58. 64 BOITEHTECHAPTER I0Y8018IH

64 BOITEHTECHAPTER I0Y8018IH

thus incapable of giving rise to any desire to gain or shun it. And desire being the motive force of all psycho-phy- sical activities, the latter cannot take place. Rajas is thus relegated to background. As for the Tamas, it can be as little effective at the time when the Sattva is working as darkness can be in the presence of light. Hence there arises a state of simple awareness or consciousness of the presented, which is akin to the mystic experience of the Brahman in so far as it is a conscious state but free from all volitional, psychological and physical activities. It is, however, different from the mystic experience of the Brah- man, because it is a limited experience, though without the consciousness of limitation at the time when it takes place; because the universalised æsthetic object still affects the universalised subject. It cannot be classed with the ordinary experiences, got through perception or remembrance etc., because it is not a determinate cognition, inasmuch as there is no determinative activity of carving an image out of the presented. Nor is it indeterminate, because there is the subsequent recollection of the æsthetic experience.

Thus, according to this school, the æsthetic experience is the experience of the universalised æsthetic object by universalised subject in the state of perfect bliss, due to the predominance of Sattva. ITS CONTRIBUTION. The problem aroused by the imitation-inference theory was "If the basic mental state is known objectively as associa- ted with the imitated individual on the stage, why is there no rise of the natural attitudes and responses due to the objective cognition ?" This new theory explains the non- rise by presenting the cognising subject above the response- level, inasmuch as the power to respond, the Rajas, is per- fectly inoperative, because of the universalisation of the