36. HISTORY OF INDIAN ÆSTHETICS 39

HISTORY OF INDIAN ÆSTHETICS 39

nature of an illusion. For, illusion is quick to disappear. Nor is it of the nature of a doubt. For, the spectator's mind does not oscillate between the personality of the actor and that of the hero. The experience cannot be classed as either true or false. It is similar to one that we have at the sight1 of a lifelike picture of a particular horse and formulate the judgement, "It is that horse."' The appreciating spectator thus, taking the actor to be the hero, infers the basic mental state from the situation etc., as stated above. This inferred basic mental state, because it is simply an imitation of a real basic mental state of a real hero, such as Rāma, and because it is associated with the enchanting situation, it adds to itself a peculiar charm and develops into an enjoyable condition of the spectator's mind. It is called Rasa because of its enjoyability. ŚRIŚAŃKUKA'S PSYCHO-EPISTEMIC APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM OF ÆSTHETICS. Śrīśankuka approaches the problem of æsthetics from the psycho-epistemic point of view. He is, therefore, naturally concerned with (i) the nature of the object of the æsthetic experience (ii) the means of knowing it and (iii) the final judgement and its nature. According to this (i) The basic mental state in æsthetic object is an imitation (ii) The means of its knowledge is inference (iii) The judgement is an unanalysed flood of conflicting judgements such as cannot be brought under any one of the judge- ments of the well known accepted forms, though it is mainly recognitive, and (iv) The experience is due to objective cognition of the presented. His exposition of Bharata's aphoristic definition of Rasa is based on (i) illusion and (ii) inference theories of art and (iii) the analogy of painted

1. A. Bh., Vol. I. 275.