1. Psychological studies in rasa Rakesh Gupta 1

Publshed, ou behalf of the Author, by MRS. TARAVALI GUPTA) C/O B. LAKSHMI-NARAYAN AGRAWAL, Mansingh Gate, ALIGARE (India).

FIRST EDITION

COPYRIGHT RESERVED

Printed by SHRI RAMA KRISHNA DAS at the Baparas Hindu University Press, Banaras.

Presented from * Prof. Dr. J. C. Join and Smt. Kamalshri Jain to Pratrit Bherati Academy

RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

TO

MY LEARNED PRECEPTOR

DR. RĀMA ŚAŃKARA ŚUKLA 'RASĀLA' M. A., D Litt.,

THIS WOR HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED.

PREFACE

The present work is the result of the studies and investigations, carried on by me under the able supervision of Dr. Rama Sankara Sukla 'Rasala', M.A., D.Litt. duriug 1941-43 as a Research Scholar in the Hindi Department of the Allahabad University. It was submitted and approved as a Thesis for the Degree of Doctot of Phifosophy in Arts. The Board of Examiners consisted of Mahamahopadhyaya Dr. Gopi- natha Kavitaja, Dr. R. S. Sukla and the late Dr. N. N. Sengupta. 1 In the pages that follow I have dared to crticize the great critics, both modern and ancient; and, in the words of one of my learned examiners, I have "done so severely." I have evolved and elaborated my own theory on Poetic Relish and have expressed my dissent from the tradition of Indian Poetics at hundred other places. It is now my turn to be criticized, and I invite scholars to judge me freely and frankly. I do so, not because I feel that I have said the last word on my subject, but because I think that true criticism is necessaty for any real advance- ment of knowledge. I am, however, confident that, entirely a virgin field as I have surveyed, whatever else is said of my work, 'the origimality of my con- tribution and the worthwhileness of my subject cannot 'be dotibted by anybody.

"The debt that I owe to my learned preceptor Dr. R S. Sukla, not only on account of the guidence and encouragement he has given me, but also on account of his infinite affection for me, cannot be truly estimated. I have the privilege of his valuable advice for the other Thesis entitled Studies in Nāyaka- Nayika-Bheda as well, which I am writing at present. I am grateful to my friend and colleague Prof. Tulasi

( vi )

Nārayana Simha, who very kindly took the trouble of going through the manuscript before it was given to the press. I am also indebted to Dr. P, S. Naidu of the Allahabad University for the keen interest he took in my'work. His valuable suggestions, which 'he had taken pains to write down, were unfortunately not destined for' me, as they were lost twice in postal transit. Last but not the least, my thanks are due to Mr.' Rama Krsna Dasa and other members', of the staff 'of the B.' H.' U. Press for their cooperationin the neat and correct printing of this book, and to Mr. M. L. Merh, Assistant Paper Controller, for his help in obtaining paper.

February, 1950. Department of Hindi Studies, RĀKESAGUPTA Benares Hindu University.

ANOTE ON TRANSIATERATION !. Words and terms from Devanagari Characters have been transliterated into the Roman letters according to the scheme accepted by the-International. Oriental Congress in. 1894. Popular, Spellings have been avoided. ..

CONTENTS

Page Preface A Note on Transliteration .. vi: Contents -vii. List of Abbreviations viii.

Introdüction * 1-6. : * FIRST SECTION (Rasa'as' Relish) : Chap. I. Definitions, of Poetry .... .9-35. Chap. II. Perception' and Relish of Poetry 36-82. Chap. III. Component Feelings of Poetic Relish 83-90. Chap. IV. Determining - Elements of Poetic Relish " 91-103 SECOND SECTION (Rasa as Emotion). Chap. L. Feeling, Emotion and Sentiment 107-127. Chap. II. Sthayi and. Sancari Bhavas as - 'Mental Affections - -128-146. Chap. III. Vibhavas and Anubāvas 147-159. Chap. IV. A Classification of the Bhavas and · -Rasādi ... 160-169. APPENDICES Appen. A. Rasadoșas Appen. B, Bibliography 4 ... - 171-174. ,,. - 175-179.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS A.B., Abhınavabhārati. A.C.S., An Anthology of Critical Statements. Analytic Psych., Analytic Psychology. B.V., Bhavavilāsa. D.A., Dlıvanyāloka. D.A. Grantha, Dvivedi-Abhtnandana-Grantha. Dasarupa, for Haas's Translation. Dašarūpaka, for N. S. P. Edition. Educational Psych., Groundwork of Educational Psychology. Elements of Psych., Elements of Psychology. Exp. of Emotions, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Hist. of Poetics, Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics. I.S.L., An Introduction to the Study of Literature. J.O.R.M., Journal of Oriental Research, Madras. K.A., Kāvyānusasana by Hemacandra. K.K., Kāvya-Kalpadruma. La Rhe, Sans., La Rhetorique Sanskrite. Manual of Psych., A Manual of Psychology. N.S., Nāțyaśāstra. N.S.P., Nunaya Sagara Press of Bombay. Outline of Paych., An Outline of Psychology. Phil. of Aesth. Pleasute, Philosophy of Aesthetic Pleasute. Psych. J., Psychology by William Jamcs. Paych, of Emotions, The Psychology of the Emotions. Psych. W., Psychology by R. S. Woodworth. R.G., Rasagangādhara. R.K., Rasakalasa. Sc. of. Emotions, The Science of the Emotions. S.D., Sāhityadarpana. S.K.A., Sarasvatīkaņthābharana. Social Psych., An Introduction to Social Psychology. S.S.I., Samskrta Sāhıtya kā Itihasa. Text Book of Psych., A Text-Book of Psychology, U.N.M., Ujjvalanīlamaņi.

• INTRODUCTION

I

The present work is an attempt to study and interpret in the light of modern psychology all that has been discussed by the literary critics of this country for over'a score of centuries under the subject of Rasa. The need of a study of this nature was first felt, by me, while I was a student of the M. A. classes, as an anti- thesis to the view of Dr. Syamasundara Däsa that the theory of Rasa cannot be understood on the basis of the western psychology1. Consequently I wrote an article entitled Rasa-Siddhanta aura Adhunika Mano- vijnana2 indicating therein the necessity and scope for psychological studies in the field of Rasa. Later, when I had already offered this subject for my research and was engaged in collecting material, I discovered three other authois suggesting it as a fit -subject for investigation. Dr. Rāma Śankara Śukla3 was the first in chronology to make this suggestion, and the other two were Gulābaraya4 and D. M. Datta". Thus though the propriety of this subject for Research has been recognized even by others, yet so far no real study of it, other than the present one, is known to have been made The scope of this work is well defined by the title itself. 'All discussions on the dates of the authors 1 Vıde,Sālutyālocana, p. 236. 2 Published in the Kaumudi, the annual journal of the Hindi Parsad, University of Allahabad, in the year 1941. 8 Vide his Preface to Rasakalasa, p 16. 4 Vide his aitıcle Rasa aura Manovyjñana, publıshed the Sahitya- Sandesa, vol. V, pp. 1-8 Vide his review on The Philosophy of Aesthetic Pleasure, pub- lished in the Journal of Bthar and Orissa Research Society, vol. XXVI, p. 371,

2 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

and their works, as they could have nothing to do with psychology, have been entirely omitted. Also all such topics of psychology, as have no parallels in the science of Rasa, have been either altogether excluded or referred to only in passing. Bharata has assigned a colour and a god to each of the eight Rasas, out of which, according to him, only four are fundamental, the other four being derived from them, one from each. All this, though copied by most of the later writers, can hardly be said to have any real psychological signi- ficance,, and hence it has not been discussed in the following pages. A treatment of the classifications of the Heroes and the Heroines has been wilfully avoided, because, too wide a subject as it is in itself, full justice could not have been done to it in the limited space which it could have claimed in the scheme of Rasa .* Everything else discussed with direct relation to Rasa in the Alankarasastra or the Indian Critical Literature has been carefully considered and critically examined in the light of the psychology of the day, and more scientific theories based on actual observation and experience have been substituted wherever possible. The principal sense of the term Rasa with reference to poetty, as it is even with reference to food, is relish or flavour. The term was applied, it appears, to a particular set of some important emotions by Nandı- keśvara® or some other unknown predecessor of Bharata, because Sympathetic feelings, the most distinctive consti- tuents as they are of the relish of poetry and drama, particularly of the latter, can be called forth only by a deltneation of the emotions; for otherwise there is nothing in the etymology of the word to convey this sense. Now it was but natural for the exponents of Rasa-theory, who should have synthesized both the 6 "Nandıkeśvara has been mentioned by Rājasekhara as the original exponent of Rasa-theory"-Hist. of Poetics, vol. II, chap. I. ' * A separate work entitled Studies in Nayaka-Nayika-Bheda 1s under preparation and will be out shortly.

INTRODUCTION 3

above senses of the term, to make Rasa mean relish of the emotional literature only and to call a combination of the different factors operating in the portrayal of an emotion (Vibhavas etc.) the cause of its consum- mation7. The earliest critics, however, could have reason to lımit their theoty of Kāvya-Rasāsvāda (Relish of Poetry) to this extent, for, fixed as their attention was on the dramas alone, they sincerely believed that poetic relish consists solely in emotional appeal *. But the position of the later writers on poetics, who laid down unambiguously that poetry is not only of the emotional kind, has been surely very unsafe in carrying on the 'old narrow tradition of Rasa-theory. In the present thesis the problem of the relish of poetry and the subject of the delineation of the emotions in litera- ture have been disentangled from each other, and have been dealt with independently in two separate sections. The first section is devoted to the study of Rasa, the term Rasa taken in its wider and original sense of Relish. In the second section a study has been made of the constituents of Rasa, which, being analogous to the factors in Emotion, give the term Rasa the special restricted sense of Emotion acquired in usage. In thus finding out two distinctly detached meanings of Rasa and discussing the theory of Poetic Relish without any reference to the Vibhavas and Anubhavas etc. though a gieat convention of the Indian poetics has been broken, yet, it cannot be denied that it has been boken justly and on fair grounds.

There occurs in the Taittiriyopanisad the, text 'Raso vai sah, Rasam hyevayam labdhvanandī bhavati', which has been quoted by Jagannatha m the support of his view that the Rasa iealized through the perception of poetry and drama is nothing but the experience of the Blissful

" "विभ।वानुभावव्यभिचारिसयोगाद्रसनिष्पत्तिः।"

: "न ही रसादूते, कश्चिदप्यर्थे : प्रवर्त्तते।" -NS, chap. VI.

-Ibid., chap,' VI.

4 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

Atman itself°. The presence of the word Rasa in the above text seems to have been responsible, even in the case of those earlier authors who have made no explicit reference to it like Jagannatha, for the importation of the tenets of the different schools of philosophy in the field of literary criticism and their application to the theory of Rasa. But it may be plainly .remarked here that Rasa in any of its spiritual or Alaukika sense is not only outside the scope of this thesis, but also beyond the range of the experience of the Sahrdayas who find interest in the perception of the different forms of poetry. Whatever joys or sorrows, whatever pleasures or pains have been experienced by the millions of the readers and spectators of Kālidasa and Shakespeare were purely worldly in character. It is definitely not in the search of any Perennial Bliss that the thousands of the enthusiastic cinemagoers assemble at the picture- houses every day and in each city. Even Bharata himself, who has said in clear terms that the theatre is for the sake of entertainment1°, could not have meant to liken the experience of its perception with anything like Brahmananda. As for the authority of the Upanisad, where Rasa surely stands for the Ananda or the Bliss which is realized by the seer at the attain- ment of the 'Supreme Reality of the Universe', the 'Self-luminous Consciousness', the following lines from Dr. A. Sankaran may be noted : "But it must be distinctly understood that the two texts quoted above do not at all, in the context where they occur, contain the germs of the theory of Rasa con- ceived of and developed by later writers on Poetics. And to read into the text 'Raso var sah ..... etc.' any of the later ideas, as Pandita Rāja Jagannātha does, believing in the ultimate authority of the Veda and seeking to obtain scriptual sanction for his views, is wholly unhistorical".11 "वस्तुतस्तु वक्ष्यमाणश्रुतिस्वारस्येन' रत्याद्यर्वच्छन्ना भग्नावरणा चिदेव रस : । ...... 'रसो वै सः, रस ह्येवाय लब्ध्वानन्दी भवति' इति श्रुति ः ।" . 10 "विनोदजनन लोके नाट्यमेतद्द्विष्यति।" -R.G., p. 27.

,11 Theories of Rasa and Dhvani, p. 3. -N.S., I, 117.

INTRODUCTION 5

II. That ,this Thesis is definitely an advancement in the study of Rasa is clearly indicated by its scope which is comprised not even partially by any other work. My theory of Poetic Relish, which has been expounded and mantained in the first section of this work, is based entirely on my own observations. I have shown that there is' nothing mysterious about the phenomenon of Peotic Relish and that it is constituted by our own feelings which are evoked in our mind at our perception of poetry and which sustain our interest in what we perceive. I have also' discovered and collected at one place all those elements which operate conjointly in determining the form of our poetic relish. In exa- mining the already existing theories of poetic relish, it will be noticed, I have hardly ever repeated the criti- cisms which have been offered against them by other critics. On the other hand I have criticized them in my own scientific way, first breaking them into their basic propositions and then pointing out how each proposition proves invalid with reference to actual experience; and, besides this, I have also shown how -most of the charges levied against these theories by other 'critics are both wrong and irrelevant. In the second section, which interprets Rasa as Emotion, the constituents of Rasa, for the first time, have been critically compared with the factors involved in an emotional experience, and the differences have been adequately accounted for. A mote scientific. inter- pretation has been given to the term Rasadosa, and Rasadosas, which have been dealt with in a small appendix12, have been examined with a strict adherence to this sense of the term.

To cut short, whatever is included in the body of this work, except, of course, the matter which has 12 The topic of Rasadosas has been treated in an appendix, as it could not have been assigned exclusively to any one of the two sections of this thesis. .

6 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

been imported either in the form of data or for criti- cism, is directly the result of my own investigations and research; and a'conscious attempt has been made to eliminate, as far as possible, everything that would have proved no better thah a mere repetition.

III A note about the Bibliography also seems to be necessary here. Though I have consulted most of the original Samskrta works on Rasa, yet, on account of my limited knowledge of the language, a detailed use has been possible only of those that were available in translation. But my work, I believe, has hardly suffered on this account, as almost all the important authors have been translated etther in English or in Hindī. P. Pañcāpageśa Sastrī has amply interpreted and elaborated those portions of Abhinavabharati,, the great commentary of Abhinavagupta on Nātyasastra, which deal with the four most important theories of Rasa-realization ; and I have made full use of his work. About the Hindi works on Rasa I have to say, though a sad remark it is to be made, that except for the indis- criminate addition of a few Sancarī and Sattvika Bhāvas and Havas they have nothing substantial to contribute to this branch of poetics. As the ultimate authority for the psychological principles and theories, is one's. own experience, I have fully supplemented, it will be noticed, this part of my Bibliography by my own observational studies.

FIRST SECTION

RASA AS RELISH

CHAPTER I, DEFINITIONS OF POETRY, Rasa, as we have already noticed in 'the Intro- duction, means relish of poetry in its broader' sense, and it is this sense of the word with which we are con- cerned in the present section of the thesis. 'What"is poetry?' is the question which naturally makes its ap- pearance before us ere we speak anything on the relish of poetty. It will not be a digression, therefore, if to answer this question' we consider a number' of defi- nitions and descriptions of poetry given by the great critics and also the great poets of the east and the west, and analyse them into such attributes of poetry as are indicated by them. But it should be made clear at the outset that mine ' is not the outlook of a judicial literary critic, who would criticise, condemn and find fault with the views of his contemporaries and predecessors and would dictate his own canons to his readers; it is rather that of a psychologist, who would study the facts as they exist and on their basis would bring out his generalisation, if it can possibly be so done, by means of logical analysis and synthesis, and, who, yet again, would, be ever ready to modify or even give up his results so attained if he afterwards discovers a mistake either in his obser- vation of phenomena or in his method. I am not going to lay down anywhere in this 'discourse what ought to be poetry; my attempt will be to find out what has actually been known as poetty. The long list of definitions that we shall presently come across can be extended indefinitely, and yet it will not form complete data for the investigation we have in hand. And the reason is not far to seek. Poetry has been an object of relish not only for the men of letters, It has been enjoyed in its one form, or 2

10 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

another since ages immemorial even by the uneducated peasants and the half-educated townsmen, whose views and experiences have not been handed down to posterity in any written chronicles. All the extracts that have been selected here are from the intellectals who never cared to look down to the psychology of the vulgar. To them poetty was meant to be relished by very rare personalities* and the right of discrimination between good and bad poetry was vested, not in each individual reader, but in a dignified authorityª. In such a state of affairs we cannot solely rely for our data on merely the literary records; hence I shall try to supplement this symposium with my own observation of facts.

Here is my anthology of definitions : 1. Bharata, Nātjašastra, मदुललितपदाढ्यं गूढशब्दार्थ हीनं, जनपदसुखबोध्यं युक्तिमन्नृत्प्रयोज्यम्। बहुकूनरसमार्ग सन्धिसन्धानयुक्त, स भवति शुभकॉव्यं नाटकप्रेक्षकाणांम्।8 ' (For a spectator of a dramatic performance good poetry is that which is composed of delicate and beautiful words and is easy to understand, which is not bereft ôf feason and can be combined with dance, and in which various Rasas have been depicted and the different dramatic unities havé been observed.) 2. Agiipurana, शास्त्रे शब्दप्रधानत्वमितिहासेषु निष्ठता, अभिघायाः प्रधानत्वात्काव्य ताभ्या विभिद्यते।4 (Pre-emmnence is given to terms in words of sciehce, to fidelity to truth in books of history, while in books of poetry the Abhidha-denotation or literal meaning of a word-dráws greatest attention, and hènce poetry 1 Vide Aghipurana, chap. CCCXXXVII. 2 d .. .Thé true test is easily applied ; that which to competent judges affords the appropriate pleasure is good poetry .....: -R. Whately, Elements of Rhetorie, A.C.S., p. 59; * XVI. 118. * ČccxxxvíI. 2-3;

• DEFINITIONS OF POETRY is differentiated from the two preceding sorts of works.)" संक्षेपाद्वाक्यमिष्टार्थव्यवच्छिन्नापद्गावली, काव्यं स्फुरदलंकारं गुणवद्दोषवजितम्।6 (Poetry is that distinguished arrangement of words which conveys the desired sense concisely, which is embellished with figures of speech and excellences, and which is free from faults.) 3. Bhamaha, Kāvyālankāra, शब्दार्थो सहिती काव्यम्।' (The word and sense taken together are poetry.)"

4. Dandi, Kāvyādarša, शरीरं तावदिष्टार्थव्यवच्छित्रा पदावली।" (The body of poetry consists in well arranged words expressive of the intended sense.) 5. Vamana, Kāvyālankāra vūtra, काव्य ग्राह्यमलकारात्। सौन्दर्यमलंकार:। स दोष गुणालका रहाना दानाभ्यास्।20 (Poetry is to be liked because of its embellishments ; beauty is embellishment, and it consiss 1e being devoid of defects and full excellenges figures of speech ) रीतिरात्मा काव्यस्य ।21 (Style is the soul of retty. " Translation by M. N. Dutt. CCCXXXVII. 6-7. I.16., S.S.I., Vol. II, p. 24. . D: T. Tatacarya is inclined to intend to define poetry in these wo eve that Bham h did not Jess, "It cannot be deemed that he intends to define poetry. Rather the idea underlying these words seems to be that neither the word nor the sense alone is poetry, but both of them taken -to- gether. .. .Bhamaha repeatedly says that Vakrokt embellishes the poetic speech and sense, it may be condluded that ac- cording to Bhamaha the indispensably ,essential -requisite of poetry is Vakrokti" .- J.O.R M., vol. III, p. 332. º I.10., S.S.I., vol. II, p 24. 10 1.I.1,2,3., p. 1. 11 1.I.6., p. 3.

Ì2 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RAŠA

6. Rudrata, Kāvyālankāra, ननु शब्दार्था काव्यम् .... 113 (Decidedly the word and the sense taken together are poetry )

7. Anandavardhana, Dhvanyāloka, काव्यस्यात्मा ध्वनिरिति .. ।13 (Suggestion is the soul of poetry.)

8. Dhananjaya, Dašarūpaka, रम्यं जुगुप्सितमुदारमथापि नीचं उग्र प्रसादि गहनं विकृत च वस्तु । यद्वाप्यवस्तु कविभावकभाव्यमान तन्नास्ति यन्न रस भावमुपैति लोके।14 (Nothing 1s there, in the world, whether it be delightful o1 detestable, high or low, gross or elegant, occult or deformed, entity or nonentity, which when touched by the imagination of poet and men of taste, does not become Rasa.) 16

9. Kuntala, Vakroktyjīvta, शब्दार्था सहितौवक्रकविव्यापारशालिनि। बन्धे व्यवस्थितौ काव्य ..... |16 (Poetry is word and sense in unison and set in Vakroktı.) 10. Bhoja, Sarasvatīkanthābharana, निर्दोष गुणवत्काव्यमलकारैरलकृतम्। रसान्वित ..... 17 (Poetry should be free from faults and should be embellished by the use of excellences, figures of speech, .and Rasas.) 11. Mammata, Kāvyaprakāša, तददोषौ शन्दार्था सगणावनलंकृती पुनः क्वापि।2· 19 II.1., p. 8. 18 I.1., p. 3. 14 IV.85., p. 110. 1" Translation by D. T. Tatacarya Siromani. 16 I.7., S.S.I., vol. II, p. 28. 1V I,2., p. 2. P. 4.

DEFINITIONS OF POETRY 13

(Poetry consists in word and sense-without faults and with excellences-which may at times be without figures of speech.) 12. Hemacandra, Kāvyānušāsana, अदोषौ सगुणी सालंकारौ च शब्दार्था काव्यम्।1 (Poetry consists in word and sense, devoid of 'defects and embellished with the excellences and the figures of speech.) 13. Vidyanatha, Pratāparudrayasobhūšaņa, गुणालंकार सहिती शब्दार्थो दोषवरजिती काव्यम्।20 (Poetry consists in word and sense, devoid of defects and embellished with the excellences and the figures of speech.) 14. Vagbhata (Primus), Vāgbhatālankāra, साघशब्दार्थसन्दभं गुणालकारभूषितम्। स्फुटरीतिरसोपेतं काव्यं कुर्वीत कीतये।41 (Poetry, which consists in beautiful word and sense embellished with excellences, figures of speech, Riti and Rasa, is to be created for the sake of fame.) 15. Vagbhata (Secondus), Kāvyānušāsana, शब्दारथों निर्दोषो सगुणी प्रायः सालंकारी काव्यम् ।9 (Poetry consists in word and sense-without faults and with excellences-which are often embellished with figures of speech.) 16. Jayadeva, Candrāloka, निर्दोषा लक्षणवती सरीतिर्गुणभूषिता, सालंकार रसानेक वृत्तिर्वाक्काव्यानामभाक।25 (A sentence devoid of faults and embellished with Ritt, Guna, figures of speech, Rasa and Vrtt is poetry.) 17. Visvanatha, Sāhıtyadarpaņa, वाक्य रसात्मक काव्यम। रस्यते इति रसः ।"4 19 P. 19. ao S.S.I., vol. II, p. 29. a1 I.2.,.p. 5. 2* P. 14. 28 I.7., p. 10. 24 P. 27,

14 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

(A sentence full of Rasa is poetry, That which is relished as Rasa.)

18. Jagannatha, Rasagangādhara, रमणीयार्थ प्रतिपादक: शन्दः काव्यम् ।26 (A word denoting a beautiful sense is poetry.) 19. D. T. Tatacarya Siromani, Definition of Poetry or Kavya, Word and sense which directly aim at, and produce, pleasure are poetry.26 20. Ramacandra Sukla, Kavitā kyā har? कविता वह साधन है जिसके द्वारा शेष सृष्टि के साथ मनुष्य के रागात्मक सम्बन्ध की रक्षा और निर्वाह हाता है। '9 (Poetry is the insttument to protect and preserve the Ragatmaka relation3& of man with the rest of the Universe.)

19. Aristotle, Poetics, "Epic, poetry, tragedy, comedy and also dithyrambic poetry, and the music of the flute and the lyre in most of their forms, are all in their conception modes of imitation .. .. There is another art which imitates by means of language alone and that either in prose and verse .... as if it were not the imitation that makes the poet .... Since he is a poet because he imitates ...... " We may gather from these extracts -that according to Aristotle poetry is to be defined as an art, the funda- mental principle of which is amitation-that imitation being through the medium of language.29' 22. Sir P. Sidney, An Apology for Poetry, Poesy is an art of amitation. .. .to speak meta- phorically, a speaking picture: with this end, to teach and delight ..... 80

26 P. 4. 26 J.O.R.M., vol. IV, p. 56. 27 Hindi Nibandhamala, vol. II, p. 157. The relation which consists in the adhesive (Pravrttyatmaka) and renunciatıve (Nıvrttyatmaka) attitude of man towards the Universe. 2º J.O.R.M., vol. III, p. 199. so A.C.S., p. 44.

DEFINITIONS OF POETRY 15

23. J. Miltin, Education, [Póetry múst be] simple, sensuous, and passionate.81 24. J. Dryden,, Defence of an Essay of Dramatic Poesy, . .. [Delight] is the chief, if not the only end of poetty ; instruction can be admitted but in the second place, for poesy only instructs as it delights. "Tis true that to imitate well is poet's work, but to affect the soul, and 'excite the passions, and, above all, to move admiration (which is the delight of serious plays); a bare imitation will not serve.82 25. j. Dennis, Advancement and Reformation of Modern Poetry, Poetry is an imitation of nature by a pathetic and flumerous speech. . Numbers are nothtag' but arti- ' culate sounds and their pauses measured by their proper proportions of timet . Passion. is the character- istical mark of poetiy, and consequently must be every- where.38 26.' Sir W. Temple, Of Poetry, The truth'is, theie is something 'in the gentus of poetry too libertine to be confined tô so many rules ,I do not know there was any great poet in Greece after the rules of that art laid down by Aristofle ... .. After all, the utmost that can be achieved or, I'think, pretended by any rules in this art is but to hinder some men from being very ill poets, but not to make 'any man a very good one ..... 84 27. S. Johnson, Dithondrý, Poetty is metrical composition.8d Lwves of Poets (Milton),' Poetty is the art of uhiting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of feason. 30 Lwves of Poets (Waller), Its êssence is invention.87

81 A.C.S, p. 45. ** Ibrd, p. 45. 38 Ibid., pp.46 -47. B& Ibid, pp. 48-49. A.C.S., p. 49 and I.S.L., p. 82. : 'A.C.S., p. 49 and I.S.L., p. 82. " A.C.S., p. 50 and I.S.L., p. 82,

16 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

Preface to Shakespeare, The end of writing is to instruct ; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing.3" 28. W. Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads, [Poetry] is the breath and finer spirit of all know- ledge.89. [Poetry] is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings ... [and] emotion recalled in tranquillity.4° 29. S. T. Coleridge, Brographia Literaria, A poem is that species of composition, which 1s opposed to works of science, by proposing for its imme- diate object pleasure and not truth; and from all other species-(having this object in common with it)-it 1s discriminated by proposing to itself such delight from the whole, as is compatible with a distinct gratification for each component part.41 Table Talk, . .... Prose-words in their best order; poetry- best words in the best order.42 30. P. B. Shelley, A Defence of Poetry, Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be 'the expression of the imagination' ..... Poetry is ever accompanied with pleasure.48 . 31. J. H. Newman, Poetry, with Reference to Aristotle's Poetics, Poetry, according to Aristotle, is a representation of the ideal .... Fidelity is the primary merit of biography and history ; the essence of poetry is fiction.4 32. T. Carlyle, The Hero as Poet, For my own part, I find considerable meaning in the old vulgar distinction of poetry being metrical, having music in it, being a song .... A musical thought is one spoken by a mind that has 'penetrated into the

-- 3 A.C.S., p. 50. sº I.S.L., p. 83. 4o A.C.S., p. 50. 41 A.C.S., pp. 52-54. 42 Ibid., pp. 52-54. 48 A.C.S., pp. 55, 57 and I.S.L., p. 83. s A.C.S., p. 59,

, DEFINITIONS OF POETRY 17

inmost heart of the thing; detected the inmost mystery of it.45 33. Lord .Macaulay, Essay on Milton, By poetry we mean the art of employing words in such a manner as to produce an illusion on the ima- gination, the art of doing by means of words what the painter does by means of colours.46 34. Leigh Hunt, Imaginatton and Fancy,' [Poetry is] the utteiance of a passion for truth, beauty and power, embodying and illustrating its con- ceptions by imagination and fancy 47

What is Poetry>, Its 'means are whatever the universe contains; and its ends, pleasure and exaltation. 48 Poetry begins wheie matter of fact or of science ceases to be merely such, and to exhibit a futther truth; that is to say, the connexion it has with the world of emotion . Imagination, teeming with action and character, makes the greatest poets, feelings and, thought the next, fancy (by itself) the next; wit the last. Thought by itself makes no poet at all ...... 50 35 Edgar Allan Poe, Letter to B, Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetty ; music, without the idea, is simply music', the idea, without the music, is prose,' from its very definiteness. 51 36. Matthew Arnold, The French Play in London, in Mixed Essays, [Poetry] 1s simply the most delightful and perfect foim of utterance that human words can reach.$2 4 Ibid., p 61. 46 ACS., p. 64 and I.S L., p. 83. 47 I.S.L, p 83. AC.S., p 64. 4º Ibid, p. 66. 50 Ibrd, p 68 #1 Ibrd, p 69 Ibid, p. 71 and I.S.L., p. 83. 3

18 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

Wordsworth, in Essays in Criticism, Second Series, [Poetry is] nothing less than the most perfect speech of man, that in which he comes nearest to being able to utter the truth.58 The Study of Poetry, in Essays in Criticism, Serond Series, [Poetry is] a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty.5

37. J. S. Mill, Thoughts on Poetry and its Variettes, in Disserta- tions and Discussions, Volume I, What is poetry, but the thoughts and words in which emotion spontaneously embodies itself ?55

38. G. H. Lewes, Inner Life of Art, The office of poetry is not moral instruction, but moral emulation, not doctrine but inspiration.56

39. Watts-Dunton, Poetry, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, Ninth Edition, [Poetry is] the concrete and artistic expression of the human mind in emotional and rhythmical language."7

40 William Hazlitt, Lectures on the Englsh Poets, [Poetry is] the language of the imagination and the passions. 5 Poetry is only the highest eloquence of passion, the most vivid form of expiession that can be given to our conception of anything, whether pleasurable or painful, mean or dignified, delightful or distressing."9

41. Keble, Lectures on Poetry, [Poetry is] a vent for overcharged feeling or a full imagination.60 88 A.C.S., p. 71 and IS.L, p. 83. A.C.S., p. 71 and I.SL., p. 83 55 AC.S., p. 82 and I.S.L., p. 82. A.C.S., p. 83. Ibrd., p. 83 and I.S.L., p. 84. I.S.L., p. 83. J.O.R.M., vol. III, p. 213. e0 I.S.L., p. 84.

DEFINITIONS OF POETRY .

42. Doyle, Lectures on Poetry, [Poetry expresses our] dissatisfaction with what'. is present and close at hand.61 43. Ruskin, Modern Painters, [Poetry is] the suggestion, by the imagination, of' noble grounds for the noble emotions.62 44. Courthope, The Liberal Movement in English Literature,, [Poetry is] the art of producing pleasure by the . just expression of imaginative thought and feeling in metrical language.63 45. Goldsmith, Poetry Distingished from other Writings, Were the histories of Polybius and Livy simply turned into verse, they would not become poems, because they would be destitute of those figures, em- bellishments, and flights of imagination which display the poet's art and imagination.64 46. Benedetto Croce, The Essence of Aesthetic, Art .... is intuition. . .. Intuition, vision, con- templation, imagination, fancy, figurations, representa- tions, and so on are the words continually. recurring, like synonyms, when discoursing upon art.€5 47. Tolstoy, What is Art?, To 'evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then, by means of movements, lines, colours, sounds, or forms. expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others may experience the same feeling-this is the activity of art. Art is a human activity, consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain extetnal signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by. these feelings, and also experience them ..... Art is not, as the metaphysicians, say, the manifestation of some mysterious Idea of Beauty, or God; it is not as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored up energy ; it is not the expression 62 Ibid., p. 84. 82 Vol. III, Part IV, chap. I, I.S.L., p. 84 08 I.S.L., p.'84. a& J.O.R M, vol III, p.,91. 6* First chapter entitled What is Art? '

20 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

of man's emotions by external signs; it is not the pro- duction of pleasing objects; and above all it is not pleasure ; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress towards well-being of indivi- duals and of humanity.66 48. Rabindranath Tagore, What is Art, in Personality, The principal object of Art being the expression of personality ... 07 49. Bhagavan Das, The Science of the Emotions, ... Art, or artistic activity, is that activity which is consciously and deliberately intended to produce, and produces, Rasa, sympathetic enjoyment, in the mind of the witness.6 9 50. Ramacandra Srivastava, Class Lertures, Poetry is the realization of Beauty expressed in words.69

The complicated task of analysing this jumble of opinions will never be accomplished unless we study and take a note of the nature of these definitions. There are some which lay down in a straightforward manner what is poetry. There are others which tell us what is the end, of poetry, or what poetry aims at; and there are those which indicate what poetry does. There are yet others which fix up the essential attributes, accompani- ments and components of poetry or its language, and there are also those which discover what poetry is not capable of, what it should not contain or do, or what is not poetry. at all. There are those which find out figuratively the essence or soul of poetry, and others what poetry utters or expresses, and yet others what can be the subject-matter

6e St. of Emotions, pp. 427-428. 67 Ibrd., p. 422. 6# Ibrd., pp. 406-407. 6º From his Class Lectures delivered by him as the Principal of the Hindi Sahitya Vıdyālaya, conducted by the Nagari Pracarini Sabha, Agra, during the years 1935 and '36, when the author of the present work 'was a student of the said Vıdyālaya,

DEFINITIONS OF POETRY 21

of poetry. Not the least important are those , which are logical7°, in as much as their form is concemed, and which point out a clear differentia to make poetry distinctly recogmzable among the other species of the same class. And, finally, there are many which do two, or even more, of the functions that have been enumerated above.

