65. HISTORY OF INDIAN ÆSTHETICS 71

HISTORY OF INDIAN ÆSTHETICS 71

productions of that period. The rise of Saiva philosophy in the 9th century marks the beginning of a tendency to give an important place to personal experience in the formulation of a theory, and to interpret the literary autho- rity in the light of the same. Thus a new point of view for looking at the æsthetic problem having been given by Śrīśankuka, Bhatta Nayaka attempted the problem in accordance with the new tendency and formulated his own theory. It is correct in respect of the essential nature of æsthetic experience. But the techuique, that is adopted to account for it, is defective. The defect was due to the fact that the tendency for phenomenological observation, which culminated in the peculiar theory of 'Abhasavada' of the Saiva philosophy, had not fully developed. Bhațța Nayaka, therefore, was naturally under the influence of the Sankhya and the Vedanta systems of philosophy. He failed to explain the essential nature of the subjective and objective aspects of the æsthetic experience and to account for the essential nature of the experience, for the obvious reason that the Sankhya and the Vedanta systems do not supply the necessary principles, point of view and mechanism of psycho- logical analysis as is necessary to explain the æsthetic experience in all its details. THE NEW FACTORS, WHICH INFLUENCED ABHINAVA- GUPTA'S ÆSTHETICS. The two scholastic generations, which intervened between Bhatta Nayaka and Abhinava, prepared the ground for Abhinava's æsthetic theory, which, because of its sound- ness, has well stood the test of the long time of more than one thousand years. This was a period of intense psycholo- gical study. During this period the psychological analysis of human experience became the basis of all theories and postulates. The literary authority was relegated to the