuka to the present day, Rasa has been studied as an experience rather than as an æsthetic object. Most writers, led by Abhinava, have dealt with Rasa as an experience. Out of the four theories discussed in detail in the Abhinava Bharatī, three are primarily concerned with Rasa as an experience. And the fourth also is criti- cised from the point of view of experience. A tradition, therefore, probably grew of attributing some sort of explanation of æsthetic experience to Bhatta Lollata also. This assumed final form in the commentaries of the later compilers of works on poetics. The attribution of a view to the writer of the original, which the latter did not hold, is very common in the history of Sanskrit literature. How otherwise Badarāyana's Vedanta Sūtra could be the basis of three systems of Vedanta, Advaita, Visiștādvaita and Dvaitādvaita ?

It is noteworthy that Abhinava does not himself criti- cise Lollata, probably because he understood his real position. The criticism is attributed to Srīśańkuka. The adverse criticism of Bhatta Lollata's traditional view of Rasa by Srīsankuka is due to the misunderstanding of the former's position. He defined the æsthetic object and not the æsthetic representation, in the spectator, though this definition is applicable to the latter also, if rightly understood. The epistemological consideration, as regards the ways and means of cognising the presented, as well as the metaphysi- cal consideration regarding the ultimate nature of the æsthetic experience, were foreign to the minds of the traditional interpreters of Bharata's aphorism. But Srīsan-