So now our scheme of analysis is obvious, and we can easily break up these definitions collectively into as many parts as are suggested by their types or nature. In the table shown below I shall put down under each head or type all such matter as each of the definitions individually has to contribute towards that particular head. The serial number of the definition will be placed within the brackets immediately after .. its each contribution.

A. What is Poetry ? (a) Word and sense (3, 6, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19) ; words and thoughts (37). (b) A sentence full of Rasa (17). (c) Word denoting a beautiful sense (18). (d) Art of imitation (21, 22); imitation of nature (25). (e) Metrical composition (25, 27, 3271, 44). (f) Art of uniting pleasure with truth (27). (g) Best words in the best order (29); perfect speech of man (36), most vivid form of expression (40). (h) Music combined with a pleasurable idea (35) .: (1) Criticism of life (36) , () Concrete and artistic expiession of the human mind (39). (k) Intuition (46). (1) To evoke in oneself a feeling o'ne has experienced and to transmit it to others (47). (m) Realization of Beauty expressed in words (50). To Per Genus et Differentia is Aristotle's dictum for a logical definition. T1 Carlyle makes metre synonymous with music; note the special meaning he gives to musical thonght.

22 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RAS.A

B. End of Poetry-What Poetty Aims at ? (a) Fame (14). (b) Pleasure or delight (19, 22, 24, 29, 34). (e) Instruction or teaching (22). (d) Instruction through pleasing (24, 27). (e) Exaltation (34). (f) Moral emulation and inspiration (38). (g) Expression of personality (48). (h) Production of Rasa or sympathetic enjoyment (49).

C. What Poetry Does ? (a) Produces pleasure (19, 44); produces Rasa or sym- pathetic enjoyment (49). (b) Protects . and preserves the Ragatmaka relation72 of man with the rest of the universe (20). (c) Affects the soul (24). (d) Excites the passions (24). (e) Moves admiration (24). (f) Produces an illusion on the imagination (33). (g) Suggests noble grounds for the noble emotions (43). (h) Unites men (47).

D. Essential Attributes, Accompaniments and Components of Poetry or its Language. (a) Beautiful and delicate language (1); best words (29) ; perfect speech (36). (b) Simplicity (1, 23). (c) Reason (1); reason helped by imagination (27). (d) Combinability with dance (1)73 (e) Dramatic unities (1).78 (f) Rasa (1, 10, 14, 16); emotion (37, 39); feeling and thought (34). (g) Gaına7+ (2, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16).

79 Refer to foot-note No. 28 supra. TS These qualities of poetry refer exclusively to the Drama. Te The conception of Gima or excellence includes delicacy and simplicity of language referred to by the items (a) and (b) of this head.

4 DEFINITIONS OF POETRY '' 23

(h) AlankaraT5 (2, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16) ; figures and embellishments (45, 46). (3) Conciseness (2). (j) Marked or distinguished arrangement of words (2, 4) ; best words (29). (k) Vakrokt (9). (l) Rit or style (14, 16). (m) Vrttr (16). (n) Sensuousness (23). (0) Passion (23, 25, 40) ; pathos-used,almost as a synonym to 'passion'-(25) (p) Pleasure or delight (30, 36). (g) Imagination (34, 40, 43, 46). (r) Fancy (34, 46). (s) Rhythm (39). (t) Vision (46). (#) Contemplation (46) (v) Representatton (46). (») Wit (34) 76

E. What Poetry is not Capable of, what it should not Contain, . or what is not Poetry at all ? (a) Poetry should not contain blemishes (2, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16). (b) Poetry cannot be confined to so many rules (26)' (c) Thought by itself makes no poet at all (34) .: (d) Moral instruction or doctrine is not the office of poetry (38). (e) Poetry Is not the mantfestation of some mysterious idea of Beauty or God (47). (f) Poetry is not a game in which man lets off his excess of stored up energy (47). (g) Poetry is not the expression of man's emotions by exteinal signs (47). (h) Poetry is not the production of pleasing objects (47). 78 Mammata and Vagbhata (secondus) do not recognize, Alan -- karas as absolutely essential to poetry. 76 Wit, according to Leigh Hunt, makes lowest quality of poetry.

24 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

(ì) Poetry is not pleasure (47).

F. The Essence or Soul of Poetry. (a) Riti or style (5). (b) Dhvam or suggestion (7). (c) Invention (27). (d) Fiction (31).

G. What Poetry Utters or Expresses ? (a) Imagination (30, 41), imaginative thought or feeling (44). (b) Passion for truth, beauty and power (34). (c) Overchaiged feeling (41). (d) Dissatisfaction with what is close at hand (42). H. What can be the subject-matter of Poetty ? (a) Anything whether it be delightful or detestable, high or low, gross or elegant, occult or deformed, entity or non-entity (8), whatever the universe contains (34); our conception of anything, whether pleasurable or painful, mean or dignified, delightful or distressing (40).

I. Differentia of Poetry. (a) Importance of sense-in science the impotant element being word, and in history truth (2). (b) Expression through the medium of language (21, 50). (c) Connection with the world of emotion (34). (d) Pleasure as immediate object-the immediate object of science being truth (29). (e) Figures, embellishments and flights of imagination (45).

There can hardly be any enquiry concerning poetry which this lengthy chart will not readily attend to; but its replies to almost each of the enquiries will be many, and not one, and very often inconsistent with each other, sometimes even contradictory". The TY E.g., while we find Tolstoy saying that Pleasure is not poetry, there are so many others who regard it to be the essential accompaniment or end of poetry. Further examples can easily be sought in the analysed chart,

. DEFINITIONS -OF POETRY 25

Vedanta parable"* of the'five blind men and an elephant cited by Dr. Bhagavan Das to illustrate a principle of reconciliation can help us only if we ignore all the negative matter that has been collected above, and , include in our conception of poetty severything "hat 4s connoted 'under all the heads. Suppose, for a moment we do so. But even then the 'problem does not end here; and we have to proceed further to 'find out the denotation of our conception. And here tagain we meet a fresh difficulty. The difficulty as not "there because the terms of connotation are many, butbecause these terms are words and words have with them their usual ambiguity, which 'neither the author nor the reader can paralyse. The meanings of these conno- tatrve terms differ from critic to'critic, 'and there is no reason why 'they should -not differ from reader to freader. With the critics this difference sometimes is so important that while their denotation 'of poetry 4s 'practically coinciding, they combat over the terms. Kuntala, for instance, n his system of Vakrokti does'not discover poetry in any such work which was-hitherto unkhown as poetty. All -the great works of art, which were considered as such by his 'predecessors, wele great works of att to him. His discussions and criticism, therefore, amount more to the inauguration of a system of new terminology than to the establishment 'of a new theory of poetry. So that we find that with the 'help of these defi- nitions separately or of their analysed chart it is not 7# "One [of the blind men touched the tail-brush [of the ele- phant], another a leg, the third the abdomen, the fourth an ear, the fifth the trun'k. The first then decided that the animal was like a broom, the second insisted it was like a pillar, the thiid vehemently asserted 'that at was like a great boulder,the fouth was positive that it was like a winnowing fan, and the fifth had absolutely no doubt that it was a huge python The sixth man, with eyes (the Vedanti), passing along, tried to make peace between them, telling them that all of them weie right, in part, and if they would only-add "up their experiences, would gain the whole truth. .. ." -Sc.vof Emotsons, p. 411. 4

26 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

possible for us to know the exact objective denotation of poetry. Nor can we know the connotation, as supposed by us previously, in a way analogous to the Vedanta parable, for here the blind men are not only five, not even fifty, and not even fifty thousand. It is useless to talk of any increased figure in this connec- tion, for we can never count or know all the views on poetty expressed in all times and in all countries by all nations. The idea of adding up all such views to get a complete connotation is obviously all the more incomprehensible.

But anybody who knows logic may doubt the validity of my inference and may like to point it to me that my symposium contains even logical definitions and that I should have no reason to disregard their efficacy. I admit, as I have already observed, that there are definitions in my collection which are logical in form; but there are none, I stress, which aie logical in spirit. To speak of definitions in plural of one and the same object is to deny the possibility of its being defined at all. Let us examine these definitions and see why in spite of being logical in form they are not logical in spirit. Anstotle defines poetry as art of imitation expressed in language (21) and Srīvastava as realization of Beauty expressed, again, in language. In both of these definitions the differentia of poetry, viz., its expression through the medium of language, is clear, and nobody can confuse poetry with painting or sculpture. But the nature of the genus Art, con- sidered synonymous with Imitation by one and with Realization of Beauty by the other, remains obscure, and there is every chance of its being confused with so many other arts and sciences which too are expressed in language. The four other logical (?) definitions (2, 29, 34, 45) obviously make all that is expressed in langnage the genus, and here we do not discover any indefiniteness. But their -differentia, viz., importance of sense, pleasure as immediate object, connection with the world of emotion, and figures, embellishments

DEFINITIONS OF POETRY 27

and flights of imagination, once again create confusion on account of their plurality and ambiguity. Thus we see that all these definitions fall short of that accuracy and definiteness which must accompany a logical defi- nition-logical both in form and in spirit. If, then, these definitions, either individually or in combination, cannot give us any unambiguous idea about poetry, what are they, after all, and what is their use? To the first question it may be replied unhesi- tatingly that each one of them is nothing but an attempt of its author to give his conception of poetry a form in words. In reply to the second it may be said that the use of these definttions consists in this that they impart to us the views of their propounders as accu- rately as the medium of language permits. Let us elaborate these answers. A definition is an attempt of representation and not a genuine representation of its author's 'conception of poetry, for such attempts have hardly ever been cent per cent successful, not even in the case of sub- jective definitions. The object of anybody' who attempted to give a definition was obviously to frame it in such a way that it could include all what he thought to be poetry and exclude all what he did not. But the criticisms that practically all the important defi- nitions have undergone show that this end was not achieved. The scope of this essay does not permit to illustrate profusely how any definition, as' indicated by the sense of the words that compose it, may be shown ether to include in its denotation such matter as would never be recognized as poetic by its author, or to exclude such works as were not intended to be so excluded, or to suffer from both these shortcomings. Criticism of this nature is already available in abundance and may be searched 'for elsewhere " by those who Te I suggest Jagannatha's Rasagangadhara and D. T Tatacarya Sıromanı's Defimtion of Poetry or Kavya The latter is pub- lished in the Jomnal of the Oriental Research, Madras, vols, III & IV.

28: PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

find it interesting. I would like to cite here only, Siro- mani's, definition (19), which maintains "that poetry aims. at and produces pleasure. But pleasure is a subjective phenomenon, and it shall not be vety, difficult to find out such persons who would read works. on chemistty or philosophy with extreme pleasure and would' experience none of it while going, through a piece of poetry-if at all they do so. Perhaps Siromanı himself had smelt this weakness in his. definition,, though not to this extent; and it is why, while admitting, that pleasure may sometimes be derived even from other sorts of writings, he calls such pleasure an acadent.

And a definition tells about the views and con- ceptions only of its propounder through the faulty medium of language*i For the- language- we cannot help; and I have already said on it whatever I could: Coming. to, the conception of poetry we find people believing in. the possibility of having a personal one as well as, a general on normative. "The distinction", says I. A. Ruchards, "between a. personal or idiosyncratic. judgment and a normative is sometimes overlooked. A cmtic should often be in a position to say, 'I don't like this but I know it is good', or 'This is the effect which it produces on me, and this quite different effect is the one it should produce.'. .. Any honest reader knows- fairly well the points at which, his, sensibility is distorted, at which he fails as a normal critic and in what ways. It is, his duty to take. these into consideration in passing. judg- ment upon the value of a work. His rank as a critic depends at least as much upon his ability to discount s° The medium- of language has been, called faulty, not only because of its ambiguity, but also because of its inability to photograph a conception correctly, even if it be absolutely clear in the mind. Most of the eminent critics, whose defi- nitions have been quoted in this chapter, could tell unscepti -- cally whether a composition was poetic or not, were it placed before them, according to their conception. But even. with the help of all the lengthy explanations. and elaborations, which have been given to their views, nobody else, it should be obrious to us by now, can perform the same function with as much confidence,

DEFINITIONS: OF POETRY 29

these peisonal peculiarities as upon any hypothetical impeccability. of his actual, responses"."1 But I emphasize that it is-impossible to pass a normative judgment in the field of art and literature, or anywhere . else- where there is scope for difference of opinion of difference of taste ; and also.that it is, impossible to, pass a personal judgment in the field of science, or anywhere else where there is no scope for any difference of opinion. It would sound as much ludicrous if anybody were to. say that the taste of sugar is more pleasant to him than the taste of salt, but that the taste of salt ought to be more pleasant than the taste of sugar, as it would if he were to say that the taste of sugar is sweet but that to him it is sour. Wherever a normative judgment is possible,, there is no scope for personal idiosyncracies .; and wherever we can have a personal judgment,, to talk of a normative is only a false pretence. It has been a general tendency with the critics, who disbelieve in the subjectivity of poetry and its criticism, to, fix up a standard of theit own for passing all judgment and to give that standard the exalted adjective general or unwersal. This self-imposed superiority anon finds its heirs,, from whom again it passes to others ; and the process goes on indefinitely. We can never be in a position to say, that we don't like a thing which we know to be good*2; what we can say, at the best is this that we don't like a thing which, we know, is. considered to be good by so many others. Richards says, "Many people would regard praise of a work which is actually disliked by the praiser as immoral""&. But I stress. here again, even, at the risk of repetition,, *1. Principles of Literary Critiism, p. 224, chap. XXX entitled' The definition of a poem: #a This- statement cannot be: refuted by a false analogy like ths. One may dislke the taste of a distasteful medicine whch,, he knows,, will. do good to him .. Here Taste and Action, of the medicine have been confused together. The true analogy will be to say that one may dislike the taste of a mango though he- knows it to- be excellent. * Prineiples of Literary Critiasm, p. 224.

30 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

that such an act is a psychological impossibility. If there are any such points at which, a reader knows, his sensibility is distorted, their existence is the direct result of his consciousness of the fact that they are the points at which his taste and choice differ either from the majority, or from some great critic who has already immensely influenced him. From the above discussions we can now safely conclude that there is no further utility of these defi- nitions except the information which they impart individually about the personal views of their authors. There is nobody-no student, no layman, no scholar- who has ever attempted to understand what is art or what is poetry through any definition. A child begins to read poems from his early classes. . They interest him and help him to form and develop his own con- ception of poetry-a conception which is clear to him, but which he cannot express. In the language of St. Augustine his reply to the question 'What 1s poetry ?' will be: "If not asked, I know; if you ask me, I know not."" It is only at a very later stage that he bothers his head about definitions, and even then it is not to correct or to revise his already existing idea of poetry, but to find an expression in words for that idea. And the layman never worries himself about a definition. He reads, hears and appreciates whatever is intelligible and interesting to him, and is satisfied only with so much. Definitions have been given by those who knew what poetry connotes and denotes, and the business of each one of them was to frame a definition free from the fallacies of too narron or too wide. Definitions have been criticized by those who knew what poetty is, and their business was either to find out the inner inconsistencies and the logical fallacies in the definitions, or to criticize and differ from their connotation and denotation as intended by their authors. The value of this original exposition, and its criticism and recriticism consists not in any I.S.L., p. 82.

• DEFINITIONS OF POETRY 31

such help in learning, as the definition of noun extends to a student of grammar, but in the amusing mental exercise which they afford to their readers. - Having considered the views of the men of letters now we turn to the other part of our data which consists of the opinions of those who never express themselves in writing. It is the task of the interested to elicit from them their ideas through verbal enquiry and observations, the two methods supplementing each other. Accordingly I made several enquiries among the uneducated people in this connection and a typical one is noted below : Subject: Hara Prasāda, a village boy of fourteen, working as a servant Object Village Rāmalīlā-very crude stage-Paraśurāma with a whip in his hand, posing anger on Rāma and Laksmana, turning round the whip over and over again and striking anothei king ; as if unintentionally, the king being ridiculously made fat by thrusting cotton between his body and the outer garment. Enquiry: Q. Do you enjoy seeing the Ramalila A. Too much Q. What is good there ? A. The stage, the peculiar dresses of the actors, their dialogues and other activities. Q. What appealed to you most? A. The fat king being whipped repeatedly, as if by mistake or accident, posing fear and pain, though actually he had none-this scene was most funny.

This scene was really most interesting to the major portion of the audience, and I could not myself hear a greater noise of laughter at any other point throughout the whole performance of the day. The children, wherever they were in groups, were in pranks and ticklings with each other; and the older persons, who had gathered sobriety with age, showed a continuously interested face marked with alternately appearing feelings of devotion and amusement,

32 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

But this is not the only form of 'stage-tepresentation which has been collecting large gatherings. There 4is another which goes by the popular name of Nautanki. Even a Katha without stage finds so many interested listeners, and scmetimes its emotional appeal is 'so 'great that flow of tears in abundance can be observed on all sides. And then there are also folk-songs and folklores. While many of them contain elements df poetry even to the highly educated mind, there are others which, in 'spite 'of being extremely popular, are vulgar and honsense." 'The collection of this sort of data and its study and examination lead us directly to the denotation of poetry without telling us any of its qualttative terms. But here again even this list of denotation we can never make complete, for whatever shall be taken interest in or relished as poetry by whomsoever, will have to be added to this list; and to do this, it is obvious, 1s impossible. So that we find that even with the help of all the information that can be availed through all the possible sources, we are not yet in a position to answer the question which we had raised in the beginning of this essay ; and the evident reason is the absolutely sub- jective nature of poetry, its connotation and denotation changing with every individual. In spite of the vivid explanations and specifications given to the terms, in 'which poetry 'has been defined, by their advocates, there are 'hardly any which are objective realities without any subjective element in them. Delight, simplicity, passion, imagination, fancy, vision beauty and Alankara are not discovered and distinguished in the same fashion by everybody. Even a 'term like metre has its subjec- tivity with it, for free verse is not recognized by all as one of its species. So if we have to interpret and " A typical example 16 the song 'सरौंता कहाँ भूल आये प्यारे alar'. I bave 'heard it being recited in almost all parts of this province.

DEFINITIONS OP POBTRY 33

study our subject in the light of a natural science, as opposed to normative or regulative, it is but legitimate that we should admit the individual differences to the extent to which they actually exist. The only possible seply in this spirit to the question What is poetry? is that which is relished or taken interest in as poetry. <

Büt is it a reply at all? Yes, it is the reply to all who must have a reply to the question unconditionally ; and also it is the definition to all who must have a definition of poetry categorcally."8 To say anything other than this about poetry is to introduce a personal ought, which is unwanted, instead of a general is, which is desired. If I do not relish a composition, or its representation either on the screen or on the stage, as poetry, none of its high sounding praises" and no external criterions can make me relish it as poetry; and if a work interests me as poetry, no attempts to outcast it from the sphere of poetry and none of its blemishes and faults discovered in it by its critics can make me lose my interest in it.

The use of the word poetry in the above definition' makes it logically fallacious." But, as I have already observed, mine is an apology for a definition, and not a definition proper ; and it has been introduced because logical definitions have been found to stand nowhere. There is, however, one alternative. If we prefer a negative definition to a definition in a circle, we may say that poetry is that which interests, and, at the same time, which is not any other definite art or science, Thus Saketa is poetry to all those whom it can interest, because it is not history; Rāmacaritamānasa, because it is not a treatise on religion or philosophy ; Seva- * Otherwise, as I have already said, there is nobody who needs a definition of Poetry to understand what it is. * 'Praise' must not be confused with 'interpretation' which sometimes may reveal a new relishable sense, " The defintion being in a circle. 5

34 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

Sadana, because it is not a text-book of sociology; Mudraraksasa or Candragupta, because they cannot be included in the books on politics ; and Guijana, because it is not a research-work in botany. But if the defi- nition is necessarily to suffer from one fallacy or the other, our position, for obvious reasons, is safer with the former than it is with the latter.

A point which needs clarification here is whether the same work can be poetty and also something else simultaneously, and whether even a part of a compo -. sition may be poetical without the whole of it being a poem. A reply to the latter problem may be directly deduced from our definitions, for whatever we can relish as poetry is poetry ; if it is a part, the part is poetical, if it is a whole composition, it is a poem.8" The former problem, which is not very much different from the latter, can be put in another form also: Is it correct to speak of poetic touches in a work which deals with a different subject? And to this I would answer that if in the treatment of any subject there is some such thing, which the nature of the work does not require in its presentation, and which affords poetic interest to a reader, it can safely be designated as poetic. Even the whole of a history, or a biography, or any other true story may be called poetry by a person who telishes it as such. To a police, judicial or adminis- trative officer the true account of a criminal case does afford some interest, but it is not the interest of poetry, and they know it themselves. But the same account may be found very interesting by a person who has got nothing to do with that particular case, or even with any other, and if it so happens, the nature of the interest of such person would evidently be poetic. 60 "The parts of a composition may be poetical, without the composition as a whole being a poem. A single sentence may be considered as a whole, though it may be found in the midst of a series of unassimilated portions; a single word even may be a spark of inextinguishable thought". -P. B. Shelley, A Defence of Poetry, A.C.S., p. 56,

DEFINITIONS OF POETRY 35

But poetty has 'an objective aspect too, and it should not be ignored here totally. There are people who find no interest in poetry, and yet they use the term and thereby mean to denote something. We also often'talk of'such poetic works as we havenever read, and, hence, have never relished them as poetty. Poetry in this objective sense includes'in' its denotation all that is known" to have been relished as poetry' and 'all that is known to have been 'passed as 'poetry by its "authors, advocates' and 'cfitics."

'As my anthology' of definitions will show, poetty has' been differentiated from' prose-writings by some of the western chitics. To the oriental scholars verse and poetry are entirely 'different phenomeha ; and they have never been' confused' with each" other, for' here wórks even on subjects like medicine and mathematics were written in verse,' and prose was regarded to be the touchstone of poets:0 The 'term Poetry has been used by me 'in this work as a 'synonym to Creative Literature and includes its all forms of expression (viz., 'poetty'in verse; drama, novel, short story etc.); and their representation on the screen and the stage.

! 'It should have been 'observed"by sóme" of the careful readers that in this essay I have always talked only of poetic interést, and never of poetic pledsure or poetic enjoyment. That it 1s neither pleasure nor enjoy- ment which attracts us towards poetry I' shall "deal with in detail in the following chapter

00 'गद कवीनां निकष वर्दान्त।' -Cited by Vamana, Kāvyālankārasītra, p. 10.

CHAPTER I

PERCEPTION AND RELISH OF POETRY

Having known in the preceding chapter what poetry is we now proceed to investigate the secrets of its perception and relsh. It is worthwhile to differ- entiate here between the meaning. of the terms Percep- tion and Relish. To perceive poetry means to convey it to the mind either through the eyes by reading it in a wrtten form, or through the ears by listening to its recitation, or through both by witnessing its repre- sentation either on the screen or on the stage. To relish poetry means to perceive it with interest.1 It is needless to repeat here that the problem of the relish of poetry. (Kāvya-Rasāsvādana) has been discussed by the Sarskrta critics only with reference to Rasa and its constituents (Vibhavas etc.) in spite of the fact that most of them recognized poetry even in other sorts of writings ;8 and that their endeavour chiefly consists in interpreting the famous dictum8 of Bharata in their own way. Neither they thought it necessary to say anything about the way in which poetry, other than that which comes under the denotation of Rasa, is relished, nor could it be possible for them to disregard Bharata's authority and to give their view on the relish of poetry independent of his Sūtra. Out of the fifty definitions of poetry, which I have quoted in the first chapter of this section of the work, 1 For an elaborate discussion on the term see towards the end of this chapter. # According to the most dominant school of literary criticism in Samskrta, viz., the Dhvam School inaugurated by Dhvani- kara and Anandavardhana, Dhvans is the soul of poetry and Rasa is but a species of Dhvan. (Vide D.A., pp. 3 & 78).

-N.S., chap. VI.

PERCEPTION AND RELISH OF POETRY 37

there are not more than ten which find pledsure connected with poetry in one way or the other. But critics, who, consciously or unconsciously, do not believe in a hedo- nistic theory of art, are few All the scholars of Hindi and Samskrta poetics, who have dealt with- Rasāsvāda (or the relish of poetry), without any exception" and a majority of the western critics seem to have been labouring under the illusion that the end of all poetry is to please. Erroneously assuming that we undertake to do only pleasing things, but observing rightly that we voluntarily go to witness even the scenes of pathos or misery at the theatre they have been led to the wrong conclusion that the perception of even such pathetic scenes- affords nothing but pleasure. We see Sītā banished and hear her cries of anguish in a state of utter helplessness in a lonely forest. We then shed tears; and, it has been argued, our tears are those of joy, because we shed tears even when we feel excessive joy.

Before I elaborate my own theory on the.relish of poetry and give my answer to the question 'What attracts us towards poetry even when it excites pity and terror ?' it is' but proper that I should consider all the known important views on this subject and should point out how and where they are erroneous and faulty.

Bhatțalollata is the earliest critic who tried to analyse and explain the experience of poetic relish; and his view has been known as the theory of Genera- tion (Utpattwada). His own work is unfortunately lost, but it has been possible to reconstruct his opinion on the basis 'of the brief quotations from him found in Abhinavabhāratī, Kāvyānušāsana and Kāvyaprakāša etc. P. Pañcapagesa, Sastri has epitomised his view as follows : "Love and emotions like it are, as a fact, first generated by the' Vibhavas and further developed into * Tolstoy is one, * Save the authors of Nātyadarpana.

38 IPSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

Rasa by Vyabhicarībhavas only in the original personage. By reason of resemblance the actor is mistaken for that personage. As a iesult of his skilful acting the spectator is deluded into the belief that the actor himself is the original personage and possesses the emotions possessed by the original personage. Through this invalid cogni- tion the spectator iealises pleasure ...... The emotion, love and the like, were generated in the original character alone-not in the spectator. He, on the other hand, superimposes these emotions on the actor; the conse- quence is that he enjoys pleasure". .... It may be questioned how an invalid cogni- tion can generate a subjective pleasure that the spectator really enjoys. That is, the pleasure enjoyed by the audience being not false while the cause of it is, -men may ask 'How could this be?' Bhattalollata's answer 1s this: We have very often seen invalid cognition giving birth to real actions in men. Fo1. instance a man who mistakes a rope for a snake is frightened'; and he trembles. He runs away very swiftly to' save himself fiom the snake. Here the cognition of the snake is false but the effects of it on him, the fear and the trembling, are all real. There was of course no snake But the man somehow saw it there. This serpent superimposed on the 1ope caused him fear and trembling. Similarly the love that existed in the original character does not of course- exist in the actor; but the spectator having fiist mistaken him for the o11g1nal character now wrongly understands the love of the original character to exist in him.' This gives him 'subjective pleasure which he actually enjoys"." 3

Bhattalollata's theory as exposed above is evidently based on his three assumptions. They are: (1) the spectator is always deluded into the belief that the actor himself is the original personage; (ii) subjective pleasure is realized through any invalid 'cognition; and (i11) it is always pleasure that we seek in poetry. If these assumptions were to correspond with reality or actual experience, there shall be nothing to hinder his theory from being established as absolutely correct and final. Let us examine his assumptions. Phil. of Aesth. Pleasure, p. 75. 7 Ibid., P. 74.

PERCEPTION AND RELISH OF POETRY 39

We need not look very minutely at the first assump- tion to know whether it is correct or not, for it is wrong at the very face of it. It is only rarely and at moments that a spectator believes that what he is witnessing 1s reality and not a mere representation. Even the most sympathetic perceiver cannot have this delusion through- out a performance ; and there are people who, without having this delusion "at all, can realize the Rasa of a drama to its utmost.

The second assumption is still more absurd, and its absurdity is unveled by the illustration given by Bhattalollata himself. Every invalid cognition does not give rise to real pleasure, for the invalid cognition of the snake calls forth fear and trembling and not pleasure. Bhattalollata has not differentiated the invalid cognition which one has while looking at the stage from that which one has in mistaking the rope for the snake. The effects in both the cases are real feelings, but he does not tell us how in the one they are pleasurable and in the other painful. The truth, however, is this that during the operation of a delusion the false cognition is believed to be true, and when it 1s so believed, it would produce the same effects as it would if it were really true. The false cognition of snake in a rope produces fear, trembling and the impulse to run away, because the perception of a real snake will also produce the same effects. In a similar way the false cognition that the actor himself is the original personage and that he possesses the emotions possessed by the original personage will produce in the mind of the spectator not pleasure, but those feelings which he should ex- perience if the original personage with his original emotions were actually before him.

The third assumption also, viz., it is always pleasure that we seek in poetry, is not tenable. How it is so we shall see in detail afterwards in this very chapter. The falsity of even one of these assumptions was sufficient to break down Bhattalollata's theory. But where will

40 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

it stand now when we have known that none of them 1s true ?

It will not be a digression if we examine here briefly some of the important charges levied against this theory by other critics, and see how they are super- fluous and not at all to the point. It has been said that this theory violates the Iaw of Samanadhikaranya (the law which requires the cause and effect to coexist in one and the same person or object if causation is at all to take place), because it makes the emotion, ' which is superimposed in the actor by the spectator, the cause of the pleasure of the latter." The objection is obviously irrelevant, for, according to Bhattalollata, it is not the emotion of the actor or the original character which is the cause of the pleasure of the spectator; it is rather his deluded belief that the actor himself is the original character. The deluded belief is his, and the pleasure which it produces is his, and hence the law of Samanadhikaranya is violated in no way: The other objection to this theory is this that it cannot explain the pleasure in pathetic scenes. This objection itself wrongly assumes that the end of all poetry is to please, and, therefore, it is useless to discuss it any further.

There is another objection to the view and it has been put forward by Bhattanayaka. He says that the spectator, who has never seen Dusyanta or Rama, has no right to superimpose on an actor the love of the' former or the severity of the latter. This objection is there because Bhattanāyaka misses the very spirit of the theory of Bhattalollata. He thinks that the- superimposition of the emotion of the original character on the actor is a conscious and deliberate activity of the spectator. But it is not so. According to Bhatta- lolata the spectator is deluded to believe that the actor Vide Phil. of Aesth. Pleasure, p. 76, 9 Vide zbrd., p. 80 ..

PERCEPTION AND RELISH OF POETRY 41

is a real person and the part which he is enacting is not another's but his own. He does not know at all that the person whom he is seeing before him is merely an actor. He, as a matter of fact, does not differentiate between the original character and the actor representing 'him. To him the emotions and the feelings which , he finds in the actor are the actor's. He need not know at all what were the actual feelings of Rama or Dusyanta, and whether or not they ever extsted. He, though under a delusion, takes for granted that real Rāma or 'real Dusyanta is before him. A similar objection has been raised to this theory also by Sankuka. He says that a spectator cannot have the knowledge of the emotions of the original character, which he has to superimpose upon the actor, because at the time of a dramatic representation neither the character nor his Vibhāvas and. Anubhāvas are before him. Śańkuka also, like Bhatțanāyaka, misunderstands the meaning of the term Superimposition ; for if he were to under- stand this term in the sense which has 'been elaborated above and which was intended by Bhattalollata, his objection would not have been there.

After Bhattalollata it was Śankuka who .took up the problem of poetic relish and who, criticizing the : view of his predecessor, gave his own explanation of the realization of Rasa. He is known as the propounder of the theory of the Inference of Rasa (Rasanumitivada), and his 'view is also gathered from the short review of his opinion in Abhinavabharati, wherefrom it has been more ot less copied in all the later works that have referred to hs theory which may be enunciated as follows in the words of Mammata (Trans. by Ganga- natha Jha) and P. Pancapagesa Sastri: "When an actor is personating Räma, the spectator has with regard to him the idea that ths is Rama himself; but this idea is of a peculiar kind, being, of the same nature as the idea of horse that one has in regard to the picture'of a horse ; it is different from all the four kinds of ordinary notions: (1) it is not of the nature of the ordinary right notion that one has in the case of the 6

42 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

real Rāma: 'Rāma is the person', which is also con- firmed by the subsequent cognition 'this is Rama him- self'; (2) it 1s different also from the ordinary ,wrong cognition 'this is Rama', which appears in regard to one who is not really Rama, and which is sublated by the subsequent cognition 'this is not Räma'; (3) nor it is of the same nature as the doubtful cognition this may or may not be Rama'; (4) nor lastly it is of the nature of the cognition of mere sımilarity, 'he is like Rāma' .. " 10 "The actor on the stage on account of his extra- ordinary simulating faculty, peculiar costume and other devices of stage-make-up is recognised by the spectator on the Citraturaga analogy as the original character. The actor by reason of his superior imitative faculty cleverly exhibits on the stage the Vibhavas, Anubhavas and Vyabhicarībhavas. The Vibhavas and the rest ex- hibited by the actor are only artificial and unreal but not known to be so to the spectator .. When the spectator witnesses the successful representation of the original- character by the actor he forgets for the moment the difference between the actor and the original character and by means of the Vibhavas and others exhibited by the actor he experiences through the process of a peculial inference the Bhavas1* such as love as existing in the actor now known as the original character. If love in union is represented on the stage the inference of the spectator will be-"राभोऽय सीताविषयकरतिमान' and if love in sepaiation is represented his inference will be "रामोऽय सीताविरहवान्". This inference is peculiar and entirely different from the ordinary logical inferences ( Alaukika) 'and it invariably causes delight".19

This theory of Sankuka again, as reproduced above, has assumed the following propositions to be correct : first, the actor is always understood by the spectator as, the original character on the Citraturaga analogy (or the analogy by which a horse in a picture is under- stood as a horse), and the emotions that are displayed 10 Kāvyaprakāša, pp. 49-50. 11 According to Sankuka the mental conditions thus inferred to exist in the actor are only the semblance of those 'which existed in the original character. 39Phil, of. Aesth, Pleasure, pp.105-106.

PERCEPTION' AND RELISH OF POETRY by the actor are not real but only a semblance of those that existed in the original character; second, the Inference of Rasa18 or a semblance of mental conditions invariably causes. pleasure; and third, poetry: always pleases. The whole structure of Sankuka's view, which stands on the basis of these propositions, will shatter and fall down if any of these were to be proved wrong. Let us, therefore, examine them carefully .:

· The first proposition assumed by Sankuka asserts that the spectator takes the actor, who is a person of skill and experience in the art of acting, 'to be the original character whom he personates, and that the cognition of the spectator in thus taking the actor to be the original character is neither correct, nor false, nor doubtful, nor based on similarity-it is rather a peculiat kind of cognition analogous 'with that which one has when he understands a horse' in a picture as-a horse.' It is worthwhile here to investigate into the nature of this peculiar'sort of cognition which does not come under anyone of the four known kinds of it. A picture of a'horse is presented before a person. 'He looks at the picture and has a cognition of it. What is the nature of this cognition of his? ' Does he actually understand it as a horse? He does not unless he is not a sane person and unless a picture is presented before him for the first time. His cognition is definite and he understands the picture as a picture of a horse. At times' he may call it a horse, but then the only word horse will indicate the sense of the phrase picture of a horse to the speaker as well as' to the hearer through the indication power (Laksana Sakti) of the word, and the definite nature of the coghition of the speaker will remain, unaffected. Suppose also for' a moment 1s The term Rasa in Bharata's Sutra is interpreted by Sankuka as the semblance of a ,mental condition, for he says-, "अनुकत स्थत्वेन लिंगबलतः प्रतीयमानः,स्थायिभावो मुख्यरामादिगत- 1

स्थाय्यनुकरणरूप :; अन्करण रूपत्वादेव च नामान्तरेण व्यपदिष्टो रसः।" -A.B .. P. 274

44 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

that the person, before whom the picture is presented, is not very much accustomed to see pictures and is stupid, and that the picture is life-like and is 'kept at, a distance. In this case, if the person is not able to have the right cognition that the object placed before him is the picture of a horse, he may be expected to believe either wrongly that it is a real horse, or doubtfully whether it is a horse or a picture. The fourth kind of cognition based on similarity may sometimes coexist with the first, for when observing the picture with appreciation a person remarks that it is like a real horse, he has full and definite knowledge of the fact that the object of his appreciation is the picture of a horse. So that we find that the Citraturaga cognition of Sankuka is only a fiction and not at all an invention, and that its conception is included in the already known types of cognitions. The cognition on the Cutraturaga analogy having been thus refuted, Sankuka now must either fall back to the position of Bhattalollata and assert that the spectator understands the actor as the original character under a delusion, or he must come forward and tell us what other kind of cognition the spectator has with regard to the actor. But his position cannot be safe in either case : if he resorts to the former, it has already been proved to be false, and if to the latter, it too cannot be true, because, as we have seen, there ' are some moments at least when a spectator is actually deluded into the belief that the object of his perception is a reality. The other part of the first proposition, viz., the emotions that are displayed by the actor are not real but only a semblance of those that existed in the original character, should also be examined with reference to the cognition of the spectator, for it is the cognition of the spectator which affects his feelings of poetic relish. But, as Sankuka has himself said, the spectator "experiences through the process of a peculiar inference the Bhavas such as love as existing in the actor" and "the Vibhavas and the rest exhibited by the actor" are not known to be unreal to him. More- over, while criticizing Bhattalollata, Sankuka said that

PERCEPTION AND RELISH OF POETRY the spectator cannot have the knowledge of the emotions of the original character; and when he cannot have this knowledge, it is obvious, he cannot also know that the emotions which he is inferring in the actor are the semblance of those that existed in the original character.' So even according to Sankuka a spectator neither knows nor can ever know that the emotions displàyed by the actor are not real, but only a semblance. In explaining the subjective phenomenon of the reali- zation of Rasa by the spectator it is, therefore, super- ' fluous and unnecessary to assume what is neither cognised by nor cognizable to the spectator. The second proposition of Śankuka 'establishes that the inference of a semblance of mental conditions invariably causes pleasure. Mental conditions are always inferred, but evidently they are not always the cause of pleasure. ' A person who comes to us with a long tale of his sufferings never brings with him anything to please us. But will a semblance 'of menital conditions-a semblance which is known to the spectator as a reality and not 'as a 'semblance 'always produce pleasure ? 'Sankuka,' while answering the objection as to' how the mental conditions are inferred in an actor out of the probans all the three constituents (Vibhāva, Anubhāva and Vyabhicarībhava) of which ate unreal, stresses that though the probans is artificial, the playgoer does not know it to be so." When the playgoer takes the probans to be real, it cannot be denied that the inference, which he shall make out of it, shall call forth those, very feelings in his mind which it would if the probans were actually real. If the inference of real mental conditions does not always produce pleasure-and it does not as we have already seen-, the inference of a semblance of them also cannot when the fact that they are only a semblance is not known to the spectator.

The third proposition of Sankuka, viz., poetry always pleases is identical with the third of Bhattafollata,

PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RAS.À

and is likewise untenable. So this is where the theory and argument of Sankuka stand of which not one but all the three basic propositions have, been wrongly assumed by him. Coming to the objections put forth against this theory by other critics we notice that it 'again has been found defective for want of Samānadhıkārnya between the spectator's pleasure and its cause.14, It has been argued as to how the mental conditions, which are understood by the spectator as existing not in him- self but in the actor on the boards, can be the cause of the pleasure which exists in the mind of the spectator. But the objector in raising this objection has missed the real cause which has been assigned by Śankuka to the pleasure of the spectator. It is not the mental condition of the actor, according to him, which is the cause of the spectator's pleasure, it is rather the inference that the mental condition exists in the actor, and he has said it in clear terms. The consciousness of the inference, as well as that of the pleasure is in the mind of the spectator; and hence the argument does not åt all offend against the law of Samanādhikārnya. It is never from the want of Samanādhikāranya that Sankuka's theory suffers ; it is, as we have already observed, from the want of truthfulness in the propositions, which have been assumed by him to be correct and upon which he has based his theoty. The second objection to this theory, as it was to that of Bhattalollata, is this that it cannot explain the pathetic pleasure.1" We can leave the objection here untouched is' it shall automatically disappear when subsequently it shall be maintained in this chapter that the end of all poetry in general and that of the pathetic in particular is not to please the perceiver. There 1s another objection to this theoty and it has been raised by Abhinavagupta.' He says that 1f 1e Vide Phil. of Aesth. Pleasure, pp. 106-107. ,15' Vide ibid., p. 107,

PERCEPTION AND RELISH OF POETRY '47

there is pleasure in the inference of a mental condition not actually existing in the actor, why and how it should not be in the inference of the real mental conditions.16 The objection is quite relevant and it rightly stands against the theory, but it has already been raised in denying the truth of the second proposition assumed by, Sankuka. Rajacūdāmaņıdīkșita comes forward to find another defect in this theory. "The champions of the inference theory", says he, "could never escape the blame of the momentatiness of the Rasa-realisation .. ,The explanation of Rasa-realisation for a couple of hours by accepting a series of inferences as Śri Sankuka has suggested cannot hold good; for, a series of inferences should be had on Sankuka's own showing only by a .desire for further inferences ...... How can an absorbed spectator have the desire for further and further inferences which "will only cause distraction to the mind and thus obstruct 'the realisation of Rasa".1 This critic, it seems, under- stands by Inference a lengthy and delayed process which would divide the attention of the spectator and hence would create gaps in his realzation of the poetic relish. But the truth is not this. When we talk about the inference of a mental condition, Inference means an automatic 'process within the mind, the time'which'it takes being negligible. When an angry person appears before us, by his gestures we immediately infer that he is angty. We do not first reckon and think over his expressions and then, after a pause, conclude that he is angty. As'soon as the fact that the expressions åre there is conveyed to our consciousness, the ex- perienced machine of our mind brings to the conscious- ness the emotion with which they ate connected. Also - a series of inferences does not mean a definite number *6 "नन यथा शंकुकादिभिरायधीयत, 'स्थाय्यव विभावदिप्रत्याय्यो स्य- मानत्वाद्रस उच्यत' इति। एवं हि लौकिकेऽपि कि न रसः, असतोऽपि हि यत्र रसनीयता स्यात्तत्र वस्तुसतः कथ न भविष्यति।" 1 Phil. of Aesth, Pleasure, p. 110. -A.B., p. 285,

48 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

of inferences, because inferences of mental conditions cannot be identified individually. They are being modified by every changing environment and expression and are intermingled with each other in such a complex manner that they can be understood only as a compact whole. By a desire for further inferences is meant that the spectator who is finding himself interested in the consciousness of the inferences is not bored of them and does not want to run away from the theatre-hall. So that we find that the process of inference is a con- tinuous process and that the pleasure which it affords, if at all it affords any as it does according to Sankuka, is also continuous and not momentary. A desire , for further inferences neither diverts the attention nor distracts the mind of the spectator, and, therefore, places no obstruction in the realization of Rasa. It is due to the misapprehension about the meaning of the term Inference that this objection has made its appearance. Bhattatauta, the preceptor of Abhinavagupta, has offered a lengthy criticism1* against this theory. His main objections are two. Firstly, he dentes that the emotion inferred by the spectator in the actor is a semblance of the emotion of the original character; and, secondly, he maintains that the knowledge Rāmo' yam (This is Rama) of the spectator is either valid or invalid and that the conception of the Citraturaga cognition, which has been called by Sankuka a peculiar cognition not included in the four recognized categories, is not different from that of the cognition of similitude. In elaborating his first objection he says that if the inferred emotion be merely a semblance, it should be, such from the standpoint either of the spectator, or of the actor, or of the critic; and subsequently he shows that it is not such from the standpoint of any of these. In refuting the second part of the first assumption, of Sankuka we have already shown that a spectator neither knows, nor can ever know that the emotions displayed '1 This criticism of Bhattatauta has been quoted in Abhinava- bhāratī, pp, 275-278,

PERCEPTION AND RELISH-OF POETRY, 49

by the actor are the semblance of those of the original' character. Idea of the critic is evidently included in my term spectator, for it'is the spectator who becomes critic when he sits down to analyse the nature of the phenomenon he has perceived. About, the actor Bhattatauta rightly observes that it is through his learning and practice that he presents on the stage merely the external manifestations of the mental condi- tions, and that having seen no original he is conscious of the fact that he is not imitating anybody. The assumption of the Citraturaga cognition, which is ques- toned by Bhattatauta in his second objection, has been fully criticized by me while dealing with the first part of the first proposition assumed by Sankuka. But there is a difference between the criticisms offered by Bhattatauta and myself. While Bhattatauta thinks that the Citraturaga cognition is the cognition of similitude, I have shown that the person, before whom the picture of a horse is presented, can have all the four types of cognitions. Similarly the cognition of the spectator of a dramatic performance also is not only either valid . or invalid, as Bhattatauta thinks, but it, may be any of the four sorts of it.

Having demolished the two theories on the reali- zation of Rasa we now proceed to examine the third. It has been advanced by Bhattanāyaka and is known as the Enjoyment Theory of Rasa (Rasabhuktimata). The chief source of its knowledge again is the famous .commentary of Abhinavagupta on Nātyāsāstra where it has' been quoted and criticized. The theory may

› Sastri: be enunciated thus in the words of P. Pañcapagesa

"In a poem or a drama the primary connotative power of names and terms explain to us theit meaning. These terms and names (Vibhavadayah) and the mental conditions associated with them . (Sthayībhavah) are then presented before us in an idealised impersonal way. The devices of the literary artist, his figures of speech and the like [in the Kävya and the four types 7

50 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA .

of acting in the Diama]18 aid this process of idealising by purging for the time being the Sahrdaya's mind of his mundane prepossessions. This power is called Bhavakatva. Then by a thiid power called Bhogakrttva the Sattvaguna in the mind of the spectator is brought into prominence and his mind becomes steady and no more distracted by any outward object. It also shares the nature of happiness. Enjoyment of pleasure after this is inevitable to the spectotor-whether the scene he beholds be erotic or pathetic or horrible or humourous or anything else .... .".90 .This enjoyment differs from the enjoyment of pleasure in the ordinary world in that it is impersonal, while pleasure in the ordinary world is the result of the personal possessions and advantages. It is different also from the Yogin's supreme bliss (Brahmananda)- though akin to it-in that the Yogin sees only the Brahman that is Bliss itself while the spectator at the theatre or the absorbed reader at the closet sees, and derives his enjoyment from objects like the parties to love and other emotions on the stage. In Brahmananda there is complete detachment from the world; in the enjoyment of aesthetic pleasure, on the other hand, there is dissociation, no doubt, but the concentration , on a pluraltty of objects like the Vibhavas, Anubhavas and Vyabhuarībhavas makes for the incompleteness of the concentration. So the spectator's pleasure is not Brahmananda itself-it makes only a near approach to 1t".21

Bhattanāyaka in establishing his view as above has clearly postulated the following: Firstly, the function named Bhavakatva, which is aided by the literaty devices of the artist (figures of speech and thè like) and the skilful acting of the actor, presents the Vibhavas etc. in a generalised form and purges the , mind of the perceiver of his mundane prepossessions. 1º The matter in the brackets has been added by me for Bhtta- nayaka's quotation both in Abhinavabharatī (p. 278) and Kāvyānušāsana (p. 73) runs as follows: " .· तस्मात्काव्ये दोषाभावगुणालंकारमयतवलक्षणेन, नाट्ये चतुर्विधा- भिनयरूपेण ... ।" so Phil. of Aesth. Pleasure, p. 143, 31 Ibidt,'pp. 141-142.

PERCEPTION AND RELISH OF POETRY $1

Secondly, the function named 'Bhogakrttva brings the Sattvagima into prominence in the mind of the Sahrdaya and theieby makes it absolutely calm and steady; and the mind brought into this state realises nothing but pleasure, whatever be the emotional quality of the object of its perception. And, thirdly, all poetry affords pleasure which is akin to Brahmananda. It is' on the correctness of these postulations of Bhattanāyaka , that the correctness of his theory depends. Let us, therefore, proceed to examine them.

The first postulation, which assigns a special power called Bhavakatva to the word in addition to its ordinary denotative (or connotative, as Sastri has translated the' Samskrta word Abhidha) power, may be broken up into three parts, viz., (1) this power is aided by the literary devices in the Kavya and by the four kinds of acting in the drama; (11) it makes the spectator lost in what he perceives and he does not think of anything , else; and (iti) the characters with their actions and mental conditions are presented before the perceiver in an abstract generalised way divested of all parti- cularities through the operation of this power. The assumption of the power of Bhavakatva is necessary, thinks Bhattanayaka, to avoid the defect due to neutrality (Tatasthya), from which the two theories of his prede- cessors suffer. It is the spectator, says he, who enjoys pleasure, and, therefore, the mental conditions, which are generated (according to Bhattalollata) or inferred as existing (according to Sankuka) in another person, cannot be the cause of the pleasure. But it is strange how he has supposed that the introduction of this new power would remove the said defect ; for the dramatis personae and their mental conditions in spite of being generalised remain entities different from and outside perceiver's own personality and mind. The spectator may understand the person on the stage representing Sakuntala only as a lovely maiden, and the person. representing Dusyanta only as a great noble-minded hero ( Dhīrodātta Nākaya), but he never understands

52 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

them to be a part and parcel of his own person. Similarly the emotions with their external manifestations dis- played by the persons representing Sakuntalā and Dusyanta may be understood by him not as existing in Sakuntalā and Dusyanta or in the persons representing them, not even, suppose for a moment, as existing in a beautiful damsel and a valiant hero, but in their abstract general character as existing in the air; yet he cannot and does not understand them as existing in himself. And unless the spectator can do this, the innovation of the power of Bhavakatva cannot remove the defect due to neutrality from the theory of Bhattanāyaka, if any such defect at all exists in the theories of his predecessors. Thus we see that the assumption of this power fails to serve the purpose primarily intended by Bhattanāyaka.

Out of the three parts into which we have divided the first postulation the third is the most important, because it tells us about the real function of Bhavakatva, viz., generalısation or Sadharanīkarana. Let us, therefore, take it up first of all and discuss its nature and meaning. Generalisation, as we have already known, consists in understanding the characters of a drama or an epic and their mental conditions together with the external manifestation of the latter in the former in their uni- versal and impersonal aspect as opposed to the particular and individual. Thus when generalisation has taken place a spectator at the theatre is not to understand by Sakuntala, who stands before him represented by an actress, a particular lady, belonging to a particular place and a particular era, standing in particklar rela- tionships with patticular persons and havng a particular social status. He sees in her only a lovely maiden at the threshhold of youth. He does not take her to be his wife, or even that of Dusyanta; for, in the former - case, he would feel shy to show his love to her in the presence of so many others, and, in the latter, he will grow indifferent to her. Likewise, in Dusyanta, who again is represented by an actor, he recognizes only a

PERCEPTION AND RELISH OF POETRY 53

noble-minded and valiant character. ' The details that he is the king of a country, and is in love with Sakuntalā are' of little importance to him. In this case if the spectator be a lady, she would indeed(!)be disinclined to take him to be the husband of Sakuntala, for then she may grow indifferent to him and consequently indifferent to the play. But in this case for what reasons a male spectator will not admit him as Sakuntala's partner, we do not know. May. it be that he is able to calculate as an intelligent person that to make Dusyanta Śakuntalā's is to make Sakuntalā Dusyanta's. But this is not all. Mental conditions along with their external manifestations which suggest them are also to be understood in the universalised way by the spectator. He witnesses Dusyanta and Sakuntala, that is, the persons who are representing them, making love. with each other. But the love thus manifested is not understood by him as existing between Dusyanta and Sakuntalā, nor even as existing between a valtant hero and a beautiful damsel for he has understood none of these characters 'as making love with each other-but as subsisting by itself in an idealtsed or generalised 'or abstract form without existing in any concrete person and divested of all particularities. .

This is what has been' understood by generalisation. But before we admit that such a function at all operates during our perception of a poetic phenomenon, it is but necessary that we should make a reference to our own experience and observation. As stage performance has grown to be a very rare activity in our times, I shall select my illustration from the screen. In the Hındi picture Javāba we find both Mīnā (Kananabālā) and Revadevī (Jamanā) making love with Manoja- , kumāra (Baruā). Both of these are young, beautiful and attractive and are in love with a youngman. Does the spectator understand them merely as lovely maidens and not as individuals, each having her own peculiarities of character, status and environment? Evidently he does not; for, if he did, how shall he differentiate between

54 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN R'ASA

them? He definitely understands in Mīnā (Kānanabālā) an innocent girl of a middle class family and every detail that he learns about her in the course of the whole picture modifies or vivifies his idea of her individual and particular character. Likewise in Revādevī (Jamanā) he sees a modern educated girl of an aristocratic family, experienced in the frolics of youth and courtship. If an effect as contemplated by generalisation of Vibhavas were to be produced in the mind of the spectator, there shall be chaos in the world of his consciousness and he shall understand nothing out of a whole performance. Every character that is painted or represented and developed before him must be recognized by ,him as an individual. Even if in qualities of character. two people are very much like each other, he must bé fully conscious of at least their physical individualty. While reading Ramayana he comes across Sīta and her three sisters. All the four belong to the same family, are also brides of the same family and have almost equal graces of character and beauty. But he can never afford to confuse one with the other. He must know each by her particular name and particular actions and particular individuality, and not in the generalised form as only lovely maidens. He cannot also grow, totally indifferent to the era and the country and the society to which a particular character belongs. If Śakuntalā were represented before him in a frock and Dusyanta in an English sutt, he would simply ridicule the performance. Similarly if an Arab is made to appear before him in a Kurta and a Dhoti and a Chtistian as offering his oblations to the god Siva, he would call the representation a sheer absurdity. This is how the Vibhavas or the characters are generalised to the spectator. Now let us see how far the Anubhavas and the mental conditions which they manifest are understood by him in the generalised way. Spectator's conception of a character, as we have already seen, is composed of his knowledge of all the details, which are conveyed to his consciousness, about that particular character. The emotions or the mental conditions together with their

PERCEPTION AND RELISH OF POETRY 55

expressions of course constitute thè most important part of those details. But this process of generalisation would not permit the'spectator to know those emotions as the emotions of the characters in whom they are manifested. It would like that he should understand them only in an abstract form not connecting them'. with the characters. But this is not what actually happens. As each character is understood by the spectator as a particular individual, so each emotion is understood by him as existing not in idea but in a particular character. He witnesses Sakuntalā and Dusyanta makıng love with each other. Unless he clearly cognizes that it is love between Sakuntala and Dusyanta, he shall not at all follow the play all of which will only be Greek and Latin to him. Thus we find that the conception of generalisation or Sādhāranīkarana, which has been said to be the real function of the assumed power of Bhavakatva, is a mere fancy and that the office which has been assigned to it is never manifested,

Taking up the second 'part of the first postulation we find Bhattanayaka asserting that the power of Bhāva- katva purges the mind of the perceiver of his mundane prepossessions and during his perception of the literary phenomenon he does not think of anything else.' ,Dis- regarding that it is due'to the operation of the power of Bhavakatva, let us see if such a state of the mind is at, all created whenever we relish poetry or its repre- sentation on the stage or the screen. There are moments, no doubt, when a perceiver is immediately conscious of nothing except of the object of his perception, viz., the literary phenomenon ; but there are also moments, it cannot be denied, when the object of his perception evokes in him the memory of his own experiences. This is at least sometimes inevitable because the subject- .. matter of poetry includes human life in all its aspects. When a person is absorbed in solving a problem of Mathematics, or in making an experiment in Chemistry, it is possible for him not to remember anything out of his worldly affairs, because in Mathematics and

56 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

Chemistry there is hardly anything in common with the problems of life; but when he is perceiving poetry, he cannot dispense with the occurrence of one outside idea or the other in his mind even if he makes a conscious effort to do so. But such evokations of the memory of his experiences are perhaps never unwelcome to him, except of course sometimes when the remembrances are pathetic2,2, for they make his interest in the percep- tion still deeper. If a youngman while' perceiving a scene of love-making finds there something in common with his own happenings, he feels all the more interested. Moreover, there are species of literature, for instance satire and problem plays and novels, whose major interest consists in the thoughts they evoke. To cut short, it is sufficient for our purpose to note here that either through the power of Bhavakatva or through any other power, known or unknown, it is not always possible for the perceiver not to think of anything else during his perception of the poetic phenomehon, and that the thoughts and the memories which are called up by the poetic phenomenon itself subsist almost always without diminishing and sometimes even intensi- fying the poetic interest of the perceiver. The first part, which we have not touched as yet, of the first postulation lays down that the function of the power of Bhavakatva is assisted in poetry by the absence of blemishes and the presence of Alankāras and Gunas and in drama by the four kinds of acting. We have already noticed that out of the two functions assigned to Bhävakatva one (viz., generalisation) is never accomplished and the other (viz., purgation of the mind of the perceiver from the consciousness of any outside phenomenon) only sometimes. But even granting that they are always accomplished let us find out how far they are aided by the excellences of expression and acting. A beautiful expression, if the figures used in it are suggestive, if it is easily understood and if the words which compose it are such as are best * Though often even the pathetic remembrances are welcome:

PERCEPTION AND RELISH OF POETRY, 57

suited to the occasion, presents before our vision .a clear image of the thing, person, emotion, or situation which it depicts .. And it is obvious that, the more cleat the image, the less'it would help in generalisation, because the more it would particularise itself. Similarly in drama through the stage-devices,. an, impression of the environment and atmosphere is conveyed to the spectator and through the four kinds of representation?" or acting he knows and differentiates each character, To illustrate, in the picture Catralekha it is through the settings and other stray activities, that the spectator 'learns that the tale which is being screened before him is of a bygone era. Sāmanta Bijagupta and Brahmacārī Svetanga are understood by him. not, as his contem- poraries, but as the persons living in the age of Candia- gupta. Each movement 'which they make, each' word that they 'speak, each dress which they put on and each' feeling which they manifest go to make them individual persons with their personal characteristics peculiar to' themselves alone. So that the purpose which is seryed by the poetic excellences and the dramatic devices. is not that of generalisation, it is rather, that of parti- cularisation. That they do not serve the other purpose of purgation also we shall see just now. Our interest, no doubt, is intensified by the excellences of a compo- sition ,or representation. But the intensification of interest in a poetic phenomenon does not mean that the mind becomes unapt to become conscious of every- thing else, as it may if the object of interest be Mathe- matics or Chemistry, for, as we have already remarked, human life with its diversified vicissitudes is included in the subject-matter of poetry. However great may be the interest of a perceiver in his perception, yet 'when- he comes across such situation's as he himself " The four kinds of Abhmnaya or acting are; -(1) Angikd or gestural, conveyed by bodily actions, (ii), Vacika or vocal, conveyed 'by 'words, (1u1) Aharya or extraneous, conveyed by dress, ornaments, decoration etc., and,, (1v) Satvika or internal, conveyed by the manifestation of the internal feelings " such as perspiration and thrilling etc, 8

PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

has passed through, it is impossible for him not to fećollect his. To conclude this criticism of the first postulation of Bhattahāyaka let it be temarked that words possess no such power as Bhavakatva, that generali- sation of chäracters and their mental conditions is a psychological impossibility, that the perceiver, in spite of his great interest in the perception of the literaty phénomenon, may sometimes think of something other than the obiect of his perception and that the beauties of expression and representation help neither in effecting gefieralisation nor in making the perceiver incapable of remembering or thinking of anything else.

We shall not entangle ourselves for long with the second postulation of Bhattanayaka, which attributes ahothet power called Bhogakrttva to poetry, for the assumption of this power is based on such philosophical beliefs as evade any psychological testing. The reali- żation of Rasa to us is a worldly phenomenon, not traniscendental, and we ate to discuss and explain it hefe on the basis of psychology-on the basis of our evetyday experience. We do not know what is Sattva- guha; we do not know how it makes the mind absolutely caltn and steady and unapt to be distracted by any outward object; we do not know also how the mind in this state realizes nothing but pleasure or happiness; ahd, once again, we do not know in the mind of what spectator and how this Sattvaguna possessing such miraculous powers is brought into prominence. We know only this much, as we have already seen, that the mihd of the spectator is always liable to become conscious of the outward phenomena, that the ex- periencé duting our perception of poetty is an activity of the mind, and that it should, for this reason, be explainable by the science of mind, that is, psychology.

The third postulation of Bhattanāyaka differs from the thitds of his two predecessors only in this much that it has qualified Pleasure, which all poetry affords according to its assertion, as akin to Brahmananda. This

PERCEPTION AND RELISH OF POETRY new addition 'need not detain us, for, firstly, I have already promised to show that it is not pleasure of any kind or description that we always seek in poetry, and, secondly, it is as erroneous as it is fruitless to compare or liken an object with a phenomenon which 'is still more obscure and unrealizable. Thus the Enjoyment Theory of Bhattanayaka breaks down at the very roots, for the ground on which it stands is itself hollow. The functions which he has ascribed to the assumed powers of Bhavakatva and Bhogakrttva are never manifested, and the pleasure akın to Brahmananda is a mystery to the spectator who neither knows nor can realize what the latter is like. The criticism which has been offered to this theory by the other scholars as not at all important, for almost all of them have admitted that the functions attributed to Bhavakatva and Bhogakrttva do actually operate. What they object to is only the invention of these new terms. , "The importation", remarks P. Pañcāpagesa Sastri, "of these two functions (by functions Sastri means functions hy their new names) is needless. And as no other author has even so much as mentioned them, they suffer from lack of recognition. They may be abandoned, though in themselves they are neither wrong nor harmful".a4. According to Abhinavagupta ·"Bhattanayaka's recognition and employment of needless instruments like Bhavakatva and Bhogakrttva are as unnecessary as 'unauthorised",ª5 `because the function of these two powers is done by Vyanjana or Suggestion alone. Prabhakarabhatta believes "that Bhattanayaka ›can dispense with the power of Bhogakrttua", because the function of Bhavakatva consists not oply in the presentation of things in their universalised aspect but also in the removal of distractions from-the Sahrdaya' s mind".ª6 There is obviously nothing like real criti- cism of Bhattanayaka's theory in the observations a+ Phl. of Aesth. Pleasnre, p. 158. Ibid., p. 161. 2 Ibid., pp. 161-162,

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quoted above, and hence there is also nothing which we may take up here to recriticize-to justify or to tefute." The next theory on Rasa-realization, which has been more or less deemed satisfactory through as many as ten centuries by men of learning and intellect, and which has been accepted by even as modern scholars as Dr. Syamasundara Dasa,a" Dr. A. Sankaran" and P. Pañcāpagesa Sāstrī,28 is that of Abhinavagupta and is known as The Revelation Theory of Rasa ( Abhi- vyaktivada). The following is an epitome of this theory as given by Sastti: "All minds and especially those of trained critics of poetry are endowed with certain subtle and latent impressions (Vasanah) implanted in them at birth. These are called Sthayibhavas in poetic language. In a poem or in a clever representation on the stage, the Vibhavas and the Anubhavas first indicate to the reader or the spectator the mental conditions of the characters ; then the Vibhavas and the mental conditions are under- stood by the reader or the spectator in a general way without any specific relation to any particular person in any particular circumstance. By these generalised Vibhavas and the rest, the latent Sthayibhavas in the reader or the spectator are called into play and they also are understood only in a general way without any reference to himself as an individual. It is, of course, needless to say that these Sthayībhavas thus aroused in the cultured reader or the spectator exactly correspond to the Vibhavas and the rest that call them into play. Now, the moment this perception takes place in the mind, which is already weaned from the distractions usual to it by the skill of the poet (or of the dramatist assisted by that of the stage-manager), it gets concentrated on the awakened Sthayībhavas and enjoys supreme pleasure".80 1#".The revised edition of his work entitled Sāhityalocqna appeared in 1938. a His work entitled Some Aspects of Literary Criticism in Sanskrit or the Theories of Rasa and Dhvan appeared in 1929. * His work entitled The Philosophy of Aesthetic Pleasure appeared in 1940. ". Phil. of Aesth. Pleasure, p. 168.

PERCEPTION AND RELISH OF POETRY "Our Sahrdaya81, we know, is a man of; trained intellectual powers. By reason of that, and by reason of the excellence of the actors and the scenic arrange- ments, no less by reason of the genius of the poet who invests his utterances with a many-sided charm (by ' the use of Gunas, Alankaras, Vrttts and Ritis); he comes to see the persons before him not as particular indvi- 1 duals; he sees them,, on the contrary, merely as men and women capable of giving rise to love and heroism; and so on in the abstract. Dusyanta is no more Dusyanta, but merely a man of parts. Sakuntala is divested"of her personal pecultarities and becomes a high class woman of beauty and virtue. What was their, mutual jlove so far, is now love in general, love between man and woman in the abstract. "A caution is necessary here. The generalisation spoken of here is to be understood as excluding the individuality not only of the characters in the piece but of the Sahrdaya himself, of his friends and of his foes. Why this is so is quite clear. If it'does not exclude his personality, his own interest in guarding himself from observation, say, in love-making, is sure to interfere with his enjoyment of aesthetic pleasure; if his enemies are not excluded, his passion of hatred or anger or revenge will interpose itself between his mind and 'enjoyment of pleasure; if his friends are not excluded, his passions like joy at their success and sorrow at their failure will so interpose themselves. , In one word, the enjoyment of aesthetic satisfaction is Vitavighna Pratitih".82 Abhinavagupta 'has based his theory as exposed above on the following presumptions : Firstly, every human mind is endowed with certain latent impressions s1 Abhinavagupta has defined a Sahrdaya in Locana (p: 13) as follows . "येषा काव्यानशीलनाभ्यासवशाद्विशदीभूते मनोमकुरे वर्णनीयतन्मयी- भवनयोग्यता ते हृदयसंवादभाजः सहृदयाः ।" or, a Sahrdaya is one who with his wide experience of the world and his constant acquaintance with the works of great artists has got a heart full of responsiveness to the situations described in poetry or on the boards and ready to' identify himself with them. (English translation by P. Pancapagesa Sastri). ' # Phil. of Aesth. Pleasure, pp. 175-176. ,

62 PSYCHOLÔGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

called Sthayibhavas in the language of poetics. Secondly, during the perception of a poetic phenomenon the mind of the perceiver remains free from all distractions, the Vibhavas etc. being perceived by him in a generalised form. Thirdly, in the mind of the perceiver, which is free from all distractions, his own latent impressions 'are evoked at his perception of the generalised Vibhāvas etc. and they too are understood by him in a generalısed way, and are the source of his pleasure. Fourthly, the end of all poetry is to please, Let us, once again, take up these presumptions, one by one, and find out how far they correspond with actual experience.

We need not dispute here on the first presumption of Abhinavagupta which asserts that there are certain datent impressions in every human mind and that they are apt to be kindled in the presence of adequate en- varonment, for it is true at least in this much that the impressions enumerated by him with the name of permanent mental conditions or Sthāytbhavas are ex- perienced by us, whenever there is reason for it, in the form of the emotions. But whether he has rightly called only these mental conditions permanent and the rest transitoty, we shall see in the next section of this work ;38 and whether such conditions are at all capable of being called forth in the mind of a perceiver in a generalised way, we shall discuss while dealing with the third presumption.

The second presumption of Abhinavagupta is 'exactly the first of Bhattanayaka which we have already examined in exuberent details. We have seen that the generalisation of characters and their mental condi- tions is psychologically impossible, that it is not necessary that even an absorbed perceiver would not think of anything else during his perception of a literaty pheno- menon and that all the beauties and graces of expression and all the devices of representation, even added by the training of the Sahrdaya as Abhinavagupta will #a Vide chapter IV of the second section.

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have it, can effect neither generalisation nor undistracted- ness in the mind of the perceiver. The removal of the seven obstacles or barriers,8* which this critic has spoken of, from the way to the realization of Rasa amounts only to the natural, adequate and unmisleading presentation of the probable events and the idealized Vibhavas and Bhavas before the spectator who should be made to forget his own joys and sorrows through music and other implements.

Thus finding Abhinavagupta's position with regard to his second presumption as unsecure as that of Bhatta- näyaka was, we now proceed to examine his third which lays down that the perception of the generalised Vibhavas and Bhavas evokes in the mind of the per- ceiver his own latent impressions which too are under- stood by him in the generalised way and which, thus understood, are the source of his pleasure. It is at this presumption chiefly that Abhinavagupta has deviated from Bhattanayaka and has introduced a novelty. Though this presumption itself is based on the second, which, we know, is false, yet, for the time being, let us grant that the mind of the perceiver is free from all disttactions and that the things are presented before him in an' idealised form. The presumption can be broken up in three parts, viz., (1) in the mind of the perceiver his own latent impressions are evoked when he perceives the generalised Vibhavas and Bhavas; (i) the evoked impressions are understood by him not s* The seven obstacles are : (i) प्रतिपत्तावयोग्यता सम्भावनविरहः, (ii) स्वर्गतपरगत्वनियमेन देशकालविशेषावेशः, (ii) तिजसुखादिविवशीभावः, (iv) प्रतीत्युपायवेकल्य, (v) स्फुटत्वाभावः, (vi) अंप्रधानता, and (vii) संशययोग:

64, PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

as pertaining to any individual but in their abstract form; (ii) the pleasure of the perceiver consists in his concentration on the awakened impressions or Sthāyi- bhavas. The first part presumes that the mind of the perceiver is like an unexposed film on which the depicted emotion in poetty is imprinted without any modi- fication. We have taken for granted, it is true,, that . this mind is free from all distractions, but it means only this much that the focus of its attention or the object of its cognition is 'only the poetic phenomenon and nothing else. Abhinavagupta has not explained to us how the emotions, which are the objects of the cognition of the mind, are able to arouse in it its own latent impressions. The Anubhavas etc. suggest that the emotions are there, but how are they able to pass them on to the perceiver? The Vibhavas etc. are directly related to the Aśraya or the character in whom the emotion resides, and not to the perceiver. How are they able to kindle the same emotion in the perceiver ? Such are the questions which relevantly make their appearance, but which remain unanswered in the present exposition of this theory. Also in actuality we do not find people experiencing the depicted emotions. If the attitude of a perceiver towards a particular character be sympathetic, he may feel amused when the character is in love-making with another, and he may feel pity when it is in distress. But he cannot feel love or Rati at an amorous scene, or pathos or Soka at a pathetic one unless he is reminded of his own frolics in the former case and of the bereavement of his dearest in the latter. But this would not happen to him as his mind has been assumed to be free from all distractions. Besides, a perceiver is not in sympathetic relations with all the characters. There is the villain, for instance, with whom a perceiver in his emotional moods feels displeased or antipathetic. Whenever this villain even attempts to make love with the heroine, he feels offended and annoyed; and whenever a misfortune befalls him, he feels a sort of satisfaction. Here if it be objected that when we have assumed that the Vibhavas and the

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Bhavas are presented before the perceiver in a generalisedi form, 'our attitude can neither be sympathetic nor. antipathetic towards any character, we should admit the objection .. But then the generalised Vibhavas and' the Bhavas will not at all command any emotional, response in the mind of a perceiven who shall have merely an intellectual cognition of their existence. And when this would happen the presumption that the perception of the generalised Vibhavas and Bhavas evokes in the mind of the perceiver his own latent impressions would fall. down at its defender's own hands. After establishing that no latent instincts are evoked: in the mind of the perceiver by his perception of a literaty phenomenon the second part of the first pre- sumption; which asserts that the evoked instincts are understood by the perceiver in their abstract form; gives way automatically, for when the instincts are not evoked at all; the question of their being understoodt' in one way or the other does not arise. But granting once again- that these instincts are evoked' in the mind! of the perceiver let us scrutinize whether and how they' can be understood in their abstract form. They cannot be understood by him as his own, it has been main tained; because if they are so understood "his- own, interest in guarding himself from observation, say, in- love-making; is sure to interfere with his enjoyment of aesthetic pleasure"*35 But from whose observation- shall he guard' himself? When he is dallymg. with his fair partner in his closet does he need this conscious and' continuous guarding? Obviously he does' not; because he is sure that nobody would intrude in' their' privacy. In the theatre-hall also, with a mind freer' from all- distractions, with his absolute and undiverted' attention fixed: on the object of his perception; and! with no knowledge of any outside phenomenon, there, is the least'reason for him to feel afraid of being perceived- by anybody else. When his mind is- already rid' of all' the obstacles, not' to speak anything of his being' 3s Vide. the epitome of Abhinavagupta's theory quoted supra. 9

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interested in guarding himself from observation, he cannot even afford for a moment to become conscious of the possibility of being looked over by anybody. Thus we find that the reason which has been assigned to negate the possibility of understanding the evoked impressions as one's own does not stand. Let us now admit that they cannot be understood by the perceiver as those of his friends and foes, not because if they are, his joy, sorrow and hatred etc. would interpose between his mind and the enjoyment of pleasure, but because the perceiver's mind is not capable of, free from dis- tractions as it is, ascribing them to any outside people. There is one possibility, however, that he may choose his friends and foes even from the characters of the world of poetry making noble characters his friends and wicked ones his foes. We had considered this possibility while dealing with the first part of this presumption, and there it was objected to as we had admitted that the Vibhavas and the Bhavas are presented before the perceiver in a generalised form. Here again it is nullified for this reason as well as for the reason that now the impressions have passed from the characters - to the perceiver whose own dormant instincts have been evoked. Having denied all other possibilities we are now left with only two out of which not more than one can be correct. The evoked impressions should be understood by the perceiver either as his own or in" their abstract or idealised form. Taking Abhinava- gupta's position we have noticed that his objection against the first alternative is wrong. Referring to our experience and observation we find that if at all a perceiver's own emotion is aroused during his perception of a poetic phenomenon, it is always understood by. him as his own. If the nature of his emotion is sym- pathetic, the sympathy is his; and if it is a genuine emotion called forth because of his remembering his own past incidents or events, then again the emotion is genuinely his. In neither case he is required to conceal himself from observation, for, in the former, sympathetic emotions are not to be concealed, and,

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, in the latter, the Vibhavas etc. which call forth the emotion are manifested not outside his mind but only in his memory and imagination. So we can legiti- mately conclude that whatever dormant feelings .are " evoked in the mind of the perceiver at his perception of the poetic phenomenon, they are his, and are under- stood by him as such, and that it is impossible for him' to understand the feelings thus evoked in an abstract generaltsed way. Coming to the third part of the third presumption we find Abhinavagupta asserting that the pleasure of the poetic relish consists in perceiver's concentration on the awakened Sthāyībhavas. But these Sthāyībhavas in themselves are not much important. Abhinavagupta emphasizes over and over again that it is due to the absolute calmness (Samvid Visranti) of the mind' and its perception which is free from all distractions (Vita- vighna Pratitth) that the pleasure is there. In advocating this view he is clearly following the teachings of the Sankhya school of philosophy which maintains that from the repose of the mind results all pleasure and from its oscillation (Samvd Avsrant) all unhappiness (Duhkha). Abhinavagupta has himself pointed out that the perception' of things in their individual character cannot be the source of our pleasure as such perception is full of batriers or obstacles (Vighnabahula Pratitih): To' believe in this view of Abhinavagupta based on the Sankhya tenet is to believe in its indispensable and immediate 'corollary that all the experiences of our actual life, which are necessarily particularsed as they pertain to either particular things or particular indivi- duals, are always coloured with pain and never with pleasure. If such an absurd position to which this theory, of Abhinava leads inevitably were revealed even before him; we can feel cent per cent sure that 1 he would have decidedly preferred to abandon his theory to sticking to this obviously incongruous position, for he himself has talked of both personal pains and personal 'pleasures.

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The fourth presumption of Abhinavagupta has already been met with while dealing with all his three predecessors, and hence it does not require even a mention for the fourth time. To sum up our criticism of this theory we find that in spite of its recognition through a decade of centuries it remains as unsound and as ill-founded as are all those that precede it. A mind free from all distractions, the generalısed Vibhāvas and the Bhavas, the evokation of the Sthāyībhavas or permanent mental conditions in the mind of the perceiver and the abstract form in which they are understood are the things which it talks of and which exist nowhere except in imagination. Lastly, the worst of it is 4ts explanation of the aesthetic pleasure based on the Sankhya tenet that leads to the obviously absurd con- clusion, which nobody can admit, that all the experiences of actual life are always painful.

The problem of the relish of poetry .or Kāvya- Rasāsvādana was taken up even after Abhinavagupta by Dhanañjaya, Mammata, Viśvanatha, Jagannātha and others and some of them have given a wvery elaborate exposition of their views. But none of the later writers on this subject differs from Abhinavagupta in any essential point. In the whole range of Samskrta.poetics ithere is, however, one work, viz., Natyadarpana36, the authors of which had the courage to maintain, even against the tradition, that the end of all poetry is not ito please, and that the Kanuna, Raudra, Vibhatsa and Bhayanaka Rasas are the source of our pain and not of pleasure. According to them it is the skill of the artist and the actor in representing things in their natural form that attracts us towards drama and makes us admire 1t37. 30 Natyadarpana is a treatise on dramaturgy by Rāmacandra and Gunacandra, the'former being a desciple of Hemacandra. The work is published in the Gaekwar Oriental Series, Baroda. 87 ,अतएव भयानकादिभिरुद्विजते समाजः। न नाम सुखास्वादादुद्वेगो घटते॥ यत्पुनरेभिरपि चमत्कारो दृश्यते स रसास्वादन्निरामे सति यथावस्थित- वस्तुप्रदशकेन कविनटशचितकौशलेन।" Quoted from Natyadarpana in Phil, of Aesth, Pleasure, p. 201.

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This view is correct at least in this much that whenever there is a sympathetic response in the mind of the perceiver, the depiction of the pathetic emotion or the like does excite an unpleasant feeling in him.' What 'are the feelings other than sympathetic, which are produced in the mind of the perceiver as a result of his perception of the poetic or dramatic phenomenon, we shall see in detail in the next chapter.

In the Riti period of Hindi Literature we"find a host of authors writing on Rasa and 'other subjects. of poetics, but none of them has showed 'any ingenvity in explaining the process of the realization of Rasa. Truly speaking, they were poets and not critics and their contribution to literature consists in the beautiful stray stanzas which they composed to illustrate their definitions. Their explanation of Rasa is more or less a versified translation of the famous dictum of Bharata without any further elaboration38. It was 'with the advent of the twentieth centuty, when prose thad already grown to be the prominent medium of expression, , that critical works on poetics began to appear in prose. But even such works were based on one or more of

38 The following definitions of Rasa may be quoted here from some of the most important writers to support this statement ; (1) "मिल विभाव अनुभाव पुनि, संचारी सुअनूप। व्यग करैं थिर भाव जो, सोई रास सुखरूप।।।" -Keśavadāsa, Rasıkprıyā. (11) "जो विभाव अनुभाव अरु बिभाव्वारिन करि होइ। थित की पूरन बासना, सुकवि कहत रस सोह।।"

(iu) "मिलि विभाव अनुभाव पुनि, सचारिन के वृंद। -Deva, Bhavavilāsa.

परिपूरन थिर आव यो सुर स्वरूप आनन्द ।। ज्योपय पाइ बिकार कछ है दधि होत अनूप।' तैसे ही थिरभाव को बरनत कवि रसरूप।।" -Padamākara, Jagadvinoda. (v) "जहँ विभाव अनुभाव विभिचारी देत प्रकास1 थाई, भावहि मोदमय सोई रस की रास।" -Beni Pravīna, Navarasa-Taranga.

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the existing Samskrta works and displayed no originality worthy of its name. Dr. Syamasundara Dasa while explaining and supporting the view of Abhinavagupta on Rasa-realization has gone to the extent of saying that the theory of Rasa cannot be understood on the- basis of the western psychology," and thus he has denied all possibilities of its reinterpretation and re- formation making it static and final. Ayodhya Simha Upādhyäya has observed with a great deal of gusto that all the Rasas afford nothing but pleasure to the perceiver on the strength of an illustration which his inventive mind could think of. He says that when we see a villain tortured, we do not sympathise with him in the least and feel only a sense of pleasure and satisfaction.4° We have to admire, no doubt, the caution with which he has chosen this illustration, for nobody can dispute its truth with reference to his own experience. We do feel a sort of satisfaction when we see miseries befalling a character with whom our relations are antipathetic. But it is not always the villains who are tortured. Even men of noble character sometimes fall into the clutches of cruel fate and undergo the most heart-rending sufferings in the world of poetry and drama, just as they do in the world of reality. We do not know why a scholar of the eminence of Upādhyāya has evaded to tell us how even the perception of these distressing sufferings can be the source of our pleasure. Rämacandra Sukla11 has given a new interpretation to Sādhāranīkarana (or generalisation) which is essentially his own. But he had not the audacity to admit it as his, and has wrongly attributed it to the Indian tradition of poetics. He has said that Sādhāraņīkarana as con- ceived by Abhinavagupta cannot possibly be manifested, and according to him it consists in the presentation of the Vibhavas etc. in such a form as they may arouse

8º Vide Sahityālocana, p 236. 40 Vide R.K., pp. (Introduction) 31-33. 41 'Vide hıs article Sadhāranīkarana aura Vyaktivaicıtryavāda in D. A. Grantha.

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in the minds of the perceivers those very feelings which they do in the minds of the characters of poetry. But he himself admits that the operation of Sadhāranīkarana even in this sense of affecting oneness (Tādatmya) of the perceiver and the Asraya (or the dramatic' character) is a very rare happening when he maintains that the dramatis personae according to their individual dis- positions are respected, loved, and hated by the per- ceivers. When this happens, says he, the perceiver , does not find himself identified with the Asraya, and he feels an emotion other than that of the Aśraya. This relish he calls inferior to that which one has when he feels identified with the characters of poetry. But as regards the cause of this distinction of superiority and inferiotity between the two sorts of relishes he has totally left us in the dark. Dr. Bhagavan Das42 has given us a peculiat inter- pretation of Rasa which, according to him, consists in our recollection of an emotion which we have ex- perienced : Bhavasmaranam Rasah as he puts it. He says : When two men are fighting, they do not realize any Rasa; but having stopped fighting if one of them says to the other, "Will you fight even now ?" he ex- periences Raudra Rasa or the furious sentimènt. Here he has taken Rasa in the sense of emotion, for the man, . who remarks as above' after he has already fought, does not realize any Rasa or ielish, but only becomes conscious of his emotion of anger. Rasa with this · interpretation is entirely disconnected with the problem of the relish of poetry, and, therefore, in the present section of this work we need not enter into any further discussion on this view of Dr. Bhagavan Das. Allardyce Nicoll 'in his work entitled The Theory of Drama has quoted explanations on Tragic Relief or Tragic Pleasure from a number of European scholars; He himself has established at the outset that the function of all poetry-even that of tragedy-is to please in * Vide his article Rasa-Mīmamsa in D. A. Grantha.

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raising the question, "If tragedy thus deals with misery what pleasure do we gain from it ?"43 A complete system of Rasa like that of the east was not built up. in the west, and, therefore, the problem of the relish of poetty has not been discussed there with, reference to the Vibhavas and Anubhavas etc. in, a general way. But the depiction of all the human emotions, painful · and pleasurable alike, was there in the literature of the west, as it is in the literatures of all the countries. Believing, consciously or unconsciously, in the Hedonistic theory of art and finding people taking interest even in the representation of the painful emo- tions on the stage the western genius, not very much. unlike the eastern, set itself to find out the secrets of the pleasure afforded by such pathetic representations. The scope of this essay does not permit to deal with- all the views refeired to by Nicoll in detail. We shall consider here very briefly only the most important ones. Earliest is the theory of Katharsis (purgation) advanced by Aristotle and it "affirms that by arousing pity and fear tragedy, affects a purgation of these and. kindred emotions" .* By Purgation P. Pañcapagesa Sastri understands the extraction of its painful element - from an emotion. "The reason", continues he, "why this puiging is effected only in the world of poetry. and drama and not in the world of actuality is that in the first things are idealised".45 Interpreting this theory in this light Sastri has taken it very close to the theory, of Abhinavagupta of which he himself is a great champion. As we have already known the element of truth in the theory of Abhinavagupta, we ned not take up here the whole discussion afresh. .- The next theory which we shall consider here ascribes the function of purging away the painful' 43 Theory of Drama, p. 119. Ild., p. 122. 45 Plnl. of Aesth. Pleasure, p. 203,

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element from a tragedy, to its poetical effect. "There is", -says this theory, "the presence of the creative artistic power of the dramatist himself, and, particularly in the Greek and Elizabethan plays, the thythm of the verse, to ieave away our minds for a moment from the gloomy depths of the tragedy"46 While examining the first 'part of the first postulation of Bhattanāyaka we had seen that the graces and beauties of expression and presentation haye nothing in them to aid any of the functions attributed to the power of Bhavakatya. Here at may be remarked once again with emphasis that whenever the artist's selection of the rhythm, melody and diction would be consistent with the spirit of the tragedy he is producing, at must intensify, and not nullify or even minimize, the pathetic effect of his creation.

Next is the theory of Schopenhauer whose view. has been represented by Nicoll as follows : "Tiagedy is the form of diamatic art an whioh tthis , serious and miserable side of life is emphasized. All men vaguely, and wise men consciously, realize the utte vanity of living, and in tiagedy we are given prime iepiesentation of the worthlessness of all things".+7 But here we are not told what pleasure we gain in realizing the utter vanity of living. Besides, vanity of vamties as not the emotion which results in the mind of all men, or even in that of all wise men, upon the -Witnessing of a tragedy. Particularly an Indian mind trained in the teachings of Gita can never consider' life to be worthless

Schlegel seems to have approached the problem more accurately. "When", says he, . "We contemplafe the relations of our existence to the extreme limit of possibilities, .. when we consider that we are exposed in our weak and helpless state to struggle with the immeasurable powers of nature .... 4e Theory of Drama, p. 132. t Ibid., p. 133. 10 -

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then every mind which is not dead to feeling must be overpowered by an inexpressible melancholy, against which thete is no other protection than the consciousness of a destiny soaring above this earthly life ..... We thus see that tragic poetry has its foundation in our nature, and to a certain extent we have answered the question why we are fond of mournful representations, and even find something consoling and elevating in them".48 Schlegel 1s himself conscious of the incompleteness of his explanation, and he is honest enough to admit that he has answered the question only to a certain extent. The incompleteness of his explanation is two- fold. It is true that to take interest in the woeful tales of others is inherent in human nature. Yet during the perception of a tragedy it is not always that a per- ceiver really sympathizes with the dramatis personae. In spite of his close relationship with the world of feeling if the perceiver remains throughout fully conscious of the fact that the object of his perception is merely a representation, he shall relish it without himself being affected by the emotions depicted therein. Moreover, even when his consciousness that what he is percerving is not real passes to the region of sub- conscious and he is sympathetically touched with the miseries of the characters moving before him, he need not necessarilv feel that dejection and helplessness which he has been assumed to feel by Schlegel. This view, however, is unique in admitting that it is not pleasure which is produced in the mind of the spectator of a tragedy.

Timocles comes forward with another explanation and he declares that the spectator "at a tragic performance is reminded that all his calamities, which seem greater than mortal man has ever horne, have happend to others, and so he bears his trials more easily".4º Timocles seems to be believing that man feels a sort of satisfac- tion or consolation when he finds others in misery. 43 Ibid, p. 134. * Ibid., pp. 134-135,

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But this is opposed to experience. Even in real life 'this kind of satisfaction is felt very rarely. In the world, of poetry and drama, firstly, a perceiver does 'not meet with only those calamities which have be- fallen him, and, secondly, when he meets with the calamities he has undergone, he feels all the more sympathetic towards the unfortunate victim. Thus the theory of Timocles is doubly erroneous. The last view which we shall consider here is that 'of Fontenelle and is expressed in his work entitled Reflexions sur la Poetique. According to this view pleasure and pain are sisters, and'in meeting with one we discern the form of the other. "May be this psycho- logically is true", says Nicoll, "but it is difficult to agree that when an assembled audience in the theatre is swayed and torn by the brilliant performance of "some terrible tragedy it extracts real pleasure in this way -out of the painful scenes"." To this criticism I would add that the audience extracts pleasure from the pathetic representations neither in this way nor " necessarily in any other, and that when it is actually swayed and torn at the spectacle, what it extracts is real pain. Having considered the views on the subject of the relish of poetry of a number of the distinguished scholars of the orient and the occident, of the present and the past, I now proceed to put forward my own. studies on the subject. But before coming to the main theme it is but proper that I should explain how and why I do not consider pleasure to be the end of all poetry, and why a startling majority of critics has be- Lieved it to be such even against experience. I have, already pointed out in the beginning of this essay that the cause of this misguided belief is not the actual pleasurable experience of the perception of all poetic phenomena by anybody; it is rather the wrong pre- supposition that 'we undertake to do only pleasing 5o Theory of Drama, p. 135.

PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

things. The tears secreted duiing the perception of a heart-rending tragedy were realized by nobody to be the tears of joy, but they were inferred to be so, because, if they were not, it was thought, why should the perceiver have at all gone to the theatre volun- tarily ? Let us, therefore, first of all see that even in actual life it is not only the pleasure-giving activities that we voluntarily indulge in. Human mind is a complex phenomenon and its tendencies are not alto- gether egoistic. A man takes interest not only in himself, but also in other men, in their joys and sorrows. If these joys and sorrows are of such men as are closely related to us, our concern with them is very deep; but even if they are of such men as are totally unknown to us, our interest is still there with them. A father listens with the gieatest possible interest to the sad story of the distressing sufferings of his darling daughter who comes to him bereft of her husband. The tale which he hears affords him nothing but intense pain, and yet he hears it and hears it voluntarily and anxiously. But, suppose, the girl who comes to him is not his daughter but a girl not known to him previously. Even in this case if the man is a gentlemen and if he does not doubt that the girl has come to cheat him, will he not listen to her tale patiently and sympathetically and will he not shed tears-tears of real pain of course- at her tragic and irremediable plight? The answer must be in the affirmative. Let us take a simpler illus- tration. On a road an accident occurs. A handsome youth has been struck down by a rash motor-driver. His body is mutilated and is stained with dirt and blood presenting a pathetic and loathsome spectacle. Passers- by hear of this unpleasant accident and gather at the scene. They come voluntarily, and, it is obvious, they do not come to realize any pleasure. When they see the unfortunate victim cut short of his life in the bloom of his youth they feel sorty over the mishap; and when they learn that he is leaving a young widow behind whom he had married only a month ago, their sympathy and pain are still greater. And in spite of

. PERCEPTION AND RELISH OF POETRY-

all the pain that they are having they are still ready to welcome and to hear with interest any other detail about him, even though it may add to their sympathetic sorrow.

Thus we find that it is in the nature of man to take interest even in the affairs of others and to feel pain in sympathy if the others are in distress. He may make himself indifferent to the pleasures of others ; but he can hardly ever afford to turn a deaf ear to. their miseries, though he knows full well that his association with the miseries of anybody will make him morose. He voluntanly invites this pain because his nature is such. If he finds or hears of a catastrophe, the like of which he has never known, befalling an unfortunate person, he painfully feels interested in it, because he cannot avoid to know what is misery; if the calamity is 'such as he has obseived even previously; his sym- patheuc interest is all the more in its repetition ; and if he himself has undergone the suffering, laid down with which now he sees another person, his interest, sympathy and pain are all greatest, because he himself knows in this case the thrilling agomies and pangs which accompany that suffering. 'Heie it may be ob- jected that certan sights may be so pathetic and so hoirible that a person may not like to witness them. The objection is true and must be admitted. But we shall see presently that even in the world of poetry and drama such scenes are not always relished by every- body.

So the proposition, on the basis of which pleasure was supposed to be the end of all poetry is proved to be wrong. Now we shall see how it is not pleasure that we realize at, the sympathetic perception of the representation of an unpleasant situation. Let us import here the two illustrations of the widowed girl and the motor accident we have just examined. If the. pen directed by the masterly mind of an artist has been able to depict the woes and miseries of the un-

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fortunate girl in a picturesque language, and if the skill of the directors and the actors has been able to represent the accident on the screen in a realistic way, the sympathetic emotional reaction in the mind of the perceiver can for no reason be of a quality different from that of the reaction which was evoked when the scenes were real and not fictitious. It is, however, possible not to have a sympathetic response at all, for to have such a response it is necessary that the knowledge that the object of perception is a mere representation should shift from the focus of conscious- ness to its margin.51 But when this shifting has once taken place, nothing is lett there to differentiate between the experences of reality and its representation. Rather the experience of the representation is more intense than the experience of the reality, because our knowledge of the former is complete and in its context while that of the latter is not so. Let us explain this. In the case of the unfortunate girl really appearing before . the old man, theie is, firstly, the probability that he may doubt that the girl has come to cheat him. But even if this does not happen, it can never be possible for the girl, secondly, to acquaint the old man with all the aspects and details of her miseries. But when the character of this girl is taken up by a novelist and is presented before us, we feel as if we have been with the poor girl since the dawn of her life. We know how once she was rich and prosperous, how she married and lived happily with her husband who was gentle and affectionate, then how the cruel fate snatched away from her her most precious possession, how afterwards &1 "The focus and margin together make up the 'field of con- sciousness'. .If I am sitting in a railway station waiting- room, reading a book which is interesting but not difficult, there may be continual noise from persons passing in and out and talking, from the arrival and departure of trains, from the street outside, and not only hearing but all senses are appealed to; but while I am intent upon the book, the ideas suggested by the printed words are in the focus of consciousness, and all the other experiences in the margin". -Elements of Psych., p. 77.

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she was ill-treated by the other members of the family and was eventually made to leave the house, how and with what difficulties she protected herself from the ill eyes of the vicious world, and, lastly, how she has been roaming about with no shed to sleep under in . the nights, with no clothes to guard herself from the biting blasts of the winter and going without food for days together. When we know all this from the graphic descriptions-of the novelist, when the doubt that shè might be there to deceive us does not attend us in the least, and when the knowledge that the tale is not real has passed to the margin of consciousness, obviously our sympathy with the girl will be far greater than that of the good old man before whom the girl had actually appeared, and consequently we shall realize , a greater pain and feel a deeper sorrow. Let us now take up the other illustration also. The spectators of the accident had been able to know only this much that the deceased person was a youth and that he was wedded a month since. But the producer of the picture will tell us more. We shall see on the screen that the youth, who thus met an untimely death, was running to call a doctor for his wife who was ailing and who had been begging of him not to leave her as she was apprehending an evil beforehand. We shall furthei see that when the heart-breaking news reaches the ears of the lovely little thing, who had not yet attained full womanhood and whose visions of a long and happy life with her husband were falsified like a dream, the unlucky creature is mad with inexpressible agony. And when we shall see all this and a hundred other things, our heart will melt and our eyes will shed tears profusely. These tears and this melting of the heart can be regarded as connected with pleasure only by, him who has no faith in his own experience and who relies for his knowledge either on an authority or on inference based on even false propositions. This is how pleasure cannot be considered to be the end of all poetry, It has not been so considered

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in practice even by others. If a generalisation as contemplated by Bhattanayaka and Abhinavagupta were possible and if pleasure had been the only resultant of our perception of poetry, nobody should have felt disgusted at the obscene erotic scenes, the doctors should not have advised their patients suffering from pulpitation of heart not to see grim tragedtes and other horrible representations, and the sanatorium authorities should not have passed only such literature to the consumptives as may inspire hope and be free from the spirit of melancholy. As a matter of fact it has been universally admitted that it is not pleasure that is always realized through the perception of the poetic phenomena; but the genus of those who have tackled the subject of the relish of poetry in its technical aspect was blunted by the strong stone-wall of the great heritage and tradition of the Indian poetics in particular and by the misguided belief in the Hedonism in general.

What then is the secret of the relish of poetty?' It consists in our interest to perceive it, and I have indicated it already in the introductory paragraph of this chapter. But now is the proper occasion to under- stand its implications fully. James Drever describes Interest as a "feeling of worthwhileness".&2 "The greater the interest", say Mellone and Drummond, "(whether painful or pleasurable) the grcater the atten- tion may be regarded as a self-evident truth".53 According to McDougall "a man is said to be interested in a certain obiect or topic, even though he may be thinking of othet things", because "if he is interested in it, his attention can readily be drawn to it and, when so drawn, will usually be sustained and keen, or, as we say, concentrated" .* Thus it is our interest in a particular phenomenon that attracts us towards it and keeps us clung to it; and we feel that our attach- $2 Instinct m Man, p. 130. #3 Elements of Psych., p. 131. $ Ontline of Psych., p. 274.

PERCEPTION AND RELISH OF POETRY 81

ment with it is worthwhile, even though it may 'afford us pain. Our interest in poetry means that our mind is so disposed that whenever" a poetic phenomenon is presented before it, it shall voluntarily tend to bring it into the focus of its attention, and when the pheno- menon is so brought into the focus of attention, it shall stick to it and relish it. But 'the poetic pheno- menon may be there in the focus of -our attention even when we are not interested in it, as in the case of a student who has to read a poem, whether he wills or not, to prepare for an examination. In such a state of affairs we shall not relish the piece at all and our attention will tend to slide away from it."

The terms Interest and Relish are almost synony- mous with each other with reference to poetty. Interest Is comparatively a permanent disposition of the mind and becomes Relish when it is in action, and Relish , is nothing but a manifestation of Interest. If a poetical piece interests us, we must relish it, and af we relish its perception, it must interest us. A caution, however, is necessaty here. Poetry, as we have observed in the fitst chapter of this section, is a subjective pheno- menon and it cannot be so called unless it is actually taken interest in as such. So interest in poetty should

#E Whenever should not be mismnterpreted to mean at any odd time, whether or not we are in the proper mood and have the proper leisure to perceive poetry. $6 The tendency of the attention to slide away is weakened if even the derived interest in the perception of poetry is of a very high degree. To relish poetry means to perceive it with genuine interest. Genuine or immediate interest in poetry should be differentiated from the derived interests in it. If poetry is perceived because we are interested in the end to which its perception would lead us, or if it is perceived out of mere curiosity to see what is there, or because we expect to find there something which we may relish, our interest in the perception is derived and not genuine. While we perceive poetry with derived interest, we cannot relish it unless genuine interest is also created during its perception. 11

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be taken to mean a permanent mental disposition of attachment, not towards any composition which ob -. jectively goes by the name of poetry, but towards only such compositions as may actually inteiest a particular perceiver as poetry.

I had pointed out that the theoties on the reali- zation of Rasa suffer from this common defect that they do not tell us how and why we relish even such poetry as does not come under the denotation of Rasa. The theory which has been established here is obviously free from this defect, for it explains our relish of poetry of any kind or description making our interest in it the cause of our attraction towards it. Why a parti- cular person is interested to perceive only a particular class of composition or representation is the question which can be answered only by referring to the heredity and the environment of that person. But it is not within the scope of this work to study any number of concrete and particular cases in this light. I shall, however, attempt a classification of the feelings which constitute and the factors which determine our poetic 1elish or poetic interest in the next two chapters. But as henceforward the term Interest has not been used, it is necessary to note here that the elements of mood and understanding, talked of in the fourth chapter of this section as determining the form of our poetic relish, should be eliminated with reference to poetic interest which is a permanent mental disposition.

CHAPTER . IIİ

. COMPONENT: FEELINGS' OF POETIC RELISH

Poetic Relish is. a mental phenomenon and is . . composed of the feelings' which are evoked in the mind of the perceiver as a psychological reaction ito his, per- ception of poetry. Feelings thus evoked cannot always correspond, with the emotion depicted in poetry. Besides, poetry does, not solely consist insthe depiction of one emotion or the other. Nature-painting 'and , description of a cultural and social milieu may also be the independent subjects of poetry. But whether or not the subject-matter of poetry is a feeling' or.an emotion, its perception must evoke in the mind of the perceiver certain feelings. We shall see in. this chapter , what are the different types into which these feelings ,can be classified.

First of all there are Sympathetic feelingsa which can be evoked, only when the knowledge that the object of. our perception is fictitious shifts to the margintof our consciousness. . These feelings are' not very much : different from our those sympathetic feelings which we experience in the world of reality. The, only mark of distinction is ;this that while we see a man being whipped on the, screen we do not run to, save,him, for the consciousness that what we are perceiving is 1 The term Feeling has been used here in its widest sense in which it is synonymous with any mental experience. For a fuller discussion on the'meaning of this term refei to the first chaptei of the second section. , . ) %0 2 2 The theory of Rasa as exposed by Abhinavagupta and his followers seems to recognize only this' class of feelings as the basis of poetic relish., Their conception of even these feelings was very crude for they identified the personality , of the interested perceiver with that of the 'hero./ (Vide S.D., p, 77).

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merely a picture and not a reality is there in the margin and is called to the focus the very moment the idea of running occurs in the mind. Thus though we never actually run to save the person from being whipped, yet it cannot be doubted that we do, some- times at least, feel like saving him. It should be cate- fully noted that to feel sympathy does not mean to feel the exact emotion of the person or the character with whom sympathy is felt. When we see a person in - misery, what we mostly feel is pity and not miserable- ness. Similarly fear is felt not when we perceive 'a terrrfied chatacter but when we find a noble character making some such blunder as may lead him to a tragic end. To illustrate, m the Hindi picture Jhula an anxious fear of this sort is felt at the scenes in which Sureśa-Rameśa (Asoka Kumāra) and Gītā (Lilā Cțanisa) are shown to be misunderstood by each other, the misunderstanding of one being not known to the other, for it is with these scenes that the romance of the hero and the heroine takes a tragic turn. Another important thing about these feelings is this that they can be made to disappear by bringing the fact that the object of perception is merely an imaginary creation of an artist to the focus of consciousness. Sometimes to get rid of the gloomy mood and to stop the secretion of tears it is useful to bring into pfominence even wilfully the consciousness of the fictitious nature of the tragical poctic phenomenon under perception. I myself have to do it very often, for both as a reader and as a spectator I feel watery in my eyes at the perception of the least tragic phenomenon.

Allied to that of the Sympathetic is the class of the Antipathetic feelings" which have in common with the former ones their two characteristics. They too * Ramacandra Sukla recogmized the experience of 'this class of feelings also in addition to that of the feelings of the previous class during the perception of a poetic phenomenon. Vide his ' artıcle Sadhāraņikarana anra Vyaktivaicitryavāda in D. A, Grasthr.

COMPONENT FEELINGS, OF POETIC RELISH 85

can be experienced only when the perceiver isnot immediately conscious of the fact that what he is per- ceiving is not real, and they also can be made to vanish by becoming directly conscious of the true nature of the object of perception. But while Sympathetic feelings are called forth by the 'characters who ,are noble of viciously oppressed and with whom our relations are sympathetic, Antipathetic feelings are generally evoked by agnoble and willathous characters with whom, our relations develop to be antipathetic. We feel only hatred and anger when we find the villain trying to win the love of the heroine by all fair and foul means, and laugh when he is. slapped by the dauntless maiden chaste to her real lover. A sort of satisfaction is felt when a cruel oppressor or a tyrant falls into the grip of ill-fate or is vanquished by an antrepid and virtuous hero. Sometimes antipathetic feelings, can be ex- perienced even for no fault of a character. People who feel disgust at the erotic scenes and towards amorous descriptions for the simple reason that they are erotic 'and amorous are not extremely rare to be found. Like- wise at is not very difficult to discover such people as feel abhorrence when the idea of renunciation ds depicted .*

The third is the calss of the Recollectiunal or Remi- miscential feelings. We know that human life with its varied vicissitudes and diverse problems is included in the subject-matter of poetry, and also that we as human beings have lived a life and have gathered in our minds the latent impressions of our past experiences. A. F. 'Shand in The Foundations -of Character, page 60, has described pantipathetic emotons thus .- " ... .. The sight of joy expressed on the face of-the hated one awakens anguish,. and the sight of sorrow, a hideous oy ; and the expression of his fear awakens no responsive fear, but the hope that what he fears will be accomplished; and the expression of his hope awakens no hope, but the fear that what he hopes will be accomplished. The expression of his anger alone arouses a responsive anger ; but one which is aroused against him and not on his behalf-

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It is not improbable while perceiving the poetic pheno- menon to meet with such situations as we ourselves have undergone; and when we actually meet with such situations, our own latent impressions are brought into the focus of consciousness, our memories of the past are revived. When this happens our feelings remain no more merely sympathetic or even antipathetic, we rather feel a genuine emotion as our own funda- mental determinants ( Alambana Vibhāvas) become avail- able to us with the help. of our memory." But it is not necessary that pleasurable situations should always remind us of our pleasant experiences and the un- pleasant ones of the unpleasant. When an affectionate but unfottunate mother, who has lost her lovely darling child and who still hears the reverberations of its sweet voice in her courtyard, sees a woman on the screen merrily playıng with her beautiful baby, she is reminded, no doubt, of the delight-giving, activities of her own child. But the recollection of those activities now affords her only intense pain, for it is stained with the sorrow of the death of the child. In an analogous way if the sufferings of a character on the stage remind a perceiver of the sufferings of one of his worst anta- gonists, it can well be expected with reason that the reminiscence of the perceiver would afford him only pleasure and not pain. Feelings pertaining to Curiositys form the next 5 "What is true of perceptual process, holds, mutrs mutandss, of ideational. On the perceptual plane, the actual presence of a dangerous situation excites fear; On the ideational, the ideal prevision' of a similar situation has a similar effect. All the general characteristics of emotion, which we have already enumerated, apply equally to perceptual and ideational process" .- G. F. Stout, Mannal of Psych., p. 699. These feelings must not be confused with the curiosity which we have to read either the forthcoming work of a celebrated author, or even an already published work which is much talked of in the literary circles but which has not yet appeared before us. Such a curiosity is not a constituent part of the poetic relish, for it is not evoked as a reaction to the percep- tion of the poetic phenomenon, -

COMPONENT FEELINGS OF POETIC RELISH 87

class. Such feelings are experienced 'in abundance when we 'are reading a detective novel, the relish of which consists almost solely in our curiosity to know how a mysterious murder or a cautions theft is traced to its original perpetrators. Every composition or 1epresentation which has a plot or a story must excite some curiosity in the mind of the perceiver, though its degree may range from very low to very high according to the natures of the excitor and the excited. It should be carefully borne in mind that the greater the importance of such feelings in the relish of a poetic phenomenon, the less it would be relished if perceived a second time, for in subsequent perceptions the feelings of cutiosity cannot be experienced as what shall happen next is already known to the perceiver. This is why the reading of a novel or a story is genetally not repeated unless the memory of the first rcading has totally faded away, or unless there are some such qualities in the piece as may excite even other types of fcelings which constitute our poetic telish.

The fifth class is that of the Reflecttonal feelings or of the feelings which set us to think about a problem connected with some aspect of life. Poetry, drama, novel and short story all present before us vauied pictures of the complex phenomenon of humantty. Relishable perception of literature easily acquaints us with the problems with which we meet at every step while treading 'on the uneven path of life, and very often we begin to reflect upon them. When we see an un- fortunate accomplished girl committing suicide to savc her poor father from the burden of a heavy debt which he must take upon himself to afford the dowry he is required to pay to get-his daughter married, we may grow critical towards this evil conventional practice of our society and may either feel a stiong urge to root it out or brood over the protlem to find an effective solution to it. Evokation of such feelings and the like has become very frequent in the modern times with the growth of such species in contemporary litera-

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ture as problem and satire plays and novels, which either suggest to the perceiver a social, political or economical problem or ridicule a prevalent malpractice of the society.

The sixth and the last class of the feelings evoked by the perception of poetry is that of Critical feelings. At the time of experiencing these feelings it is in the focus of the consciousness of the perceiver that the obiect of his perception is a poetic phenomenon. Feelings pertaining to appreciation and depreciation fall within this class. While going through a piece any graphic description, any vivid characterization or any expression of a noble sentiment may appeal to us and we may like it. In a similar way a description which is clumsy, a characterization which is confusing or an expiessed sentiment which is ignoble may be disparaged by us. A particular arrangement of words, the use of a particular poetic figure or some such other thing may be sometimes felt by us as excellent or worth' less. Often a suggestion for improvement of the natute if it were lke thrs it would have-been better occurs in our mind. All these feelings and the like constitute the class under discussion.

It will not be a digression to consider here the important factors which affect our critical feelings. The foremost is our study and knowledge of the exisung ctitical literature and the principles on which it is based .. A perceier, who has studied the figures of speech and who recognizes them as embellishers of poetry, will appreciate a piece in which Mudralankara has been employed Another perceiver with the knowledge of the poetic blemishes will detest a composition which 1s full of them. An unpsychological characterization in a novel will offend the reader if he happens to be a student of psychology. While reading Sākrla one may feel in it the want of one definite hero, because it has been poured in his ears several times that there. should necessarily be a hero in every epic or drama.

COMPONENT FEELINGS OF:POETIC RELISH $89

Often, our critical feelings are substantially in- fluenced by the etbical, social and political environment in which we live. If we detest to readi an 'obscene passage and if'we hate to' see a naked, shameless'and lustful erotic scene, it is not because it is our' innate nature to do so, but because the moral milieu of our society in which wehave been brought up is such. The cause of the abundance of the peoms of national awakening in the first half of this century and of the fact that they have been actually relished and appre- clated by the. general public is chiefly to be ascribed to the 'advent of a new era of political thought and activities in this country.

Sometimes thet critical feelings are governed also by the tendencyi that our knowledge may not be taken to be shallow and we may not be understood as keeping ourselves behind the times. This tendency is most common among the people whose knowledge is actually shallow, but who wish to show that it is not so. Among the people who regard Rāmacaritamānasa as the. best epic in Hindi Literature there are only a few who have been actually absorbed in it while reading it and who have really discovered some such thing in it as may jusufy their estimation 'of it. Likewise there is no scarcity of such people as consider Chayāvada to be the best form of expression merely on account of its newness and on account of the fact that it is the form which preponderates in the contemporary literature, and not because they are actually swayed by any Chayavadi poem, or because they have been ever able to forget thei meals during its perception.

Besides these factors which influence our critical feelings there are others which affect not only these critical feelings, but also all other types of feelin 80 of which our poetic relish is composed. We have called these factors the determining elements of poetic relish and shall consider them in detail in the chapter that follows, The three factors enumerated and dis- 12.

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-cussed above form merely a part of the sixth determining element: (viz., Personality of the perceiver-his natute and taste) discussed in the next chapter, for they tell us how our taste is developed and formed by the external influences.

Every feeling that is evoked by our perception of literature must be one of the six types into which we have classified all such feelings. Our poetic relish as we experience it is made up of these feelings and is not something different from them -- unworldly, inexpressible (Alaukika and Anirvacanīya as held by Viśvanātha)' or supersensuous (Para-pratyaksa-gamya as held by Syamasundara Dāsa).8 Before concluding this chapter it is important to point out that during our perception of a poetic phenomenon it is not necessarý that we should experience the feelings of all the six types. But one critical feeling or the other must always be evoked, whether or not those of any other types are experienced by the perceiyer. It should also be noted that the feelings of the sympathetic and anti- pathetic classes can be experienced. only when the poetic phenomenon under perception deals with some emotion, the feelings pertaining to curiosity only when it tells a story and the reflectional feelings only when it suggests, satirises or deals with some problem or evil of the society.

Vide Sahityadarpang, chap. III. Vide Sahityalocana, chap, on Rasa.

CHAPTER'IV DETERMINING ELEMENTS OF POETIC RELISH By poetic felish I mean to convey all its component feelings which have been dealt with in detail, in the preceding chapter. It is no wonder if the Samsktta scholars of poetics, who had so narrow a view about these feelings as to recognize but one class of thein (viz., Sympathetic),' did not give us any: mfoimation about the elements whichh determine such feelings. ' And what could have been the ground fot. them- to imagine any other determining element except the subject-matter 'when they regarded! ther represented emotion and its reaction in the mind of an anterested perceiver as identical. - '. In the history of the Indian science of Ru'sa there has been a controversy about the person in 'whom Rasa exists or resides. It has been said to exist by some in a hero,' and by others even in am actor instead of the perceiver. The reason of this differencerof opinion is not to be sought inthe psychological fact that there is, difference in opinion and"difference -in taste, but in the traditional mistake which disregards the psychological 'difference in the mental. dispositions of the hero, the actor and the perceivet ?. Theview of those who thought that Rasa resides, in the mind of the hero was plausible in this light that the depicted ' fundamental and excitant determinants (Alambana and Uddipana Vibhavas) and, consequents ( Anubhavas) stand in direct relationship with the hero and not with the perceiver, and that the receptacle for the corresponding feeling. (Bhava) is also the mind of the hero. In a similar way if the expressions of an emotion i a"success- ful actor, on account of their being very near to those 1 As' for instante by Bhattalollata. 8 As for' instance by Saňkuka!

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of the hero,* attracted a few critics to affirm the existence of Rasa in the actor, it should be admitted to be natural. Visvanātha, who supposed that the personality of an interested perceiver makes itself identical with, that of the hero, triéd to differentiate between their ex- perience by imagining the supernatural function of generalization (Vibhāvana or Sādhāranīkarana).4' But this attempt of' his was 'outside" the province of psychology, and hence it could not correct the mistake referred to above. At the time of the operation of an emotion, there must exist its permanent state (Sthāyībhāva), determinants and consequents, for these elements have been recog- nized in one form or the other even by the modern psychologists." But while dealing with poetic relish we discover that these elements do not affect the relisher or perceiver of poetry in the way in which they affect' the hero. Man is an intellectual and rational being. The subject-matter of poetry serves merely as'a funda- mental determinant ( Alambana Vibhava) for the way in which he relishes poetry and in which its ideas and thoughts affect him. As an exciting. object singly cannot determine the nature and shade of an emotion, so a piece of poetry. cannot indicate even approximately the type of interest or relish which it shall afford to a particular reader. Assuming the perceiver of poetry as the receptacle ( Asraya) of poetic relish and the poetry which is relished as the, fundamental determinant, our object is to find out in this essay the other elements 3- "Mr. Wm. Archer, who has made a very instructive statistical enquiry among the actors, says that the emotion of the part ' masters them whenever they play it well" .- Psych. J., chap. XXIV. Vide S.D., chap. III. 5 "Emotions are relatively fixed psychoses (instict-feelings) [Sthäyībhävas] coincident with corresponding fixed co-ordi- nates of instinctive activities [Anubhavas] arising upon the presentation of determinate objective conditions [Vibhāvas]". -H. R. Marshall, Pam,: Pleasure and Aesthetics, chap. II. Matter between the Square brackets has been suggested by me,

DETERMINING ELEMENTS OF POETIC RELISH 293

which in conjunction with each other give a definite shape to the relish of poetry. " Though,-it 'is true, the receptacle and the excifing object '(-Alambana ' Vibhava) of a feeling tell us little - about the feeling -itself, yet 'the importance of these elements is undebatable, for they serve as a 'basis to proceed' on -to discover others. The subject-matter . of poetry, before it becomes the object of our percep- tion, assumes, some form of prose, verse, drama, story, etc., and, in addition to this, we can perceive it either as a reader, or as a listener, or as a spectator. The environment and atmosphere in which poetry is per- ceived and created also affects its relish. Coming to the perceiver we can never disregard his nature and taste. Then the perceiver is not always in the same mood, and it is doubtless that poetry cannot be relished in the same way in different moods. Lastly, without knowing how far and in what way a particular piece of poetry has been understood 'by a perceiver it is not possible for us to imagine accurately his relish (Rasa). The undernoted table will make this 'classification, of - the determining elements of poetic relish clear. 'In the pages to follow we shall deal with each of these elements separately ,and iní some detail' Determining Elements of Poetic Relish

Poetry which is Relished Environment Relisher or the Perceiver

Subject-matter (1) Form of Expression › and Style (2) Method of Perception (3)

Immediate- Relating to Perception (4) Remote- Relating to Creation (5)

Personality of the .' Mood and Fancy Percerver-His Nature 'of the'Perterver (7) The Understanding

and Taste (6) of the Perceiver (8)

94 PSYCHOLOGICAL ŚTUDIES IN RASA

Subject-matter,° in spite of being like a skeleton bereft of all finish and show, is neither repulsive nor dreadful like it ; for sometimes its attraction, independent of its expression, is so forceful that it cannot be deemed negligible. Often, the mere subject of the story of Räma is sufficient to make the devotees absorbed in itself .. Maithilisarana Gupta has said in the beginning of,hıs Sāketa: "राम, तुम्हारा चरित स्वयं ही काव्य है कोई' कवि बन जाय, 'सहज सम्भाव्य है। (Rama, your deeds by themselves aie) poetfy; anybody may easily become a poet by depicting them:) Even if Gupta were to say so out of simple modesty, nobody can doubt the pyschological truth to which these lines refer. In the opinion of the critics who could detect specimen of the highest art in the sayings of Kabira, which are destitute of all beauties and embellishments of language and form, the importance of the 'subject-matter is fat greater than its external appearance. Tulsidasa himself, whose scholarship and knowledge of poetic technique is admitted by the majority of the literaty critics, has given a very extraneous importance to the expression in comparison with matter. According to him the usefulness of the speech consists solely in singing the praises of the Lord.7 Besides this in the circle of the spectators of cinema we often hear a talk about the lovers of the tragic, comic or stunt pictures. This also indicates the formation of taste on the basis of the subject-matter. But every subject-matter before becoming a part 6 Hegel, a German philosopher of the 19th century, believed. that Ait consists in beautiful contents alone. 5 "जदपि कबित रस एकउ नाही। राम प्रताप प्रगट एहि माही॥ सोइ भरोस मोरे मन आवा। केहिं ना सुसंग बड़प्पनु पावा- ।।" x × "कवि कोविद अस हृदयँ बिचारी। गावहिं हरिजस कलिमल हारी ।। x x

कीन्हें प्राकृत जन गुन गाना।-सिर धुनि गिरा लंगत पछिताना ।।" -The Kalyāņa, Mānāsanka, pp. 68-69.

DETERMINING ELEMENTS OF POETIC RELISH 95

of our consciousness adopts a form* and a style without which we cannot feel its existence at all. Prose, verse, figures of speech, language, arrangement, of words, metre, rhythm, diction, drama, short story, novel, and epic etc. are the different aspects of that form. of style; and each of these has its own use and importance in estimating the nature of the produced effect, Verse often impresses more than prose; but in the present times, along with the development in the types of crea- tive literature, the necessity of prose has been, greatly increased. We like neither writing' nor reading a short story or a novel or a drama in verse. Though an Hindi and Samskrta poetics both there has been a separate school which makes the presence of the figures of speech in poetry categorical, yet at least so much must be acknowledged even from the psychological point of view that thetr proper use can enhance the beauty of any composition; nay, sometimes by their employment sụch an effect can be produced as man otherwise is not capable of. History has not yet forgotten that Daha" of Bihari which could bring out his King from his amorous abode and could divert his attention towards the affairs of the state, and that couplet10 of the minister * Herbart, a German philosopher of the 19th century, thought that the essence of Art is all in the beauty of its form. Bene- detto Croce, the famous Italian critic, maintains that content cannot be separated from form. "It is certain", says he in Essence of Aesthetic, chapter II, p. 43, "that when a thought is really thought, the words run through our whole organism, soliciting the muscles of our mouth and ringing internally in our ears". That his contention is not teneble is evident from our discussion which shows content and form as two disunct elements in determining the form of the poetic relish. • "नहिं पराग, नहिं मधुर मधु, नहि विकास इहि काल। अली कली ही सो बॅँध्यो, आगे कौन हवाल॥"

10 "कुसे न माद कि दीगर ब तेगे नाज कुशी Biharī-Bodhanī, p. 126.

मगर कि ज़िंदा कुनी ख़ल्क रा व बाज कुशी।" -Gadya-Ratnāvalī, p. 131. (Nobody has survived the sword of your look; now let you remassacre the dead by bringing them back to life.)

96 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN R:ASA

'of' Muhammad Shah which impelled Nadir Shah to withdraw his order of general massacre tat Delhi. To produce the destred mood-in the perceiver it is necessary for the language to follow its sense. Especially strong and powerful feelings can never be aroused by feeble language. Similarly all metres and all dictións are not equally suited to convey all emotions. · Several Hindi and Samskrta scholars have classified metres on the basis of Rasas and attempts of this sort 'are generally scientific. Short story, novel and drama etc. have each a flavour of their own which can be termed as shott-story-flavour (Kahani-rasa), novel-flavour (Upānyasa-rasa) and drama-flavour (Nātaka-rasa) etc: It is why the novel Gramina-Samaja and the drama Rāma-Nātaka of Sarat make no repetition to the interested readers in spite of their having Leen written on the same plot.

From the view point of the use of the sense-organs poetry can be relished in three different ways : through reading a manuscript or a printed book, through hearing a recitation, and through looking at.the screen or the stage. Each of these ways has its own methods to increase the effect and to intensify the experience of poetty. The beautiful hand in a manuscript renders it more valuable in the eyes of a reader. Good printing, fine paper, attractive binding, and up-to-date get-up create some interest in a work by themselves. The endeavour to bring out a book, which is to be submitted either for a prize11 or in an examination,1ª in its best form is an example of this psychological truth. At poet-gatherings the poems that are most applauded 11 The first deLuxe editions of Dulare-Dohavalī and Cıtrarekha were brought out, probably, as they were meant to be sub- mitted for the Deva-Puraskara. 1$ Dr. Dhirendra Varma once, while talking about his thesis La Langue Braj, remarked that though the works of this nature are generally published in bold type and with fine get-up, yet he himself had to look for a very small type for his thesis with a view to reduce the cost of publication.

DETERMINING ELEMENTS OF POETIC RELISH 97

arc very often those which are recited in an enchanting melody. A composition full of pathos cannot extract tears from our eyes unless the music of the tone of its reciter be an echo of weeping. The description of a dreadful and thrilling scene can paralyse us only if the sound of the every word that, it contains rever- berates in the same fashion. The attraction of the stage and the screen depends upon the natural acting and the successful and proportionate harmonisation of their other devices. It would not be a digression if I mention in this context that the immediate effect of listening to a well-recited poem is more marked than that of reading it, and that of witnessing a successful acting is still greater, be it not so lasting .. The attraction of the general public towards the, poetry of Baccana and its imitation by many a adolescent poet was observed only after they had once heard him. In a similar way Bhagavatī Prasāda Bājapeyī, a well known figure in Hındi Literature, could take pride in copying the phrase Hama xusa hue18 in the dignified tone of Alaxander; and Sohanalāla Dvivedi was interested to repeat over and ovet again the lıne Jīte desa hamārā1* from a cinema- song. The' intensity of an emotional effect is greatly heightened in a favourable environment. My friend Nırankāra Deva Sevaka once recited a poem at a function held in Bareilly College to accord farewell to Prof. Ramasraya Misra. It is yet tresh in my memory that on hearing that poem I with most of the other listeners could, not check secretion of tears. Afterwards when I read that poem again without its former surroundings, but remembering them pretty well, I was struck with wonder to find that not to speak of tears at' all, even a slight pathetic feeling could not run across the heart. Without a clear background of the environment the ,emotional effect of any lyric or detached stanza (Muktaka Racanā), however complete and elaborate * Uttered by Alaxander in the Hındi picture Sikandara. 1t The first line of a song of Stkandara. 13

98 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA .

be the synthesis of the different constituents of Rasa in it, will be most insignifcant. This' is why the' Chaya- vādī poetry of modern Hindi, in spite of its being accom- panied by a world of misery and pathos, is not able to" command even an atom of the sympathy of the reader. I have never observed even a' shadow: of wateriness in the eyes of the most sentimental readers while going through Amsu (=tears) of Jayaśankara Prasāda.' A narrative poem (Prabandha Kārya) in com- parison with a detached one is very much less dependent on the external circumstances for its emotional effcct. The environment favourable to its spirit is created within it by the author himself. The most pathctic portion of jhūla, a Hindi picture, as it was experienced by myself and many others whom I happened to ques- tion, is the scene in which Gita (Lila Citanisa) while looking at the picture of Suresa-Rameśa (Aśoka Kumāfa) hears the radio singing Mere bichure hue sāthī terī yāda satave .: Handkerchiefs make their appeaiance in the greatest number when 'a reference, which' indicates her own position, is made to the picture of the separated partner in the line Phira bhi yaha tasvīra tumhārī hama ko tarasave. Without being acquainted with the context, of which we are aware after having seen the picture upto this point, this song may give us a little amuse- ment, but can never affect us with compassion. Mob- psychology has been studied in the west as an inde- pendent subject. It is very often noticed that the emotional effect of anything is more marked on a"mob than it is on an individual in aloofness. An enthusiastic speech, if given in the presence of only, one person, cannot, so much infuse him with spirit as it would do him, along with many others, if made before a large crowd. Sometimes a poem recited among the applauses of a number of hearers excites a feeling of admiration in us, more distinct than that which it would ifwe hear it individually. : The environment in which an artist creates his art, if we take it into consideration, forms an important

DETERMINING ELEMENTS OF POETIC RELISH factor in determining .our relish.18 Thedroyal .road of the relish of poetry is distracted by the self-incon- sistencies, difference of ideals, disharmony of thoughts; blemishes in expression and lack of truthfulness which we come across at every step during the perception of any. composition. To tread over that road smoothly is needed that chariot of considerateness by which having a better regard for the individualty of the author we may look upon his work from his point of view, by which we may not attempt to examine the social and political currents, the poetical conventions (Kavisamayas or Kaviprasddhis)18 and the literary ideals of his age with the standards of our time, and by which we may, extend our utmost sympathy to him ignoring, as far as possible, his shortcomings and keeping in view his' excellences. Here this fact should not be lost, sight' of that the movements of this chariot of considerateness are not limitless, and they cannot continue for long unless energized by the sparkling genius of the authort If the perceiver is a well-read intellectual, .evens the absence of originality in a composition makes his relish flavourless. .. Perhaps it is for the want of any.extra- ordinary genius and originality that we find.no mentiont of the Rāmāyana of Rādheśyāma Kathāvacāka in thė pages of the histories of Hindi Literature; thoughras) far as the emotional effect is concerned, my own eyes' `have watered at several places while reading it.

According to the authors of Sahityadarpana and' Agnipurana those rare persons, who are endowed with' sınless souls and Vāsnākhya Samskāras (Latent Impres -- sions of the feelings known as Sthayibhavas); and who- are only one and two in thousands and millions, are'

18 "Nobody can perceive a work completely unless he is closelyt? acquainted with its social and religious background, "ana" literary "and national traditions" .- A. Baramikov, On Different Perceptions, of Literary Facts, in D., A. Grantha. 10 Vide the chapter entitled Kaviprasıddhıyam in Hındi Sahitya ... s

ki Bhūmika by Hazārı Prasāda Dvivedi.

100 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

fit to relish poetry.1 But it is not our end to veil poetry with such theoretical and unrealizable ideals. Our view point is psychological and practical, and any person who relishes any form of creative literature or its representation in any way is the object of our. study and his experience is the phenomenon for our observation. Considering the question in this light we shall have to give the differences in individuality and taste of the perceivers of poetry their due importance, because in determining the form of poetic relish their role is very prominent. Though the principle of difference in taste and opinion has always been admitted by the intelligentsia of this country, yet unfortunately in the field of literary criticism we find people pitying each other's talent and understanding and sometimes using even abusive language on account of their differences in criterion and in its application. What reason other than the want of morality in all walks of our life can be ascribed to this reprehensible tendency ? The points of view for relishing poetry are so many in number that it is simply impossible to count them ever. Each perceiver of poetry has something to demand of it, and the mystery of his relish consists in the gratification of his this demand. What is his this demand ?- on the basis of the answer to this ques- tion we can, with some precision, assign him to the class of well-educated citizens or uneducated townsmen ; but to measure the intelligence and understanding of the different members of the same class is beyond our capabilities. If Tulasīdãsa is not recognized as the best poet in Hindi Literature by someone, if the poetry of Kesava is nothing but the laboured and artificial arrangement of words to the other, if the depiction of the agony of separation by Sūradāsa is most unnatural to another, then to consider any of these a fool for his individual taste and choice will indeed be our own greatest folly."" Our aim ought to be to find out, 1' Vide S.D., chapter III, and Agmpurana, chapter CCCXXXVII. 1* The readers are not to make out from these lines my view about any author.

DETERMINING ELEMENTS OF POETIC RELISH 101

as far as possible, the extents to which in the formation of taste in a particular individual his environment and innate tendencies (or the make up of his organs of consciousness)1° are separately responsible.'

A very insignificant phenomenon sometimes changes our mood which, in its turn, entirely reforms our experience of the perception of poetry. Just this moment Mr. X was pleasing himself with the maddening erotic scenes on the stage. But suddenly he remembers his lovely and affectionate wife who is now no more.' All that world of love and romance which was glittering before his eyes now becomes dreadful to him like a volcano and torments him like the simultaneous stings of a hundred scorpions. Our mood is our inner environ- ment; and, in order to enable us to relish a piece of poetry in its right perspective, it is as necessary for it to be favourable as it is for the external environment about which enough has already been said. Mahatmā Gandhi had once written to Tagore that the hungry millions of India need but one poem and that is invigo- rating food. These words of the Māhatma indicate the psychological fact that a hungry person is not in the mood of relishing poetry: Sometimes we may appreciate all of a sudden a scene or an idea which does not at all correspond with our taste. This sort of appreciation, in the absence of a better name, can be termed Fancy; and it is but proper to mention it here. My friend Nütana Deva presented an example of this sort of appreciation when while witnessing the picture Khazana he exclaimed the words very fine only at the scene of Omer Khaiyam.

The last element of poetic relish, which on this account is no less important than any other, is the understanding of the perceiver, or the sense which a 19 "People are unlike emotionally as they are unlike physically. We are born cold or affectionate, bold or timid and so on". -Frederick H. Lund, Emotions of Men, chapter entitled Physical Basis of the Emotions.

102 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

poetic piece conveys to him. Words, and scenes are. symbols whose intended meanings and ideas are,not always definite, static o1 limited. The indication (Laksanā) and suggestion (Vjaňjanā) powers of the words create all the more complicacy and confusion, and sometimes they lead the reader even beyond the sense which the author meant to express. But the perceiver cannot help relishing. a composition on the, basis of his, understanding, in whatever way. it may be related to the intended sense of the author. Difference; of opinion in meaning has sometimes [led to,.great literaty controversies.28 Often it is noticed that the; repeated readings of a poem reveal each time ar new sense and thereby afford a new relish.81 Some critics have regarded it an inevitable quality of good, poetry.

... Prejudice also may be admitted, if we like, to be: an independent. element in determining the form of poetic relish ; although it is included, if it is momentary., in our conception of mood, and,, if it 1s permanent, in our conception of individuality and taste. When .. it is at work it sometimes reverses or, diminishes and- sometimes exaggerates the natural psychological effect. of the other elements., If a book, against which we, aref already prejudiced, is presented before us in an attractive» get-up, our feelings for it grow still bitter. . In a similar way while going through the new works of our most favourite and most disfavourite authors, even their shortcomings, appear to us as their .- excellences, and vice, versa respectively. But here this fact should- not be lost sight of that sometimes the force of a particular. blemish or merit may be so strong that it may break through the strongest rock.of prejudice and cappear before the mind unveiled and uncoloured., It is-ithis 20 For instance, the famous controversy on Deva and 'Bihari i ,between Misrabandhus and Bhagavana Pina. , ir '1* 21 "I ... read the poem again and agamn, to get near it. However, the more I, penetrated into it, the more significant and higher in art did it seem" .- Eckermann, Conversation with Goethe, p. 22.

DETERMINING ELEMENTS OF POETIC RELISH 103

special characteristic of nature of prejudice which differentiates it from mood and taste, and which, there- fore, justifies its separate and independent treatment.

Though from the scientific point of view the comparative importance of these eight or nine deter- mining elements of poetic relish is almost the same, yet it shall be a mistake to regard all of them equally active in the individual instances of poetic relish. With reference to the subject, the object and the moments of the perception of poetry, the proportionate prominence of these elements may assume any form. In the intro- ductory paragraphs of this essay I had called the perceiver and the subject-matter of poetry the receptacle ( Aśraya) and the fundamental determinant (Alambana Vibhava) of poetic relish respectively. Any reader might expect that before concluding this chapter I shall try to find out the likeness (Upamāna) of every element from the constituents of Rasa. But this attempt of artificial metaphorisation is not my end, which has already been achieved by clearly indicating the elements which determine the form of our poetic relish. Besides the fact that the Indian Universities, unlike those of the west, possess no psychological laboratories with up-to- date equipment, even the scope of this work does not permit us to go into any experimental details of these elements. Therefore, as it may be expected, the basis of the present study is chiefly my critical observation of the relevant psychological phenomenon in the available environment.

SECOND SECTION

RASA AS EMOTION

14

CHAPTER I

FEELING, EMOTION AND SENTIMENT Rasa has been translated by Haas1 as Sentiment. But the term Sentiment does not seem to have been accepted as equivalent to Rasa by any of the later authors,8 who have written on this subject in English, for they have freely used the Samskrta term Rasa even in the midst of their English composition not substi- tuting any English term for it. Rasa, as I have already said in the Introduction, has two distinctly separate senses quite detached from each other. While in the phrase Rasa-theory Rasa means Poetic Relish, with refer- ence to its constituents (Vibhavas, Anubhangs etc.) the term conyeys the sense of Emotion. There is no single word in the English language which can denote both these senses. The term Sentiment evidently has got nothing to do with the former meaning. of Rasa, viz., Poetic Relish. With the latter meaning, yiz., Emotion, it is sometimes identified and confused. Feeling is another word which is yery often used as a synonym to Emotion. It is worthwhile, therefore, to differentiate here between the meanings of these terms before dis- cussing Rasa as Emotion.

Let us first of all take the term Feeling. It has been used in different senses by different psychologists who have tred to give to this word their.own meaning irrespective of the sense in which it is used in the.common speech. "Feelings proper", says Dr. Bhagavan Das, 'are, as already stated, only pleasure and pain ...... ".8 " Vide hs translation of Dhananjaya's Dasariipa. E.g., Dr. S.K.De, the author of Studtes in the History of Sanskrit . Poetes, and P. Pañcapagesa Sastri, ,the author ,of athe Philo- sophy of Aesthetic Pleasure, stc. * Sc. of Emotions, p. 62.

108 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RAŠA

McDougall points out that "pleasure and pain are, by common consent, the true types of feeling". To Wundt this only dimension of feelings, viz., pleasantness- unpleasantness, seemed insufficient and he added two others. . The second dimension of feelings, according to him, is excitement-numbness'; and the third is tenseness- release or expectancy-release." Woodworth thinks that this list can be further extended by adding the fourth dimension of desire-aver sion and the fifth one of familiarity- strangeness." McDougall has enumerated as many as twelve feelings. They are :' Joy, Sorrow, Chagrin, 'Disappointment, Surprise, Regret, Remorse, Confi- dence, Hope, Anxiety, Despodency and Despair. He igives the name of Derwed Emotions to these feelings and differentiates them from Emotions proper .? "An emotion of this class", says 'he, "is not constantly corre- lated with any one impulse or tendency, but rather may arise in the course of the operation of any strong impulse or tendency, the emotion being dependent upon or derived from the working of the impulse ...... He further regards these derived emotions as "funda- mental forms of feeling pleasure and pain" .* ' Stout accepts a wider application of this word and feels it "extremely inconvenient" to give the word the restricted sense of pleasure-pain for which, he finds the use of the . term Feeling-tone more convenient. But still he refuses to make it cover Sensation and Thought.® Why he does * Outline of Psych., chap. XII. · * Vide Psych. W., p. 335. Vide Ibid., p.336.' " McDougall's definition of Emotion has been quoted infra in this very chapter.' . Outlmne of Psych, chap. XII. " "We therefore agree with Professor James in giving a very wide application to the word Feeling. We must however steadfastly refuse to make it cover sensation and thought in- differently, as he appears to do Only two words have this wide range, and these are the word Consciousness, according to its traditional use in English psychology, and the word Experience."-Analytic P sych., p. 121.

FEELING, EMOTION AND SENTIMENT '109

so, he does not tell us. There is no reason why we should not agree with Professor James if he appears to make the term' Feeling cover even Sensation and Thought. The existence of the words Consciousness and Experience cannot make the word Feeling lose the wide range of its sense which Usage and Convention have connected with it.

So to do full justice to the word Feelng it is but imperative that we should use it to denote any mental experience. By doing so we do not at all unreasonably extend its application, for the word is capable of being used'and is actually used in this wide sense. To feel sympathetic, to feel antipathetic, to feel an emotion, to feel a curiosity, to feel reflectional, to feel critical and to feel a sensation are all appropriate and natural expressiohs. We cannot be idiomatic, it is true, if we say that we feel a thought or that we teel an idea.10 But if in these expressions the abstract terms Thought and Idea are replaced by their actual contents, no strangeness will be felt. Thus it would be quite natural for anybody to say that he feels that God is there, or that he feels that he should receive a very early reply to the letter he is posting. Feeling' is sometimes confused with Emotton in common speech, because the former denotes the psychic side of the latter. Emotion, as we shall presently see, consists neither merely in its mental experience, nor merely in its expression. It is mental experience and physical change taken together. When- ever the psychic side of an emotion is meant to be stressed, the use of the word Feeling is quite proper. We generally say that Mr. X is feeling angry and not that Mr. X is experiencing the emotion of anger, for what is primarily experienced by the mind is not the whole emotion but only that part of it which affects the consciousness. In the third chapter of the first

10 "Thus we cannot say that we feel a thought, and it sounds somewhat strange to speak of feeling ideas or perceptions". '-Ibid., p. 120,

116 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

section of this work I have called the first four consti- tuent classes of poetic relish11 the classes of feelings and not that of emotions, in spite of the fact that they are in reality the classes of emotions, not only because I wished to give a common name to every sort of mental experience had during the perception of poetty, but also because poetic ielish itself, which is composed of the feelings of all these classes, is merely a mental phenomenon and as such with reference to it only the psychic side of the emotions, which the perception of poetry evokes, is relevant or important.12

Coming to Emotion we find that the modes of describing or defining this term have been far more varied and numerous than they were in the case of Feeling. "An emotion is", according to Dr. Bhagavan Das, "a desire plus the cognition involved in the attitude of one Jia towards another".ªs According to William McDougall "Primary emotions are essentially indicators of the working of the instinctive impulses".14 To R. S. Woodworth "Emotion is a moved or stirred up state of the organism. It is a stirred up state of feeling -- that is the way it appears to the individual himself. It is a disturbed muscular and glandular activity-that is the way it appeais to an external obseryer".1" William James considers it to be "a tendency to feel".10 11 These four classes are of the Sympathetic, Antibathetic, Re- collectional and Curiositical feelings. 12 My conception of Feeling as elaborated above includes even sensations. But while classifying the feelings called forth by the perception of the poetic phenomena I have mentioned no such class as may comprehend sensational feelings. The reason is obvious. Sensational feclings are not comprised in the feelings which constitute poetic relish, because they are not evoked by the perception of poetry, they rather precondition perception. 18 Sc. of Emottons, pp. 59-60. 14 Outline of Psych., chap. on Emotion. 2B Psych. W., p. 338. 1c Psich. J., chap. XXIV.

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"Kulpe regards emotions as a fusion of feeling and otganic sensation, Hoffding as pleasure-pain in asso- ciation with the idea of its cause, Sully as a mass of sensual and tepfesentative material with a predominant affective tone, Ward as complete psychosis involving cognition, pleasuré-pain and conation".1 "According to some, emotton is essentially a kind of sensation due to general organfc disturbance. According to others, it is the massive revival by association of past pleasures and pains. According to others, it is a tendency to behave in a particular way, and must be regarded as á mode of conative consciousness".1"

It should, however, be noticed that this disagree- ment on the natute of Emotion is more verbal than it is real, for the disagreement on the actual denotation of this term is not so great. We have heard no pscho- logist with any odd definttion maintaining that Anger and Fear are not emotions. William McDougall had the audacity to exclude Surprise, Regret etc.3 from the sphere of emotions giving them the name Feelings. But even he could not abandon the popular term alto- gether, for he has given them the alternative name Derived Emotions. Drever, while criticizing McDougall for "harrowing the application of the word Emotion ... by excluding such experiences as Sutprise and the like",a tries to limit the meaning of the term in another way. "If impulse", says he, "immediately realizes itself in appropriate action towards the situation, then thete is no emotion in any strict sense of emotion"."* 1V Instinct in Man, p. 158. 1" These definitions have been quoted by G. F. Stout in A Mandal of Psychology, p. 405. He has not mentioned the names df their authors. Some of these may belong to the authors already quôted. 1" For the names of all the twelve emotions called Feelings by McDougall see Sapra where the term Feeding has been dis- cussed. 20 Instinct in Man, p. 157. 92 Ibid., p. 157.

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Thus according. to him the person who is running away at the sight of a lion to save his life is not under the sway of the emotion of fear ; he would be so only if he were unable to run. Drever himself does not seem to be very much sure of the ground on which he stands, for at the statement of Shand-"When the activity of the instinct is more sudden and unopposed, the emotion, if it be brought into activity at all, will be of low intensity and definiteness"a2-he remarks : "This seems incontrovertible, and in the limiting case the emotion may be considered entirely to disappear".93 The limiting case to which Drever refers is never mani- fested. It 1s, however, possible, as Shand suggests, that the emotion may not be called forth at all; for it is not the lion or any other object that can call forth fear, it is the idea of danger that accompanies the object. Without this accompanying idea of danger fear cannot be excited ; and the stronger the idea, the more intense will be the resultant emotion. A person who can run away from a lion feels less aftaid, because his fear is lessened by the hope that he might be able to save himself, than the person who cannot run away, because he knows that the danger to his life is imminent and that he cannot save himself from it. Hence criticizing Drever, McDougall rightly points out that the reali- zation or the check of the impulse to action "is merely a matter of degree of intensity of the emotional excite- ment".ª4 The person who is running away from the lion must continue feeling afraid until he has reached a place where he may confidently feel himself out of danger.

In the midst of the conflicting and inconsistent definitions of Emotion Stout and Drever have refrained from defining the tcrm; and, instead of it, have tried to give the characteristics which are common to all 32 The Foundations of Characters, p. 370, 2* Instinet in Man, p. 159. st Social Poch., p. xiv.

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emotional experiences. Stout could discover as many as six such characteristics. They are : "(1) There is one prominent fact about emotion which confronts us at the outset-its wide range. From the lower forms of perceptual consciousness upto the higher forms of ideational and conceptual activity the same typical kinds of emotion/are everywhere present. Anger may arise in connection with the pain of a wound or the smart of a blow, .... A man will become angry if you fail to understand his argument or if you un- favourably criticize his book. (2) Closely connected with the wide distribution - of emotion is the varied nature of conditions that arouse it. Any kind of thwarting or opposition may excite anger. Any kind of danger may excite fear. It is a certain general kind of situation, not a specific class of objects, which excites a certain kind of emotion. (3) Emotions may arıse in connection with definite perceptions oi ideas, as when good news excites joy; on the other hand they may be pumarily conditioned by organic changes, such as those which follow the use of alcohol or other drugs.

(4) An emotion. involves a ceitain general trend of direction of activity, which particularises itself in whatever way it can, according to circumstances (5) The fifth feature of emotion -is what we may call its parasitical character So far as emotions are excited by general situations, and not merely by general organic changes, they arc usually secondary phenomenon, and presuppose the existence of more specific tendencies. This is true of all but the simplest and more primitive emotional states. The anger produced in a dog .. .. by interfering with its young presupposes the specific tendency to guard and tend its offspring. (6) In all the more intense phases of emotion, organic sensations form an important constituent of the total state of consciousness This is true whether the emotion has been primarily introduced by organic changes, or whether it has in the first instance arisen in connection with definite perceptions or ideas".2* #* Mannal of Psych., pp. 405-409, 15

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According to Drever the following five features characterise all emotional experiences : "(a) In the first place, emotion always involves an affective relation to an object either perceptual or ideal. (b) In the second place, the pleasure-pain colouring is nearly always pronounced. One might in fact main- tain that Emotion, as popularly understood, always involves this accentuated pleasure-pain factor, so much so, that a considerable number of psychologists have taken it as the essential characteristic of experience. (c) In the third place, orgamc resonance, as it has been called, 1s in general well marked. Again certain psychologists, the most notable being James, have taken this as the essential characteristic, but it has been recog- nised as a prominent characteristic from Descartes and Malebranche onwards. (d) In the fourth place, emotion involves a feeling- attitude of such a kind, that actions of a special sort, and these alone, appeal to us. Our consciousness is, as it were, narrowed, and also specialised, the emotion affecting cognition and action both by way of inhibition, and by way of reinforcement. This again has been taken as the fundamental fact by some psychologists. (e) In the fifth place, emotion involves an impulsive force, a source of driving power, so to speak, which, in the more marked cases, tends to suspend the higher mental process, and to overwbelm purposes, resolutions, and principles, by its irresistible urgency towards im- medate action"."6

Let us examine these essential characteristics of emotional experiences one by one.

The wide range of Emotion, which Stout points out as its first characteristic, is hardly disputable. But it should be carefully borne in mind that Stout has mentioned these characteristics as "distinctive of"2" emotions, and hence we should scrutinize each one of them in this light. Thus if the wide range of Emotion ** Instinct in Man, pp. 158-159. #T Manual of Psych., p. 405,

FEELING, EMOTION AND SENTIMENT 115

be one of its distinctive characteristics, it should.not characterise any other kind of experience. But even contrary to ouf wish and expectation it does. Like emotions thoughts are also evoked both on the per- ceptual and the ideal planes ; and this fact is so simple and so self-evident that it does not seem to require any further elaboration with the help of illustrations. Actual perception of a definite objective phenomenon may suggest us a topic to contemplate over; so may even an idea.

In the second characteristic of Emotion Stout tells us what excites it. Surely, it is not the object which excites it; it is not even "a certain general kind of situation" as Stout puts it. It is rather a particular sort of idea which calls forth an emotion. I leave this point here unexplaned and unillustrated, as I . shall take it up again while giving my own view about, Emotion.

Stout's third characteristic of Emotion points out that besides perceptions and ideas even the use of. alcohol and other drugs may arouse emotions. This is hardly acceptable. It is for the abnormal psychology to study the insane behaviour and the abnormal mind of the drunken person; Emotton is essentially a subject of the normal psychology and hence it is manifested only in the normal mind. Stout seems to have confused the activities of a person under the effect of alcohol with the expressions of an emotion.

The fourth characteristic of Emotion as given by Stout seems to have been deduced directly from Mc- Dougall's definition of Emotion, which excludes the twelve emotions (Surprise, Regret etc.) enumerated by him under the head of Feeling. But as there is no justification in excluding these twelve phenomena of experience from the world of Emotion, this characteristic of Emotien becomes too nariow. In Surprise and the like, which we have admitted as emotions, no distinct !

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impulse to action is felt; and hence a feature, which does not characterise every emotional experience, cannot be taken as a common characteristic of Emotion.

Stout's fifth and sixth characteristics of Emotion we can summarily reject, for about them he himself points out that they do not qualify every emotional experience. About the fifth he admits that it is not true of the simplest and more primitive emotional states, and the sixth he attributes only to the more intense phases of Emotion.

Coming to Drever we find him asserting, in the first place, that during every emotional experience we must feel an affective ielation to an object either perceptual or ideal. But this is not what always happens. When we are angry with a person, he is the perceptual object to which we feel an affective relation; when we are sorty to remember the scene of the death of one of our beloved friends, the object to which we feel an affective relation is ideal. But take the case of a person feeling afraid in darkness. Surely, datkness is not the object which has frightened him. There is no other perceptual object to have called forth the emotion; there may not be even an ideal one. The simple idea of danger without being accompanied by any object, either perceptual or ideal, might have excited fear in him. And thus if an emotion can be excited without an object, it is obviously wrong to hold that it should always involve an affective relation to an object.

Giving the second feature of Emotion Drever says that the pleasure-pain colouring is nearly always pro- nounced. Nearly shows that Drever is himself conscious of the fact that there are instances when a person under emotional expenence feels neither pleasure nor pain. Taking the practical aspect of the question, when we are under the sway of an emotion, we are evidently not always conscious of the pleasure-pain colouring.

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From the theoretical point of view, even if pleasure- pan be admitted to be an essential dimension of all emotional experiences, there must be cases when an emotion can be located at the zero or central point - at which it would be neither pleasurable nor painful. Drever's third feature lays down that organic resonance is in general well-marked in an emotional experience. To this I have to say, firstly, that organic changes brought about during the experience of an emotion form a part of that emotion and are not merely a resonance, and, secondly, that the organic changes are there always, whether or not they are well-marked. This point shall be elaborated in my own exposition of Emotion.

The fourth and the fifth features, which according. to Drever characterise all emotional experiences, tell us how Emotion is related to Cogmtion and Action. So far as the relation between Emotion and Cognition is concerned, we may agree with Drever. But to go farther than this and to speak of an indispensable rela- tion between Emotion and Action is to accept McDougall's definition of Emotion which Drever himself has rejected on the ground of its being too narrow in excluding "affective experiences-as, for example, Surprise"." After admitting as emotions the twelve affective ex- periences, which are not correlated with impulses and which on this account have been placed under the head of Feeting by McDougall, Drever contradicts himself in making an emotion necessarily involve an impulsive force. Having thus examined the characteristics of Emotion as given by Stout and Drever and finding them un- satisfactory I now proceed to elaborate my own view on this phenomenon of experience; it consists in the answer which I shall give to the following two ques- tions : (1) What excites Emotion? and (2) What are the contents of Emotion? ** Instinct in Man, p. 156.

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An emotion is excited by a particular idea occurring in the consciousness of the person in whom the emotion is excited. The idea itself is potent enough to call forth the emotion; it may or may not be accompanied, ' though generally it is, by an object, either perceptual or ideal. Emotional experience is essentially a subjective phenomenona® and hence it cannot be conditioned solely by an external object. Stout correctly admits that it is "not a specific class of objects, which excites a certain general kind of emotion". But he is wrong in maintaining that "it is a certain general kind of situation",80 for even an objective situation cannot always excite the same emotion in every person. He does not himself seem to hold this theory, which makes a general specific kind of situation the cause of a parti- cular emotion, very steadfastly, for elsewhere he says, * "The symptoms of fear arise only when the sight of a bear startles a man, either because it is a strong and big animal approaching, or because previous experience has taught him to apprehend it as dangerous ...... In any case it is not the visual perception, as such, but its startling character which is essential".$1 This startling character is nothing but the idea of danger which accompanies the visual perception. Stout, when he wrote the lines cited above, was surely tacitly conscious of the fact that beyond an object or an objective situation there is some subjective phenomenon also which determines an emotion and that it is this subjective phenomenon which is most important. But he confused this subjective phenomenon with Startling sº "In the presence of the same object, the emotional experiences of different persons may be very different, and even those of the same person on successive occasions may vary widely with changes in the general condition. Hence, while the sensory qualities are commonly said to be objective, or significant of the nature of the object, the emotional qualities are said to be subjective, or significant of the nature of the subject" .- Outline of Psych., chap. on Emorion. 80 Manual of Psych., p. 406. s% Ibid., p. 413.

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which is merely a reflex action38 and does not necessarily involve an emotion. We can be startled even by an unexpected loud noise without experiencing any emotion at all. "Let Professor James", says Ward criticizing William James's theory of Emotion, "be confronted first by a chained bear and then by a bear at large;, `to the one object he presents a bun and to the other a clean pair of heels".88 It will be wrong to attribute the cause of the difference of behaviour in the two instances to the difference of situations, for such persons are not impossible to be conceived as can meet gallantly even a bear at large. But evidently we can never conceive a person who either can feel afrad without the idea of danger or can avoid feeling so when the idea of danger is there in his mind.

The contents of an emotion ate twofold: (1) Psychic Affection and (2) Organic Changes. The latter again consists of visceral and glandular or internal changes on the one hand and of bodily or external changes on the other. The word Affection is the proper term to differentiate Emotion from all other sotts of experiences on the psychic or the feeling side. The term Affective Life has been used by Ribot®* to denote the life of emotional experiences. Drever has also maintained that an affective relation to an object is an essential characteristic of Emotion.8" It is the psychic

-82 "Reflex actions are due to the excitement of a peripheral ( nerve, which transmits its influence to certain nerve-cells, and these in their turn excite certain muscles or glands to action; and all this may take place without any sensation or consciousness on our part, though often thus accompanied".

• Cited by Stout, Manual of Psych., p. 413. -Exp. of Emotions, p. 7.

84 Psych. of Emotions, p. 1. ' 8" It should be noted that while criticizing Diever for giving this characteristic .of Emotion I have not denied the affective element in an emotion ; I have criticized him only for holding that the piesence of an object is necessary during every emotional experience,

120 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

affection which is important from the view point of the person who is experiencing the emotion, for he is not always conscious of the organic disturbances which are occurring in and outside his body. Whenever a person is under the full sway of an emotion, he is hardly ever conscious of any of his organic changes. Even when the emotional influence is light, it is impossible for him to be conscious of all the changes of his organism. Stout, as we have seen, has pointed out in his sixth characteristic of Emotion that "organic sensations form an important constituent of the total state of consciousness". But even when the conscious- ness of the organic sensations is there, it is in no way an important constituent of the total state of conscious- ness of the person under the sway of an emotion, because the consciousness of the organic changes is not a consti- tuent of the emotion. The person, who is experiencing an emotion, must have the corresponding changes in his organism. But whether or not he is, conscious of these changes, it affects him or his experience of the emotion little. If the consciousness, it may be questioned, of the organic changes in an emotion does not matter to the peison who is experiencing the emotion, what is their importance and how do they form one of the two classes of the component factors of Emotion? The answer is clear. Though the consciousness of these organic changes matters little, yet the changes themselves are not at all insignificant. They are the essential constituents of an emotion, because without them no emotion is possible. Nobody can disagree with James when he says that grief cannot be there "without its tears, its sobs, its suffocation of the heart, its pang in the breast-bone".88 The importance of the visceral changes, some of which are imperceptible and some of which manifest themselves even externally, consists in their affecting the constitution of the person in whom the changes take place. A person cannot 8* Psych. J., chap. XXIV.

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digest his food when he is melancholy or angry. The importance of the bodily changes is self-evident, for without them one can never be able to know the emo- tions experienced by the other. Besides, the bodily manifestations sometimes may affect even the person who displays them in the form of a reaction. If A feels angry with B, B may give A a nice blow in return.

It should, however, be carefully noted that while on the psychic side an emotion has got a clear differentia, on the organic side it has none. "Under ordinary conditions, to be sure, a certain oiganic state is present in fear and anger ...... This same organic state occurs in strenuous muscular activity such as running a race, though the runner is neither frightened nor angry, but may be quite cool and calculating".87 Similarly it is not always necessary that the actor, who is displaying the bodily changes in an emotion, would feel the emo- tion. Wm. Archer's enquiry to which James has referred38 says that an actor is mastered by an emotion whenever he plays it well. But the actor is brought under the sway of an emotion, not because he plays it well. He rather plays it well and is brought under its sway, because the idea which calls forth the emotion dominates in his consciousness and appears to him as if it were genuinely his.

Thus though an emotion cannot always be dis- uingushed on the organic side, particularly on the visceral,3" yet it cannot be doubted that even the organic side is an essential and indispensable constituent of an emotion and that the emotion is incomplete without it. This view finds support in modern psychologists av Psych W., p. 358. 3 Vidc Psjch. J., chap. XXIV. s° From the bodily expressions sometimes we are able to discern an emotion even when it is suppressed wilfully, and some- times when an emotion is pretended, the expressions disclose to us the fact that there is no genuine emotion at all, 16

122 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN R.ASA

like Woodworth4° and Ribot."} The common-sense theory of emotions, as it has been termed by James, disregards this fact, and makes merely the psychic side of an cmotion the whole emotion. Not admitting the organic changes as the constituents of Emotion, it makes them the effects of Emotion, calling Emotion their cause. But even James's theory of emotions,4ª which - we have not considered so far and to discuss which now is the proper occasion, disregards the same fact and makes the organic changes the cause of Emotion. Here are the vital points of his argument: (1) "If we fancy some strong emotion and then try to abstract from our consciousness of it all the feclings of its bodily symptoms, we find we have nothing left behind, no mind-stuff out of which the emotion can be constituted, and that a cold and neutral state of in- tellectual perception is all that remains". (2) "The best proof that the immediate cause of emotion is a physical effect on the nerves is furnished by those pathological cases in which the emotion is objectless". (3) "If I were to become coiporeally anæsthetic I should be excluded from the life of the affections, harsh and tender alike, and dag out an existence of merely cognitive or intellectual form".43

& Vide Woodworth's definition of Emotion cited supra in this chapter. 43 "Every kind of emotion ought to be considered in this way . all that is objectively expressed by movements of the face and body, by vaso-motor, respiratory, and secretory disturbances, is expressed subicctively by corelative states of consciousness, classed by external observation according to their qualities. It is a single occurrence expressed in two languages" .- Psych. of Emotions, p. 112. $2 The theory is better known as the James-Lange theory of the Emotions. It was put forward by the American psycho- logist James and the Danish psychologist Lange,independently of cach other, about the year 1880. But as I have not read the work of Lange, and as the present quotations are only from James, I have named the theory only after James. 43 Prch. J., chap. XXIV,

FEELING, EMOTION AND SENTIMENT .123

In the first point James lays down that the mind- stuff of an emotion consists of merely the consciousness of the sensations of the organic changes. But it 1s not so. A person, who is under the full sway of an emotion, is never directly conscious of the organic sensations that he is receiving. And even when he.is .directly conscious of, these organic- sensations, "the consciousness has got nothing to do with his experience of the emotion. Stout has rightly pointed out that if James's thesis were true, its inversion also ought to be correct, which it is not. "Certainly not all organic sensation is emotion", says he, "hunger and stomach- ache are not emotional experiences .... .. The experience of a cold douche, or of being shampooed after a Turkish bath, ought on this theory to be emotional" .** . Wood- worth has mentioned an experiment45 which show's that the feeling of fear may be absent even 'when the organic state of fear is there.

The second point which is best'in James's argument according to himself refers to the 'pathological cases in which emotion is objectless. But, as I, have already shown, an emotion can be objectless, for it is not an object which excites an emotion. Even in such cases

4* Manual of Psych, pp. 410-411. 45 "In an experiment of quite a different type, the blindfolded subject was seated in a mechanical chair which was suddenly tilted backward into a horizontal position Apparatus registered his bieathing 'and heartbeat which were much disturbed. The subject made a movement to save himself and experienced the feeling of fright. He returned on another day and was seated in the same' chali. As he now anticipated the sudden drop he took it without any overt movement to save himself, but' his heart and respiration again betrayed some internal disturbance though less than on the first day The subject reported that he did not experience fear on this second occasion Here we have the organic state of fear, occurring when the sutject was so well adjusted to the situation that he made no overt escape move- ment; and the feeling of fear was absent. About twenty subjects gave concordant results" .- Psych. W., p. 357.,

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if the emotion is there, it cannot be without an exciting idea. If a person is feeling afraid, the idea of danger must be there in his mind. It is not impossible for an emotion to be objectless; what is impossible for it is to be idealess. Besides, here again on the strength of the results obtained by experiments Woodworth tells us that when the organic state characteristc of an emotion is artifically produced in a subject, what he feels is not an actual emotion, but only an emotional mood. If the organic state produced in him is that of anger, he does not feel that he is angry ; he rather feels "as if he were angry".46

Perhaps James dd not put forth the third point of his argument on the basis of his actual observation, for the truth of it has been disproved by the observa- tions and experiments that have been carried on since the publication of his thesis. Dr. Berkeley's obser- vations and Sherrington's experiment are cited below : "Dr. Berkeley has reported in Bram (1v, 1892) two cases of general anasthesia, cutaneous and sensory the subjects are apathetic, but the presence of shame, sorrow, surprise, fear and. repulsion (the last named as a substitute for anger) has been observed" .* " "Sherrington attempted a physiological examina- ton of this question. He took a dog that had been in the laboratory for months, and that showed a marked emotional temperament, affectionate towards some individuals and hostile to otheis, and performed certain nerve-cutting operations which deprived the animal of nearly all sensation from the interior to the trunk. This loss of sensation produced no obvious change in the dog's behaviour. Her anger, her joy, her disgust, and when provacation arose her fear, remained as evident as ever. A visitor who had previously awakened her anger was again received with signs of rage-wide- open eyes, dilated pupils, vicious growls-while the attendent who fed her was received with all signs of joy."" 4o Ibid., p. 357. * Psych. of Emotions, p. 96. 68 Pach. W., p. 356.

PBELING, EMOTION AND SENTIMENT iżs

Having thus discussed and defined the nature and contents of Emotion let us now proceed to consider the term Sentunent. There is no marked difference of opinion on the meaning of this term among the psycho- logists. The term was being used vaguely and with indefinite connotation until it was defined by A. F. Shand in his article Character and the Emotions, published in the Mind, N.S., vol. V. ' But since the publication of the said article the use and application of the term has been more or less in a uniform sense, for Shand's specialization of the word has been adopted by almost all the psychologists. Thus according to McDougall- "a sentiment is an organised system of emotional dis- positions centred about the idea of some object"."0 "The distinction", says Stout, "between emotion and sentiment is to a large extent a distinction between dispositions and actual states of consciousness""1. "An emotional disposition is a persistent tendency ...

to feel a certain kind of emotion in the presence of a certain object".5ª Woodworth points out that "this term is used in psychology to refer to any complex emotional attitude towards an object, person or situation, an attitude built up in the course of experience".

While discussing Emotion we have observed that a particular emotion is called forth by a particular idea, and not by a particular object or a particular situation. But Sentiment, as it has been defined above by the different 4 McDougall admits in his Social Prych. (p. 105) that he owes his conception of Sentiment to Shand. But in his Introduc- tion to the same work (p. vii) he asserts that his is a rival doctrine to that of Shand. I have disregarded the difference between the two doctrines, for it is irrelevant for our purpose, as I have discussed Sentiment only to differentiate Emotion from it Social Psych, p 137. #1 Manual of P.sych., p. 701. 19 Ibed., p. 418. *8 Psych. W., p. 354.

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psychologists, necessarily presupposes the existence of a. definite objective phenomenon. And also a senti- ment is only a mental disposition and not an actual state of consciousness, for whenever it develops into an actual state of consciousness, it ceases to be Sentiment and becomes Emotion. A child, which feels afraid of a person by whom it is frequently tortured, bears towards him the sentiment of fear. But when the person is present before the child and when the child is actually feeling afiaid, what it is experiencing is not the sentiment of fear, it is rather the emotion of fear. Does it then come to this that an emotion can be excited uniformly by the same objective phenomenon? No, it does not; for even in the case in which a definite objective phenomenon excites uniformly the same emotion it is not the object which is important in exciting the emotion, it is the idca which uniformly accompanics the object. The importance of the accompanying idea is further proved by the facts that the idea would call forth the emotion even when it accompanies another object or no object at all, and that the object would fail to call forth the emotion if the idea ceases to accom- pany it, as it may. To illustrate, the child would feel afraid of any other object which is accompanied by the idea of danger, and it would not feel afraid even of the person, who has been the object of his fear so far, only if instead of torturing it he begins to give it sweets. So whenever an actual affected state of consciousness is there, it must have been brought into existence by the idea, the presence of which is necessary to excite that particular state. A Sentiment, to define it in the terms in which I have described Emotion, is merely a latent but subsisting feeling of attachment of a parti- cular idea exciting a particular emotion with a definite objective phenomenon. The feeting of attachment, it may be added, is formed on account of the recurring concurrence of the objective phenomenon and the idea; and once it is foimed, the oljective phenomenon ceases to appear in the consciousness without the idea which excites the emotion.

FEELING, EMOTION AND SENTIMENT 127.

Our discussion on the nature of Feeling, Emotion and Sentiment and on the difference between the meanings of each other is now complete. A more elaborate and detailed treatment of these terms is- not within the scope of this work. ›Before concluding this chapter it is, however, necessary to point out that I have not aimed in these lines at advancing any new, theories, on the denotation, use, application or function of any of the above-mentioned psychological terms. My object is not to deviate from the modern psychologists, it is rather to examine Rasa and its constituents in the light of their studies. But to do this amidst the vital differ- ences among the psychologists it was but necessary to form such a conception about the meaning of each of these terms as may be clear and definite and may be adhered to in all future discussions. And in forming such conceptions, it would be noted, I have asserted nothing which is not either directly admitted or, at least, indirectly suggested by one psychologist or the other. My conception of Feeling, as Stout has pointed out, was already admitted by James, though not in as clear terms. My view on the denotation of Emotion is more or less a synthesis of the views of McDougall and Drever. That beyond an objective phenomenon there is also something subjective which determines an emotion is suggested even by the writings of Stout and McDougall, and I have indicated it at its proper place. Furthermore I have shown that Ribot and Woodworth agree with me in maintaining that Emotion consists neither in a mental affection nor in an organic distutbance, but in the conjunction of these two pheno- mena. And lastly, my definition of Sentiment has been directly deduced from the description of this term by other psychologists, the difference being only in wording and not at all in meaning.

CHAPTER II

STHĀYI AND SAÑCĀRI BHĀV AS AS MENTAL AFFECTIONS

Bharata has defined Bhavas as the elements that make us realize the main import of a poem.1 Evidently this definition of a Blava cannot help us in studying Rasa as Emotion. But elsewhere in making Vibhāvas the causes and Anubhavas the external manifestations of the Bhavas he has clearly suggested that a Bhava 1s a particular mental condition, a definite state of cons- ciousness, a feeling.ª This sense of the term Bhāva is further confirmed by the use and application of the term in Samskrta poetics and by the attempts of Bharata8 and Hemacandia* to show how Sāttvikabhāvas are indicative of mental conditions.

So Bhavas are the actual states of consciousness brought into existence by the Vibhavas and manifested by the Anubhavas. They are not merely the dispositions or the tendencies to experience certain feelings in the presence of some definite objective phenomena. A Bhava when depicted in poetry means that it is being experienced at the moment by a person, and not that it is liable to be experienced under proper circum- stances by a person. A sentiment, on the other hand, is not an actual state of consciousness; it is merely a disposition or a tendency to feel a mental condition at the presentation of an object with which experience has connected the idea that calls forth the mental condi- tion. Thus, as it is obvious, a Bhava cannot be a senti- ment. Far less can a Rasa be a sentiment, for while "काव्यार्थान् भावयन्तीति भाव।" -N.S., chap. VII. 2 "विभावेनाहृतो योऽर्थस्त्वनुभावेन गम्यते। वागङ्गसत्त्वाभिनयै स भाव इति सज्ञित ।।" -N.S., VII. 1. " Vıde N.S., p. 379. $ Vide K.A., pp. 118-120,

STHĀYI AND S.AÑCARI BHĀV AS 129

the former includes in its conception both a state of consciousness and its external manifestations, the latter has got nothing to do with any organic changes and 1s entirely a mental phenomenon., It has already been shown in the preceding chapter that whenever a senti- ment, at the presentation of the object it involvés, develops into an affected state of consciousness, which is always accompanied by a set of organic changes, it céases, to be a sentiment and becomes an emotion. Gulabaraya has suggested that the latent impressions of the Sthavibhavas assumed to exist in the, mind of an interested peroeiver by Abhinavagupta and others are sentiments." In foim ng a view like this perhaps he has been misled by the term Sthayi, which means -permanent or subsisting, in the 'expression Sthayibhava, for otherwise there is nothing common in the conception of a sentiment and that of a Sthāyi- bhava. A Sthayībhava is a latent impression in the mind of the perceiver and is called forth when he per- ceives a poetic phenomenon suggesting that particular mental state with the help of the Vibhavas etc. ; a senti- ment is a latent feeling of attachment of a particular idea exciting a particular emotion with a definite objec- tive phenomcnon. If we transfer the Sthāyībhava, as we are actually to do in this section in considering Rasa and its constituents apart from their relish, from the perceiver to the poetical character, to whose mental state it refers in truth,8 even then it cannot be likened with sentiment. A sentiment necessarily presupposes the existence of a definite object, in the presence of which a particular emotion is liable to be called fotth, while a Sthayibhava, without presupposing the existence 5"हमारे यहाँ रस की अनुभूति के लिए प्राकृत और नवीन संस्कार माने है। ये सस्कार Sentiment के निकट आ जाते है। ये रस नही वरन् रस के स्थायी भाव के सस्कार है जो सहृदय सज्जनो के मन में रहते है। मनोवेग (Emotion) और भाववृत्ति (Sentiment) के अन्तर को लेकर रसो का अनुसधान बहुत फलप्रद होगा।" -Rasa aura Manovyjnana, Sahitya-Sandesa, vol. V, p. 8, ' 6, See next paragraph. 17

130 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

of any such definite object, indicates only this much that the person in whose mind it latently exists is sus- ceptible to a particular feeling.

Having thus established that the Bhavas, whether Sthāyi (=permanent) or Sancārī (= transitory), are not sentiments, we may now proceed to discover whether or not they are related with emotions. It is difficult, as it has already been observed in the preceding chapter, to differentiate emotion on the organic side from other sorts of experiences. But on the psychic side an emo- tion is clearly an affected state of consciousness. Now it shall be easy for us to conclude that the Bhavas are the psychic sides of emotions only if we are able to show that the mental conditions to which they refer are the affected states of consciousness. The simple and the only way to do this is to take up and scrutinize each Bhäva separately. But before we take up this individual scrutinization of the Bhavas it is, however, necessaty to point out that we cannot attribute the Sthayibhavas to the perceiver of a poetic phenomenon. The feelings which are called forth in the mind of a perceiver at his perception of poetry have already been considered independently in the third chapter of the first section of this work. If we come across the pictures- que description of an angry person, the feeling of anger, or the Sthayibhava Krodha as a scholar of the Samskrta poetics would put it, suggested therein would directly pertain to the depicted character and not to us. Even when a perceiver is able to experience the depicted emotion, the suggested feeling or Sthāyībhāva 1emains related with the poetical character and not with the perceiver, for it is essentially the poetical character and not the perceiver in respect of whom the emotion has been depicted.

Bharata has mentioned the following forty-one Bhavas out of which, according to him, the first eight 'are Sthayi and the rest are Sancarī: 1. Rati, 2. Hasa, 3. Utsāha, 4. Vișmaya, 5, Jugupsā, 6. Bhaya, 7. Krodha,

STHAYI AND SANCARI BHAV AS 131

8. Soka, 9. Nirved, 10. Glāni, 11. Šankā, 12. Śrama, 13. Dhrti, 14. Jadatā, 15. Harsa, 16: Dainya, 17. Ugratā, 18. Cinta, 19. Trāsa, 20. Asūyā, 21. Amarsa, 22. Garva, 23. Smrti, 24. Marana, 25. Mada, 26. Supta, 27. Nidrā, 28. Vibodha, 29. Vrīdā, 30. Apasmāra, 31. Maha, 32. Mati, 33. Alasata, 34. Avega, 35. Tarka, 36. Avnhittha, 37. Vyadhi, 38. Unmada, 39. Vişāda, 40. Autvukya, and 41. Capalata. Let us consider these one by one. 1. Ratt is the feeling of sexual love.". The sexual emotion" spoken of by Ribot is based on' this feeling. It is quite unnecessary to show here that this feeling is a mental aftection, for this fact is self- evident to every person who has attained the age 'of sex-sensibility. Besides, it can be further confirmed by looking at any of the many thousand stanzas that have been written or cited to illustrate this feeling in the woiks on poetics. 2 .. The feeling of Haw or mirth, which is brought about by the perception of erroneous actions and mutilated dressing and speech etc.,9 must also be an affected state of consciousness, for otherwise in the normal course no lack of harmony can amuse us. Bharata has divided this feeling into six shades on the dimension ot intensity ranging from a gentle smile to a convulsive laughter.10 lhe fuist two shades (viz., Smita and Hasitu) he attributed to the higher, the next two'(viz., Vihasita and Upahasita) to the middling and the last two (viz., . Apahasita and Atthasita) to the lower characters. McDougall11 in calling smile beautiful and laughter ugly has said almost the same thing. Perhaps he is right in pointing out that the smile, '"स्त्रीपुसयोरन्योन्यालम्बन. प्रेमास्यश्चित्तवृत्तिविशेषो रतिःस्थायिभाव.।" " Psych. of Emotions, p. 15. -R.G., p. 38.

·"विकृताकारवाग्वेशचेष्टादे कुहकाद्भवेत्।" "विकृताकृतिवाग्वेशै ....... हासः स्यात् ।' -S.D., p. 158.

10 Vide N.S., chap. VII. -Dašarūpaka, p. 108.

3 Outline of Psych., pp. 166-170.

132 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

"which is the natural expression, of the satisfactiom that attends the success, of any striving", is distinct from laughter "which always involves some maladjust- ment, something inappropriate". But he goes too far in entirely disconnecting smile fiom laughter and in not admitting it at all as a less intense shade of laughter, for the gentle external manifestation of the feeling of mirth and amusement can be nothing but a smile. 3. Utsaha 1s the feeling of spiritedness.1ª. The infusion of spirit in any person causes in his constitution the release of the extra reserved energy which renders him capable of doing such acts as he cannot perform in the ordinary state of his consciousness. The soldier fighting on the front gathers new courage and is able to, face his. opponents more briskly when he hears the spirited words of his commander who is a brave woman and who herself is playing her patt most gallantly in the struggle. Thus Utsaha is also an affected state of consciousness. - 4. Wasmaya is the feeling of astonishment called forth by the perception of some extraordinary, or super- natural phenomenon.18 The automatic and involuntary manifestations of this feeling in "exclamations of surprise, weeping, trembling, sweating and stammering"1+ show clearly that the mental condition of the person expem- encing this feeling is affected. McDougall has called Surprise a derived emotion. 5. The feeling of Jugupsa or disgust is produced at the perception or idea of some unwholesome or dirty object ;15 and is expressed externally by the contraction of the nose and eyebrows etc. McDougall 12 "कार्य करने में आवेश होने को उत्साह कहते है।" -KK., p.155. 18 "Modification incomplete de l'ame produite per le vue, la contact ou le souvenir de quelque chose d'extraordinaire. Expansion de l'esprit a propos de choses surnaturelles". 14 Daśarūpa, p. 145. -La Rhe. Sasn., p. 325.

'दोपेक्षणादिभिर्गर्हा जुगुप्सा विषयोद्भवा।" -S.D., p. 145.

STHAYI AND SANCARI BHĂV AS 13ż

has called disgust an emotion and hás based it on the instinct10' of repulsion." The' affected character tof consciousness during the experience of this feeling. is clearly evinced by the felt impulse to remove the offend- ing object from the focus of experience. 6. & 7. The feelings of fear (Bhaya) and anger (Krodha) as the affected states of consciousness are so common both in experience and observation that no elaborate analysis is needed to show how 'they are mental affections. Ribot has mentioned that chrono- logically the emotions of fear and anger are the fitst to appear in a child,1" and he has dealt with each of these independently in separate chapters.19 Stout in his Manual of P'sychology2o has selected only these emotions for' analysis. McDougall in arranging instincts' and emotions in the descending order of complexity of bodily adjustments has placed fear and anger at the upper end of the scale."2The feeling is so well affected and the organism is (so much disturbed during the experience of fear or anger that perhaps there has been no psychologist and no commoner who has refused to admit these phenomena of experience as emotions. ' 8. Soka or sorrow is experienced when something' cherished and adored is destroyed.92 There can be no doubt about the existence of mental affection during ... An instinct is an innate or inherited mode of behaviour. For example, in a dangerous situation we instinctively seek safety, and we might therefore talk of the instinct of escape" 17 Vide Somal Psych., p. 47. -Educational Psychology, p. 56 .-

18 Vide Psych. of the Emotions, pp. 13-14. 10 ' Vide sbid., chaps. I. & II mn, the second part. #o Vide Book III, chap. V. $1 Vide Outime of Psych., chap. on Emotion. इष्टनाशादिभिश्चेतोवैक्लव्य शोकशब्दभाक्।"' ""अहित लाभ हित हानि तें, कछ जो हिये दुख होत। -S D., p. 145.

सोक सु थाई भाव है, कहत कविन को गोत ।।" Jagadumnoda, p. 196.

134 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RAŠA

the experience of this feeling, for the external expressions which accompany this feeling are able to affect the consciousness even of the onlookers. Absolute sym- pathetic absorption can be commanded only by the pathetic emotion. Perhaps it is on this account that Karuna has been regarded by Bhavabhūti as the only Rasaa8 and by Anandavardhana as the sweetest of all.24 9. Nirvedz is the feeling of self-abasement blended with complete indifference towards worldly objects.25 It is neither a cool and calculating attitude towards self or an external object nor a logical determination to renounce the world. It is rather an unpleasant state of feeling wrought either in the mood of despondency or in a hot temper. The mental affection which it mnvolves is thus obvious. 10. Glän is the feeling of utter exhaustion due to intercourse, exertion, mental worry, pangs of thirst and hunger, or the like.8e It is merely the conscious- ness of the organic sensations and not a mental affec- tion. While discussing emotion in the preceding chapter I have said that though the organic changes are the essential constituents of an emotion, yet their consciousness is immaterial in an emotional experience, and that the organic changes by themselves cannot excite an emotion. Trembling and change of colour etc., which have been called the expressions of Glāni, do not constitute the organic side of any emotion, they are only the external bodily changes manifested 28 "एको रसः करुण एव ...... ।" -Uttararamacarita, III. 47, p. 97. "ऋृगारे विप्रलम्भाख्ये करुणे च प्रकर्षवत् । माधुर्यमार्द्रता याति यतस्तत्राधिक मनः ॥" -D.A., p. 96. * "तत्वज्ञानापदीष्यदिर्निर्वेद. स्वावमाननम्।" -Dasarupaka, p. 79. "विपत्ति, इर्षा और ज्ञानादि के कारण अपने शरीर अथवा सांसारिक -विषयो में जो विराग भाव उत्पन्न होता है उसे निर्वेद संचारी कहते है"

26 "रत्यायासमनस्तापक्षु त्पिपासादिसंभवा। -R.K., p. 29.

-S.D., p. 143.

STHAYI AND SAÑCARI BHAV AS 135

in an exhausted state of organism of which the feeling of Glani is the mental registration. 11. Sanka is the feeling of apprehension called forth by the anticipation of a great 'misfottune." Parching of the mouth, trembling and anxious looks' etc. in which this feeling externally manifests itself clearly suggest the affected nature of consciousness at the time of experiencing the feeling. 12. Srama is the feeling of fatigue caused by some bodily exertion.ª* It is agamn, like Glāni, merely a consciousness of the organic sensations and not a mental affection. The difference between Glani and Śrama appears to be only of degree and not of kind, for both of them are the feelings of weariness produced as a result of the consumption of energy, the former being experienced when this consumption is extraordinarily great and the latter when it is moderate. 13. Dhrti is the feeling of contentment springing from the attainment of the desired object, kdowledge or power .* It cannot be called a mental affection when it denotes the steadiness of the mind. But when it is expressed in a smile or the like, it does involve a mental affection, for then along with contentment it suggests also the delight of attaining the cherished end or object. However, as there is another feeling, viz., Harsa or joy, which denotes this sort of delight and which we shall consider presently, it is but proper to disagree with the view, which makes smile etc. the external manifestation of the feeling of Dhrti, and to agree with Bharata and Jagannatha according to whom the feeling denotes only a calm and composed state " "किमनिष्ट मम भविष्यतीत्याकारश्चित्तवृत्तिशेष. शका।" " "Grand epuisement resultant d'ún effort". -- R.G, p. 98.

"श्रम. स्वेदोऽध्वररत्यादेः।" -La Rhe. Sans., p. 332.

*ज्ञानाभीष्टागमाद्यस्तु संपूर्णस्पृहता धृति. -Dašarūpaka, p. 80.

सौहित्यवचनोल्लाससहासप्रतिभादिकृत् ।।" -S.D., p. 142,

136 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

of consciousness.3° Thus Dhrti is an unemotional feeling involving a pacific state of consciousness. 14. Jadata or stupor is not a feeling by itself, but it presupposes the existence of a feeing or a Bhāva. According to Dhananjaya it is "incapacity for action, caused by seeing or hearing something agreeable or disagreeable"; and "in this state one gazes with un- winking eyes, remaining silent and the like".81 Cons- ciousness is dynamic in nature, one idea being quickly succeeded by another. In stupor whatever feelings or ideas are in the focus of consciousness, they stick there for sometime. It is not something to which mind can attend, it is rather a durational fixation of the atten- tion at the phenomenon being attended to. So stupor is the static quality of consciousness and not a state of it. The question, therefore, whether or not it is a mental affection does not arise at all. 15. Harsa is the feeling of joy called forth at the attainment of the desired object.89 '8ª McDougall has called it a derived emotion. I have already pointed out while discussing Dhrti that this feeling is a mental affection. Weeping, sweating and stammering etc., in which Harsa externally manifests itself, further indicate unequivocally the affected nature of conscious- ness which it involves. 16. Damya 1s the feeling of depression due to misery, misfortune and the like.38 The person affected with this feeling becomes downcast, loses confidence in himself and speaks of his deplorable condition in a "चापलाद्युपशमोऽनुभाव ।" "प्राप्तानाम् उपभोग अप्राप्तैः न शोकः ।" -R.G. \ -N.S., chap. VII. 31 Dašarūpa, IV. 13. 82 "इष्टप्राप्त्यादिजन्मा सुखविशेषो हर्ष.।" 88 "द्रौर्गत्याद्ैरनौजस्य दैन्यम्।" -R.G., p: 94.

-S.D., p. 133 and . Dasarūpaka, p. 82.

दैन्यम्।" दु खदारिद्रयापराधादिजनिंताः स्वापकर्षभापणादिहेतुश्चित्तवृत्तिविशोषो -R.G.,'p. 99.

STHAYI AND SANCARI BHAV AS 137

touching tone, a tone which would excite sympathy and melt any heart if it is not'a stone. The affected state of consciousness of a miserable person is too obvious to requnie a proof. 17. Ugrata denotes a state of consciousness which is brought forth by the infliction of some insult or abuse. The person under the, sway of the feeling of Ugrata becomes cruel and is liable to punish the inflictor of the insult with as great a sentence as that of death. It involves an affected state of consciousness for it is nothing other than the feeling of anger, the only point of difference being this that, while the latter feeling is permanent or Sthayi, the former one is transitory or Sañcārī.84 18. Cinta is the feeling of painful meditation aroused by the non-attainment of the desired object.8* The symptoms of vacant looks, sighs and feverishness, in which the feeling externally manifests itself, clearly indicate that it is a mental affection. 19. Trasa is only a synonym to Bhāya or fear. As a Saňcārībhāva, however, it has been differentiated from Bhaya, the former being accompanied by a sudden startling or trembling and the latter being called forth after some consideration.88 But in spite of this differ- ence the affected nature of consciousness involved in fear remains unaffected during the experience of Trāsa. 20. Asīja or envy is the feeling of unpleasantness due to another's prosperity.8 The existence of this feeling certainly involves an affected state of conscious- 8 "अधिक्षेपापमानादिप्रभवा किमस्य करोमिइत्याद्याकारा चित्तवृत्तिरुग्रता। ..... वधेच्छान्भाव । .. -नाप्यसौ कोधः तस्य स्थायित्वेनास्याः संचारिणीत्वेनैव भेदात् ।" ३5 "ध्यान चिन्ता हितानाप्तेः शून्यताश्वासतापकृत।" -R G., pp. 108-109.

30 Vide K.K, p. 149. -S.D, p. 143 and Dasarūpakd, p. 82.

"परोत्कर्षदर्शनादिजन्यः परनिन्दादिकारिणीभूतश्चित्तवृत्तिविशेषोऽसूया।" -R.G., p. 114. 18

138 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

ness, for, if it were not to do so, censure, contempt, frowning and wrathful gestures etc. could not have been its external manifestations. 21. Amarsa or the feeling of indignation is only a less intense degree of anger38 which, as already shown, is a mental affection. 22. Garva or the feeling of pride has been recognized by McDougall as a primary emotion. He has called it the emotion of elation and has based it on the instinct of self-assertion or self-display.89 It is an affection of consciousness due to one's idea of his superiotity in might, beauty, education, descent and the like.40 23. Smrti is recollection of a past experience called forth by the perception or idea of some associated phenomenon41. It is not a mental condition or a state of consciousness; it is merely a mental process, the process of transference of an idea from the unconscious to the focus of consciousness. 24. Marana or death again is not a feeling or a Bhävu, for the person who is no more living cannot have the consciousness to feel death.42 Even if agreeing with Jagannatha we understand by Marana the state of swooning precedent to death it cannot be called a Bhava for the state of swooning also implies negation of consciousness.#8 25. Mada or intoxication does not refer to any particular feeling. It is the cessation of the normal functioning of the mind due to drinking. There 38 Vıde K.K., p. 144. Vide Social P sych., p. 57. 40 "गर्वो मद. प्रभावश्रीविद्यासत्कुलतादिज।" -S.D., p. 136. *1 "सदृश वस्तु के अवलोकन तथा चिन्तन, विहारस्थल के परिदर्शन आदि से जो पूर्वानुभूत बात याद हो आती है, उसे 'स्मृति' कहते है।"

49 "शरादर्मरण जीवत्यागोऽङ्कपतनादिकृत।" -R.K., p. 46. -S.D., p. 136. 48 "रोगादिजन्या मूरच्छारूपा मरणप्रागवस्था मरणम् ।2 .- R.G., p. 109.

STHAYI AND SAÑCARI BHAV AS '139

seems to be no justification in attributing to it any excess of joy as it has been done by a majority of the Hındi and Samskrta scholars of poetics .** Poddāra, therefore, has rightly disconnected Mada with any sort of joy or happiness .* 5 26. Supta or dreaming is the abnormal state of consciousness during sleep in which ideal images appeat as percepts. By itself it is not any pafticular feeling or Bhava, but the person who is dreaming is liable to experience all those feelings which he can in his normal state of consciousness when he is awake.46 27. Nidra or sleeping is "cessation of the activity of the mind".#? It cannot be a Bhava or a state of consciousness, for it implies negation of consciousness. That sleep is opposed to consciousness is confirmed by Professor Ladd who has described consciousness as "what we are when we are awake, as contrasted with what we are when we sink into profound and perfectly dreamless sleep ...... , what we are less and less, as we sink gradually down into a dreamless sleep ...... " .... ".48 28. Vibhodha or awakening is regaining normal consciousness after sleep.49 Yawning and rubbing the eyes, which have been said to accompany Vibhodha, are not its external manifestations; they are rather the instinctive impulses to restore activity in one's organism which had been inactive for some time. If imperatively we are to find a connection between yawning etc. and awakening, we may call the latter the consciousness of the sensations of the organic changes of which the former are the external expressions. "हर्पोत्कर्षो मद. ।" 45 Vide K.K., p. 128. -Daśarūpaka, p. 85.

46 "निद्रामग्नस्य विषयानभव स्वप्न कोपावेगभयग्लानिसुखटु खादिकारंके.।" 4 Dasarīpa, IV. 23. S.D., p. 135.

8 Cited in Text book of Psych., p. 52. ** "विवोध: परिणामादेस्तन्र जुम्भाक्षिमर्दने।" -Dasaripaka,p.85.

140 PSYCHOLOOICAL STUDIES IN RASA

29. Vrīda is the feeling, of shame or bashfulness. It is one of McDougall's primary emotions and has been called by him the emotion of subjection or negative self-feeling. In women it is called forth at the sight of men and in men by the idea of their misconduct or defeat.5º It "expresses itself in a slinking, crest- fallen behaviour, a general diminution of muscular tone, slow restricted movements, a hanging down of the head and sidelong glances".51 The affected nature of consciousness during the experience of shame 1s proved by its external manifestations which otherwise cannot be accounted for by merely a cold cognition of objects or ideas.

30. Apasmāra or epilepsy is a disease and not a feeling. Its symptoms are "falling to the ground, trembling, sweating, drooping, frothing at the mouth and the like"."2 This state may be brought during the operation of any strong emotion. By itself it 1s neither an emotion nor even a feeling. The person who has been attacked with epilepsy is most apt to be unconsciousness. But if the attack is mild and a slight degree of consciousness is there, it may be either the consciousness of the organic sensation or the psychic side of the emotion which has called forth the attack. Apasmara, a disease as it is, has been dealt with in better details in the works on medicine58 rather than in the works on poetics. 31. Moha or distraction is either an unconscious state of the mind54 or an abnormal state of consciousness - 60 "स्त्रियो को पुरुष के देखने आदि से और पुरुषो को प्रतिज्ञाभग, पराभव एव निंदित कार्य करने आदि से वैवर्ण्य और अधोमुख आदि करनेवाली लज्जा ही वीडा है।" -K.K., p. 134. 62 Social Psych., p. 55. 52 Dasarāpa, IV. 25. 58 Vide Madhavandana, pp. 137-138. . ** "मोहो विचित्तता भीतिदु.खावेगानुचिन्तनैः । सूच्छनाज्ञानपतनभ्रमणादर्शनादिकृतु ।।" -S.D., p. 135.

STHAYI AND ŠANCARI BHAV A 141

in which mind is not able to perceive things in their right perspective."5 Obviously it cannot be a Bhāva in the former case. In' the latter too it is merely a distortion of the normal functioning of the mind due to some intense affection. ' 32. Mati is an unsceptic 'decision reached after considering the views of the Sastras and the like.56 It 1s thus a cool and unaffected state of consciousness, an unemotional Bhava or feeling. 33. Alasata or indolence, which is the feeling of "inactiyity from weariness, pregnancy and so on"5" `cannot be a mental affection, for it is, like Glāni and Srama, merely the consciousness of some organic sensations. 34. Avega is the feeling of confused"8 and quickened action5® resulting from the sudden and unexpected appearance of something desirable or undesriable.60 The mental 'affection which this feeling involves 1s -self-evident. 35. Tarka denotes a discussive state of the mind due to doubtfulness or uncertainty."^ . By itself it 1s purely a cognitive and unemotional feeling. But when at the time of experiencing this feeling the consciousness is'already affected with some emotion, it may also assume an emotional character.

t 56 भयवियोगादिप्रयोज्या वस्तुतत्त्वानवधारिणी चित्तवृत्तिर्मोह ।"

56 "शास्त्रादिविचारजन्यमर्थनिर्धारण मति.।" -- R.G., p. 97.

87 Dasarīpa, IV. 27. l Ibrd., p. 103.

5· "आवेगः सभ्रम ..--· " "प्रिय अप्रिय देखे सुने, गात पात से वेग़। -S.D, p. 132.

'होय अचानक भूरि भ्रम, सो वरनै आवेग।" -B.V., p. 43. ] 1 50 "Emotion resultant de l'apparition subite et inattendue de quelque chose que l'on desire ou que l'on redoute".

6 /तर्को विचार: सन्देहात्।" ,La Rhe, Sans .; p. 337. .S.D., p. 143.

142 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN R.ASA

36. Avahittha or the feeling of dissimulation ex- presses itself in the voluntary attempt to conceal the expressions of an emotion."2 It is the cognitional realization of the inappropriateness in expressing certain gestures at a particular occasion. Thus obviously it is an unemotional feeling. 37. Vyadhi is sickness due to physical derange- ment.68 On the psychic side it may denote the consciousness of some organic sensations. '

37. Unmada or insanity is an abnormal state of the mind in which reason ceases to function. It is brought forth either by a physical derangement6* or by the åction of some strong emotion.65 It is not any parti- cular Bhava by itself, but the person affected with it is liable to experience most of the feelings. 39. Vişada is the feeling of helplessness and despair occasioned by the lack of success in some undertaking.66 It is one of McDougall's derived emotions. Heaving and drawing of the sighs and the like in which this feeling 1s expressed show clearly that it involves an affected state of consciousness. 40. Autsukya is the feeling of impatience in respect of getting the desired object without any lapse of time.67 The restless state of the mind during the experience of this feeling indicates unambiguously that it is a mental affection. 62 'व्रीडादिभिर्निमितैर्हर्षा्यनुभावाना गोपनाय जनितो भावविशेषोऽवहित्थम्।"

68 "वातपित्तकफसनिपातप्रभवः । तस्य ज्वरादयो विशेषा।" -R.G., p. 108.

-N.S., chap. VII. 6 "अप्रेक्षाकारितोन्मादः सन्निपातग्रहादिभि. ।" -Dasarupaka, p.89. 68 "चित्तसमोह उन्माद कामशोकभयादिभिः ।" -S.D., p. 138. 66 "उपायाभावजन्मा तु विषादः सत्त्वसक्षयः।" "प्रारब्घकार्यासिद्ध्यादेर्विषादः ।" -Ibzd., p. 141.

०१ "अधुनैवास्य लाभो ममास्त्वितीच्छा औत्सुक्यम्।" -R.G., p. 89. -R.G., p. 111.

STHĀYI AND SANCARI BHĀV AS 143

41. Capalata or inconstancy is not a feeling by itself ; It rather presupposes the existence of some other feelings .* It is the dynamic quality of consciousness as opposed to the static denoted by Jadata. When the consciousness'is Jada or static,. the tendency of the attention is to remain fixed at an object for 'an unusual period of time; when it is Capala or inconstant, the tendency of the'attention is to slide away with unusual hurry.

Besides the forty-one Bhavas of Bharata discussed above five more have been added to the list by the later writers on poetics. They are :- (1) Sama, the Sthayibhava of the Santa Rasa, (11) Sneha, the Sthayibhava of the Preyas Rasa, (u11) Vatsalya, the Sthayibhava of the Vatsala Rasa, (1v) Bhakti, the Sthāyībhava of the Bhakti Rasa,09 (v) Chala, the thirty-fourth Sancarībhava as assumed by Deva.

Let us scrutinize these Bhavas also and see whether or not they are mental affections. (1) Sama or tranquillity of the mind, as indicated by its very name, cannot be an affected state of consciousness. It is, therefore, an un- emotional feeling. (1i) Sneha is the feeling of friendly affection. It cannot be anything other than mental affection 6 "मात्सर्यंद्वेषरागादेश्चापल्य त्वनवस्थितिः ।" -S.D, p. 142. e9 "Bharata mentions only eight Rasas, Udbhata and a more ancient author Kohala add one more, namely Santa ; Rudrata 1 adds one more, Preyas or Sneha Dharmasuri informs us that there are authors who accept another Rasa called Vatsala ; and others who accept another called Bhakti". -Definition of Poetry or Kavya, pp. 50-51.

144 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

when it is manifested in flowing of tears, looking with wide open eyes and the like.70 (111) Vātsalya or parental affection is the tender emotion of McDougall which he has based on the parental instinct.71 The mental affec- tion which this feeling involves is, for obvious reasons, more intense in degree than the friendly affection. (1v) Bhakti or the feeling of devotion is an extremely affected state of consciousness. The person genuinely affected with this feeling manifests his love for the Lord generally in one of the worldly relations. Bhaktr Rasa has been regarded as the King of Rasas by Hariaudha,72 Poddāra78 and others. (w) Chala, as revealed in the illustration given by Deva,7ª is a trickful device to avenge one's grievance. On the psychic side 1t denotes a thoughtfully worked out plan. Hence it is an unemotional feeling. 70 स्नेहप्रकृति प्रेयान्सगतशीलार्यनायको भवति। स्नेहस्तु साहचर्यात्प्रकृतेरुपचारसंबन्धात् । निर्व्याजमनोवृत्तिः सनर्मसद्भावपेशलालापाः । अन्योन्य प्रति सुहृदोव्यंवहरोऽय मतस्तत्र ॥ प्रस्यन्दिप्रमदाश्रु: सुस्निग्धस्फारलोचनालोकः। आर्द्रान्त:करणतया स्नेहपदे भवति सर्वत्र ।।"

71 Vide Social Psych., p. 56. -Kāvyālankāra, p. 166.

" Vıde hıs artıcle Vatsaiya Rasa ın Nagarī Prārārmī Patrika, vol. X. T8 Vide his S S.I, vol. II, pp. 89-96. 74 "स्याम सयाने कहावत है कहौ, आजु को काहि सयानु है दीनो। देव कहै दुरि टेरी कुटिर मैं, आपनो बैर वधू उहि लीनो।। चूमि गई मुँह औचक ही, पटु लै गई पै इन वाहि न चीन्हो। छैल भले छिन ही मे छले, दिन ही मैं छबीली भलो छल कीन्हो।।" -B.V., p. 60.

STHAYI AND S.AÑCARI BHAV AS :145,

Having thus examined the forty-six Bhavas we discover the following facts :- (a) All the eight Sthayībhavas of Bharata are mental affections ; (b) Out of the thirty-three Sancarībhavas of Bharata fourteen are mental affections, (c) Four are unemotional feelings, (d) Five are feelings of organic sensations, and (e) The rest ten cannot be termed as feelings or - Bhāvas ; (f) Out of the four Sthayībhavas added by others three are mental affections, (g) One is an unemotional feeling; and (h) The thirty-fourth Sancarībhava mentioned by Deva is an unemotional feeling.

We were to consider in the present section of this work Rasa as Emotion. The Bhavas which have been shown to be mental affections are obviously emotions if viewed in conjunction with the respective bodily and visceral changes that accompany them. But there are others which are not mental affections. How can we make Rasa mean Emotion when they are there? Here is an answer. Among the Sthayibhavas only Sama is an unemotional feeling. But the corresponding Rasa, viz., Santa, has not been recognized by all the writers on poetics." The unemotional feelings among the Sancaribhavas, can, however, be experienced with the emotional ones, for the emotional and the unemo- Ts "The author of Dasariipa, however, contends that there can be no such Sthāyībhava as Nrveda or Sama, for the develop- ment of that state (if it is at all possible to destroy love, hatred and other human feelings) would tend to the absence of all moods ; and in the Drama, the obect of which is to deli- neate and inspire passion, it is inadmissıble". -Hist. of Poetirs, vol. II, chap. VIII. 19

146 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN R.AS.A

tional experiences of the mind are interdependent.76 Moreover, if unemotional feelings were to be inten- tionally included among the Bhavas as independent units of experience, their number ought to have been infinitely greater than four or five, for every thought or reflection is an unemotional feeling. Besides this the Vibhavas and the Anubhavas, which are among the constituents of Rasa, are distinctly available only in connexion with the emotional feelings. The fact that the unemotional feelings have not been eliminated from the list of the Bhavas since they were once included in it is to be accounted for by the tendency to stick to the convention." The feelings of the organic sensa- tions are, as we have already said, merely the automatic mental registrations of the internal sensations arising out of the changes in the organism. Hence in spite of being mental experiences they cannot be called feelings proper in this context, for primarily they denote the states of the organism rather than the states of the mind. The ten so called Bhavas, which are not at all feelings, may sometimes either precede as Vibhāvas or succeed as after effects an emotional experience. Smrtz or recollection, for instance, is the ideal presenta- tion of a Viblava, and Marana or death may be the effect of a very strong emotional excitement. Thus we may safely conclude that Rasa, apart from its relish and with reference to its constituents is essentially emotion, the nonemotional Bhavas being there only as subsi- diaries to the emotional experiences.

Y8 "In distinguishing the cognitions, feelings and conations, it is not to be supposed that these phenomena are possible independent of each othei. In every modification of mind, knowledge, feeling, and desire or will go to constitute the mental state; and it is only by a scientific abstraction that we are able to analyse the state into elements, which are never really existent but in mutual combination" -Hamilton, Cited in Text Book of Psych., p. 93. 7 "एव सक्षेपेण निरूपिता भावाः । अथ कथमस्य संख्यानियमः ...... मुनिवचनानुपालनस्य संभव उच्छृद्वलताया मनौचित्यात।" -R.G., p. 118.

CHAPTER HI

VIBHAV AS AND ANUBHĀV AS

Every emotion, as we know, involves three elements : the excitant cause, the psychtc or mental affection and the organic changes. The factors in Rasa are four : Sthayi and Sancaribhavas, Vibhavas and Anubhavas. We have already examined the Sthayi and Sancaribhavas in the preceding chapter and have found them to be the mental affections forming the psychic sides of the emotions. The Vibhavas and the Anubhavas, with which we are to deal in the present chapter, correspond exactly to the excitant causes and the organic changes respectively; thus making Rasa congruous with Emotion.

The term Vibhava, according to Bharata, is synonympus with Cause.1 With reference to Rasa it is the cause of a Bhava or a mental condition, for a Bhava, says Bharata while defining the 'latter, is called forth by a Vibhava.a But we can no longer take a Vibhava to be the cause of merely the psychic affection involved in an emotion, for both the psychic affection and the organic changes that accompany it ate the effects of 'a common cause. While discussing Emotion in the first chapter of this section we had discarded the common-sense theory of the emotions,' which makes a mental condition the cause of the bodily changes along with that of James, which inverting the popular theory makes the bodily changes the cause of a mental condition. Even in Samskrta poetics an explicit notion of cause,and effect does not seem to be present between a Bhava and an Anubhava, the latter having been, called only the external manifestation or the 'indicator of the 1 "विभावः कारण निमित्त हेतुरिति पर्यायाः ।" -N.S., chap. VII. * "विभावेनाहृतो यः ·... स भावः।" -N.S., VII. 1.

148 PSYCHOLOĞICAL STUDIES IN RAŠA

former.8 The reason of the fact that the scholars of poetics have established no relation between a Vibhava and an Anubhava appears to be this that they have taken these terms merely as subservient to the realization of Rasa or poetic relish and have not discussed them as interrelated elements of an emotional experience .* We can, therefore, safely, without deviauing from its traditional usage, make' the term Vibhava mean the Excitant Cause of a whole emotion, of the psychic affection or the Bhava and of the accompanying organic changes or the Anubhavas.

Vibhava has been broken up in two parts : Alam- bana and Uddipana. Alambana Vibhava refers to the person or the object in respect of whom the emotion is experienced and whose appearance, ideal or perceptual, is directly responsible for the evokation of the emo- tion"; Uddipana Vibhava refers to the situation or the environment in which that person or object is placed and which is helpful in intensifying the emotional experience6. It will be noticed that the Alambana Vibhava thus defined corresponds with the object to which, according to Drever, an emotion always involves an affective relation7, and the Uddipana Vibnava with a certain general kind of situation which, according to Stout, excites a certain kind of emotion". I had 8 "योऽर्थस्त्वनुभावेन गम्यते ....· स भावः ।" -N.S., VII. 1. "अनुभावो विकारस्तु भावसंसूचनात्मकः ।" -- Dasarupaka, p.77. * This contention is further confirmed by the fact that by the Dhvanikara (Vide D.A. and Locana, p. 78) and his followers Rasa has been regarded as an Asamlaksyakrama Vyangya or a suggestion in which the order of sequence of the direct and the suggested meanings is not well perceived. * "आलम्वनो नायकादिस्तमालम्व्य रसोद्गमात्।" 6 ॥उद्दीपनविभावास्ते रसमुद्दीपयन्ति ये।" -S.D., p. 91. -Jbrd., p. 128. " Refer to Drever's first characteristic of Emotion quoted in the first chapter of the present section. * Refer to Stout's second characteristic of Emotion quoted ibidem.

VIBHAV AS AND ANUBHAV AS 149

• 'criticized, it may be recalled, both Drever and Stout for giving these as essential features of all emotional experiences, the former because I upheld that an emo- tional experience does not necessarily involve an object, and the latter because I maintained that an emotion is excited by a particular idea and not by a certain general kind of situation. I still cleave to my former position. A Vibhava or an object with the complex objective situation in which it is placed can never be the true cause of an emotion ; for, if it be such, it should always be able to excite its relative emotion by its presence, which it does not. A person cannot always feel the sexual emotion in the presence of his young and beautiful wife even if privacy, a fine breeze and some of the other conventional Uddipana Vibhavas be available to him. Similarly every thwarting or opposition need not always excite anger in the mind of every person.

What, then, is the position and the importance of the Vibhavas in selation to the emotions? If they are not the immediate causes of the emotions, are they so related with the ideas that call forth the emotions? Let us attempt to answer these questions. An emotion is called forth by an idea. But the idea, in its turn, must have something to account for its occurrence. What can that something be? Surely, the Alambana and the Uddipana Vibhavas cannot constitute the whole of that something, for if they do, their presence should always be able to evoke the relative idea and conse- quently the corresponding emotion. But the Vibhāvas, without doubt, do constitute a part of the cause of an idea, the other part being the nature, disposition, and attitude of the mind in which the idea occurs.' Here is an illustration to make the point clear. Two friends are out on a walk. They meet a long snake creeping slowly across the gate of a park they are about to enter. Immediately after seeing the reptile one of them is overcome with fear and withdraws himself backwards ; the other judiciously aims his stick at the hood ot the animal and is able to lay it dead, The object and the '

150 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

external situation or the Alambana and the Uddipana Vibhavas are the same for the two persons, but the idea of danger has occurred in the mind of only one of them, who, on this account experiences the emotion of fear. The reason of this difference in feeling and behaviour is obviously the difference in the mental dispositions of the two persons. Thus the complete cause for the occurrence of an idea is made up of an objective situation® plus a subjective disposition of the mind. When by the combination of the two pheno- mena the idea has occurred, the emotion is bound to be experienced. The incompleteness of the Vibhāvas as a cause for the excitation of an emotion has been recognized even by the writers on poetics, for they have admitted that a Vibhava by itself cannot suggest a definite emotion.10

But the importance of the Vibhavas, in spite of their falling short as an immediate and complete cause, is great in the delineation of an emotion. The sub- jective mental disposition, in conjunction with which the Vibhavas are able to evoke the idea causing the emotion, is vague and evades all verbal description. It cannot be expressed even in clumsy language by the person who himself is experiencing an emotion. The mention of the idea that calls forth the emotion 1s needless, for the emotion to be delineated presupposes its existence. The only thing that can either be put down with accuracy in black and white or be perceived or realized with ease by an onlooker are the Vibhāvas. Hence from the relevant and practical point of view of depicting the emotions in poetry and drama it is quite in the fitness of things to call the Vibhavas the causes of the emotions. But from the prominence that has been assigned to the Vibhavas, which are The objective situation need not always be perceptual; . it may be either peiceptual, or ideal, or both. 10 Refer to Abhinavagupta's seventh obstacle in the realization of Rasa, viz., Samsayayoga, dealt with in Theories of Rasa and Dhrani, p. 108, and in Philosophy of Aesthotic Pleasure, p. 190.

VIBHAV AS AND ANUBHAV AS 151

objective phenomena, it should not be concluded that the subjective dispositions of the mind are altogether negligible. Their importance is of much more perma- nent value in as much as they are taken to be the indicators of character. But for this difference in the mental dispositions all men should have been feeling and acting alike in similar situations, and there should have existed no difference between one person and another except that of physical twoness. Before concluding this discussion on the Vibhavas a mention, however, should be made of the subject known as Nayaka-Nayika-Bheda . or the Classification of the Heroes and the Heroines. Men and women, particulaly the latter, as Alambana Vibhavas of the sexual emotion or Srngara Rasa have been divided and redivided into classes and subclasses on the bases of age, behaviour, situation and mutual relationship. Not only the two parties in love have been dealt with under this topic, but also their respective assistants-the companions (Sahāyaka Sakhā) of the hero and the friends (Sakhi) and the messengers ( Duti) of the heroine. The exuberant details and elaborateness with which this subject has been treated make it an independent theme for study not comprisable in the present work. Anubhavas, as we have already noted, are the external manifestations of the Bhavas. The term Anu- bhava should be analysed not to mean what occurs after a Bhäva but to mean what suggests or indicates a Bhava.13 According to Bharata Anubhavas are divisible into three classes : Vacka or those that are expressed by words, Angka or bodily, and Sattuka or those expressions that result from some internal organic changes.1ª The organic changes that form a part of an emotion are only of two kinds : the external bodily changes including *1 Jagannatha has analysea the teim in both ways: "अनुपश्चाद्भाव उत्पत्तिरयेषाम्। अनुभावयन्तीति व व्युत्पत्तेः ।"

"वागङ्गसत्वाभिनयैः स भाव इति सज्ञितः।" -R.G., p. 39. -N.S., VII. 1.

152 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

facial gestures, and the internal visceral and glandular changes. A comparative study of the above two types of divisions of the accompaniments of the Bhavas or the mental conditions reveals that while the class of the external bodily changes has been commonly recog- nized, Anubhavas are unique in including in their con- ception even the words that are uttered by the person under an emotional influence and in excluding all the internal changes. The Sattvikabhavas, which under Anubhavas form a separate class, are included in the conception of bodily modifications. This difference in the literary and the psychological conceptions of the Anubhavas or the organic changes in an emotion should not be distressing to us, for it can easily be accounted for by the difference in the point of view of an artist and that of a scientist. It is never the task of a poet to sit down in a well equipped psychological laboratory and to note with the help of instruments the changes that are undergone by the viscera and the glands of a person who is emotionally affected. Nor can he ever afford to neglect either the wrathful words of an angry person or the passionate sentences of a young couple in love; for he has to pen them, together with the bodily manifestations, to make the picture vivid, 'to make the context clear, and to link what he has said with what he shall say.

Though it can never be possible to number the external manifestations of the emotions, yet an attempt has been made by the writers on poetics to fix the number and the names of certain special Anubhāvas, some of them being peculiar only to women as Alambana Vibhavas of the Srngara Rasa, and the others being . common to men and women both. The former have been called the Sāttrika Alankāras of a Nāyıkā and the latter the Sattvikabhāvas. The Sattvika Alankāras o1 the Natural Graces of a Heroine are twenty according to Dhanañjaya. They are: 1. Bhava or Feeling, 2. Hava or Emotion, 3. Hela or Passion, 4. Sobha or Beauty, 5. Kanti or Loveliness, 6. Dipti or Radiance,

VIBHAVAS AND ANUBHAV AS 153

7. Madhurya or Sweętness, 8. Pragalbhata or Courage, 9. Audārya or Dignity, 10. Dhairya, or Self-control, 11. Lila or Sportiveness, 12. Vilăsa or Delight, 13. Vucchti or Tastefulness, 14. Vibhrama or Confusion, 15. Kilakincita or Hysterical Mood, 16. Mottāyita or Manifestation of Affection, 17. Kuttamita or Pretended Anger, 18. Vwvvoka or Affected Indifference, 19. Lalita or Lolling, and 20. Vihrta or Bashfulness.18 Out of

1# "1. Feeling is the first touch of Emotion in a nature that was previously unaffected 2. Emotion is ardent love which produces a change in eyes and brows. 3. That (1.e. Emotion) is Passion, when it is a very plain manifestation of the Emotion of Love. 4. Beauty is bodily adornment due to handsome form, passionateness and youthfulness. 5. Loveliness is the name given to the touch of beauty imparted by love. 9. 7. Radiance is higher degree of loveliness Sweetness is a quality not very intense. 8. Courage is the quality of not becoming agitated. . Dignity is courteous bearing at all times. 10. Self-control is a state of mind not affected by incon-

11. stancy and free from boastfulness. Sportiveness is the imitation of a loyer in the actions of a fair-lımbed maiden. 12. Delight is an immediate change in appearance, actions and the like at the sight of the beloved, etc. 13. Tastefulness is an arrangement, though slight, of adorn- ment so as to increase loveliness. 14. Confusion consists in misplacing ornaments in haste on some occasion. 15. Hysterical Mood is a combination of Anger, Weeping, Joy, Fear and the like. 16. Manifestation of Affection is being absorbed in thought of hım (1e. one's lover) at a mention of him and the like. 17. Pretended Anger is said to exist when a maiden, although inwardly filled with joy, is angry at her lover's touching her hair or her lıp. 18. Affected Indifference is neglectful behaviour even toward one that is loved, because of haughtiness'due

12. to pride. Lolling is graceful pose of one's fair form. 20. Bashfulness is not speaking, because of modesty, even 20 when there is opportunity",-Dasarupa, pp. 58-65.

154 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

these the first three have been termed Angaja or Physical, the next seven (from Sobha to Dhairya) Ayatnaja or Coming of their own Accord, and the rest Svabhāvaja or Arising from one's Disposition. To the class of the Svabhavaja Alankāras Visvanatha has added eight more1 bringing the total number to twenty-eight. By the writers on poetics in the Riti period of Hindi Literature though this number was reduced to even ten,15 twelve1 or thirteen,1' yet some of them recognized a new Sattvika Alankara by the name of Bodhaka and another 14 They have been defined as follows in S.D., (pp. 122-125) :-- 1. Mada- मदो विकार: सौभाग्ययौवनाद्यवलेपजः । 2. Tapana- तपन प्रियविच्छेदे स्मरावेगोत्यचेष्टितम्। 3. Maugdhya- अज्ञानादिव या पृच्छा प्रतीतस्यापि वस्तुनः । वल्लभस्य पुरा प्रोक्तं मौग्ध्य तत्तत्त्ववेदिभि: ॥ 4. Viksepa -- भूषाणामर्घरचना मिथ्या विष्वगवेक्षणम्। रहस्याख्यानमीषञन्च विक्षेपो दयितान्तिके।। 5. Kutūhalà -- रम्यवस्तुसमालोके लोलता स्यात्कुतूहलम्। 6. Hasita- हसितं तु वृथाहासो यौवनोद्द्ेदसभवः । 7. Cakita- कुलोऽपि दयितस्याग्रे चकितं भयसंभ्रमः । 8. Keli- विहारे सहकान्तेन क्रीडित केलिरुच्यते। 1 Matirāma, Deva and Bihārīlāla Bhatta have accepted only ten Sattvika Alankaras under the name of Hava. They are the ten Svabhavaja Alankaras of Dhanañjaya. Vide Rasarāta, p. 344, Bhāvavilāsa, p. 70, and Sāhityasāgara, p. 310. (Note- Biharilala Bhatta is a contemporary author). 10 Padmakara has accepted twelve adding Hela and Bodhaka. Vide Jagadvmoda, pp. 173-174. 1' Kesava has admitted thurteen adding Mada to the twelve of Padmākara. Vıde Rasikapriyā, chap. VI,

VIBHAV AS AND ANUBHÀV AS 155

by the name of Uddipana1" mentioned neither by Dhanañ- jaya nor by Visvanatha. It should, however, be noted that out of these thirty Havas or Alankaras all the seven which have been enumerated under the sub-head Ayat- naja and which have not been mentioned by most of the Ritikalina writers on poetics, cannot be called Anubhavas. Some of them are bodily excellences, while the others are qualities of character. The bodily excellences can serve only as Uddipana Vibhavas, the Nayka in whom they exist being the Alambana Vibhava. The qualities of character ought to form the subjective part of the excitant cause of an emotion, if the emotion is being experienced by the person possessing these qualities. But if such person be the Alambana Vibhava of the emotion, these qualities would determine and guide his behaviour, which, as Uddīpana Vibhāva, 1s responsible for intensifying the emotional experience.

Bharata has enumerated the following eight Sattvika- bhavas : 1. Stambha or Paralysis, 2. Sveda or Sweating, 3. Romanca or Horripilation, 4. Svarasāda or Sinking of Voice, 5. Vepathn or Trembling, 6. Vaivarnya or Change of Colout, 7. Aśru or Tears, 8. Pralaya or Fainting1. To these have been added the ninth 'Sattvikabhava Jrmbha or Yawning30 and the tenth Stanyasrava or Flowing of Milk from the Breast out of Motherly Affection.a The thing which startles us 18 Bodhaka has been recognized by Gulāmanabi, Padmākara and Kesava, and Uddipana by Gulamanabi according to whom the total number of the Havas is thirty. The definitions of Bodhaka and Uddipana are noted below :- Bodhaka- "ठानि करिया कछु तिय पुरुष बोधन करें जु हाव। रस-ग्रथन मे कहत है तासो बोधक हाव ।I" -- Jagadvrnoda, p. 174. Uddīpana- "बातन को विस्तार जहँ उद्दीपन कहि ताइ।"-Rasaprabodha, p. 91. 1º Vide N.S., VII. 93. * Vide Jagadvınoda, p. 163, and Rasarāja, p. 343. 2 Vıde Kalyāna, Sādhanānka, p. 520. (Gırīndranārāyana Mallıka, Pancadhā Bhakts).

156 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

at the outset about this class of Anubhavas is the attri- bution of the term Bhava or mental condition to it, for as Anubhavas these are only the external manifesta- tions of mental conditions and not mental conditions by themselves. The explanations that have been offered by Bharata," Bhoja28 and Hemacandra4* to show that these are Bharas are unconvincing as they do not confirm with the psychophysiology of the day. That they were not convincing also to the scholars of Samskrta poetics is indicated bv the fact that while Visvanatha stressed that Sattvīkabhavas are essentially external expressions of the mental conditions,25 Mammata*6 did not think it worthwhile even to mention them separately. Moreover, if Sattvikabhavas were themselves mental conditions, each of them should not have been said to arise out of several other mental conditions.27 The reason of this wrong attribution of the term Bhāva to this class of Anubhavas is, however, not far to seek. The general muscular activities which form a part of an emotion are, in spite of being manifested involuntarily, subject to our voluntary control; they may be suppressed even when the emotion is being experienced and may be enacted even without any emotional experience. But Sattvikabhavas, unlike the general Anubhavas, cannot be exercised upon a voluntary control. They are conditioned by the visceral and glandular changes which occur inside the organism simultaneous with a mental affection., In an extreme fit of anger, for instance, it may be possible for us not to strike the object that has enraged us, but Vepathu 2 Vide N.S., p. 379. 28 Vide S.K.A., V. 20, p. 556. 24 Vide K.A., pp. 118-120. Vide S.D., p. 130. $8 Vıde hıs Kāvyaprakāša. AT Rūpagosvāmī has given for every Sattvikabhava as many clear illustrations as there are mental conditions to accompany it. For instance he has shown Horripilation to accompany Wonder, Joy and Fear. Vide his U.N.M., pp. 328-340.

VIBHÄV AS AND ANUBHĀV AŠ :157

or trembling cannot be done away with unless, ot course, we are able to suppress the emotion. In a like manner though we can easily pretend anger by clenching our fists and talking hotly, yet without an emotional excitement we cannot possibly horripilate, perspire or shed tears at will except by affecting our organism in some other way8* to undergo these modi- fications. So it is on account of this dependence of the 'Sattikabhavas on the internal organism, which is not under the control of the will, that they have been Idifferentiated from the general Anubhavas which are controllable by the will. But in spite of the validity of this differentiation there is not the least justification to call these particular kinds of Anubhavas mental conditions, for even according to Bharata Sattva merely anses out of the mind* and is not a state of it. We can, however, call with reason an Anubhava of this class a Sāttvikānubhāva.80

A critical glance at the list of the so-called Sattvika- bhavas seems to be necessary. It suffers from the lack of scientific revision as much as does the list of the Bhavas, which we have already examined, because of the tendency to stick to convention. Pralaya or fainting, which has been included in this list, obviously cannot be an Anubhava of a Bhava or feeling, for while Bhava necessarily implies consciousness, Pralaya indicates its negation. It can, however, be the after-effect of an emotional excitement. Blushing81 in shyness and red- dening of the eyes and brightening of the face in anger also result from the internal functioning of the organism and must be included in this list. * Eg, we can bring out perspiration by doing any hard muscular work. "9 "इह सत्त्वं नाम मनःप्रभवम् ।" -NS., p. 379. " F. H. Lund has described the internal working of the organism unvolved in some of the Sattukanubhavas such as Erection of the Hair, Perspiration of Hands and Feet, and Tears. Vade Emotions of Men, chaps. V & VI. "* Blushing can hardly be inoluded an Vaivarnyas

158 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

Another defect in the treatment of this class of Anubhavas in the Indian poetics is the association of even the non-emotional stimuli with it. Tears, for instance, have been said to arise out of smoke.8" Though lacrimation is certainly caused by smoke also, yet such a lacrimation can never be included among the Anubhavas ; for how can we call anything the external manifestation of a feeling when no feeling is there. A distinction should be made, therefore, as has been done by some of the modern psychologists88, between the manifestation of the Sāttvikānubhāvas in emotional situations and their occurrence as reflex reactions to chemical and mechanical stimulation.

A passing reference may be made here also to the' general laws of expression discovered by Darwin and Wundt. According to Darwin the principles which "account for most of the expressions and gestures involuntarily used by man and the lower animals under the influences of various emotions and sensations""4 are three : 1. The Principle of Serviceable Associated Habits, 32 "अश्र-यह .... धुआँ-रोगादि से उत्पन्न होता है।" -K K., pp. 122-123. s8 Lund in making such a distinction has mentioned the following non-emotional stımuli for tears : "1. Irritation of the eyeball and lids through contact with foreign objects. 2. Irritation of the mucous membrance of the nose through inhalation of strong vapors or through some form of mechanical stimulation. 3. Violent laughter, coughing, retching, sneezing, and

4. Stimulation of the retina with infra-red or ultra-violet yawning.

rays. To these might be added a group of semi-emotional conditions capable of inducing tear secretion, Of such conditions increased tension under pain is perhaps most familiar. The effectiveness of a stinging switch on the face or a blow on the nose is also well known" .- # Exprissien of the Emotions, p. 4. Emotions of Men, p. 133.

VIBHAV AS AND ANUBHAV AS 159

2. The Principle of Antithesis, and 3. The Principle of the Direct Action of the Nervous System.85

Wundt has substituted his own principles for those of Darwin. They are : 1. The Principle of Direct Modification of Innervation, 2. The Principle of the Association of the Ana- logous Sensations, and 3. The Principle of the Relation between Move- ments and Sensory Representations.86

A critical examination of the validity of these laws or principles is, however, not within the scope of this thesis which essentially aims at studying only such matter as is comprised in the subject of Rasa in the light of modern psychology.

$s For a detailed exposition of these principles see Expression of the Emotions, chaps. I to III. '80 Vide Psych. of Emotions, chap. IX,

CHAPTER IV

A CLASSIFICATION OF THE BHAV AS AND RASĀDI

Bharata has divided Bhavas into the classes of Sthayi, Vyabhicārī or Sancārī, and Sattvika. We have already discussed in the two preceding chapters that the Sthayi and Sañcarībhavas are the mental affections or the psychic sides of the emotions, and that the Sattvika- bhavas aie not Bhavas at all. Thus this division of the Bhavas amounts only to a twofold classification of the emotions, one class having permanent feelings on the psychic side and the other transitory. Let us find out in how many ways the terms Sthayi and Sancari, which form the differentiae of these two species of feelings have been defined or interpreted and scrutinize whether the difference indicated by any of them at all exists in reality.

The first interpretation of these terms comes from Abhinavagupta. According to him the nine Sthāyi- bhävas1 exist permanently in every human mind in the form of latent impressions. They are evoked and developed by adequate causes and in proper circum- stances, and when these causes and/ circumstances are withdrawn, they get back to their dormant conditions. Sañcārībhāvas, on the contrary, exist only so long as the exciting causes are there. When these causes are no more, the Bhavas also cease to exist without leaving any trace (Samsakara) behind. Abhinavagupta clarifies this difference by giving an illustration. "When", says he, "the statement is made 'Glano'yam', the ques- tion that at once arises is 'why?' ; when, on the contrary, the statement is 'Utsāhasaktımānayam Rāmah', the ques- tion that atises is 'in whose presence?' The first question ' The eight of Bharata and Sama or Tranquillity the ninth,

A CLASSIFICATION OF BHAV AS AND RASADI 161

relates to the cause that gives rise to exhaustion (Glani) and second to the agency that buings out what already exists"."

By looking, closely at the lists of Bhavas of both the classes we can easily discover that the above con- tention of Abhinavagupta is absolutely groundless. Both classes of Bhavas are called foith by certain Vibhāvas; and when the Vibhavas are withdrawn, the Bhavas also disappear. There is no evidence to suppose that it is in the case of the Sthayībhavas and Sthayibhavas alone that they exist in the mind in a latent form when not mantfested. A Samskāra or an impression of a Bhāva in a person may, at best, mean that the person is sus- ceptible to that Bhava-he is liable to experience it when placed in the proper circumstances. And keeping this meaning in view we can speak of Samkāras of all the Bhavas whether Sthayi or Sancari. We can say that a man is susceptible to joy (Harsa) with the same propriety with which we say that a man is susceptible to, sorrow (Soka). The illustration cited by Abhinava- gupta in the defence of his thesis, though cleverly chosen, cannot help him too far, for the test, which he has given us to differentiate between a Sthayi and a Sancaribhava, fails when applied to many other- Bhavas, If the question 'why?' does not arise when the statement 'He is angry' is 'made, how can it appear when the statements 'He is feeling Amarsa' and 'He is feeling Ugratd' are made?8 If we can put the question 'why? at one's feeling joy, why can we not repeat it at his feeling sorrow? The question 'mn whose presence ?', as a matter of fact, constitutes only an incomplete inquiry about any emotional experience, for in reply to it we get only the person (or the object) in respect of whom (or which) the emotion is experienced. The * Phil of Aesth Pleasure, p 172. Vide abid, pp 169-172, and A.B., p 284 Amar sa and Ugrafa, though placed under the class of Safcari- bhavas, are almost synonyms to the Sthajbhava Krodha or Anger, 21

162 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

person or the object, as we have already discussed in the preceding chapter, while dealing with Vibhava does not make even the full objective cause which comprises also the situation and environment in which the object is placed. So to make an enquiry complete about the cause of an emotion, whether having a perma- nent or a transitory feeling for its psychic side, the appearance of the question 'why?' is inevitable. It should also be marked here that Glam or the feeling of exhaustion, which has been selected by Abhinava- gupta for his illustration from the list of the Sañcārī- bhavas, 1s only the consciousness of the organic sensa- tions which are produced as the after-effects of an exertion and which have no concomitant phenomenon as their Vibhava. It is on this account that the question 'in wrose presence ?' does not arise in connection with Glan. Otherwise this question, in one form or another, should properly make its appearance and be satisfac- torily answered with respect to any Bhava, for every feeling, rightly so termed, must have something occurring simultaneously, may it be merely an idea, to account for its presence.

A second interpretation of the terms Sthayi and Sacari can be gathered from the definitions of the two classes of Bhavas. A Sthayibhava has been defined as one which cannot be subdued by another Bhava, whether compatible or incompatible, and which subsists in the mind for a long timet. Sancaribhavas, on the contrary, are fleeting in character and they appear and disappear during the experience of a Sthayibhava." Before admitting the difference suggested by these definitions let us first analyse them and find out how far they are consistent with truth.

The first essential character of a Sthaytbhava is said to be this that it cannot be eclipsed by any other Bhāva. Vide S.D., p. 144, and R.G., p. 37. 5 Vide S.D., p. 131, and K.K., pp. 123-124.

A CLASSIFICATION OF BHAV AS AND RASĂDI 163

This position is obviously ridiculous. There is no. such inherent miraculous power in any Bhava by the dint of which it can irremovably exist in a mind. A, Bhava, as we know, needs a Vibhava or a cause to be called forth and to continue to exist. As soon as the Vibhava is withdrawn, the Bhava must disappear. As soon as one Vibhāva replaces another, a Bhava corres- ponding to the succeeding Vibhava must be substituted. How, then, can it be held that the Bhavas placed under the class of Sthayi are not overcome by other Bhavas. A millionaire engaged in an amorous pastime with a wanton suddenly hears the news that he has lost his fortunes and has been reduced to a beggar. The feeling of sexual love, which has been classed permanent, immediately vanishes, and the poor unfortunate creature sets himself to painful meditation (Cinta).

The second characteristic of a Sthayībhava is again as meaningless as it is inadmissible. Considering it in comparison with the first of a Sancaribhava we find it maintained that certain specific Bhavas are permanent and the others transitory, because the former subsist for a longer period of time than the latter. I for myself do not know if there can be a more absurd statement than to say that a man cannot feel envy (Asūya) and pride (Garva) as long as he can feel disgust (Ghrnā) and wonder (Vismaya), or that joy (Harsa) cannot be felt as long as mirth (Hasa) can be felt. What rational man can have the audacity to deny that hours, nay days and sometimes even months and years, are - spent in anxiety (Cintā). Even such Sancarībhāvas as are not Bhavas at all cannot be shown to be fleeting in nature. Sleep (Nidra) and intoxication (Mada) last for hours, sickness (Vyadhi) and insanity (Unmada) may last for days or months, and death (Marana) lasts for ever. As a matter of fact the question of the dura- tion of a Bhava can never be made self-dependent. It is the Vibhava which causes and sustains a Bhava, and, therefore, the duration of a Bhava depends upon' the duration of its Vibhava. A Bhava even from the list

164 PSYCHOLOGIĆAL STUDIES IN KASA

of the Sthayts will appear and vanish immediately if its exciting cause operates but lasts only as long as a lighten- ing-flash; and a Bhava even from the Sancaris will subsist indefinitely if the phenomenon which causes it does not withdraw itself.

The second characteristic of a Sancarībhava can hardly be called its distinctive feature, for even the Bhavas classed permanent may appear for a short time during the experience of another predominant feeling." And not only this, also the Sañcarībhavas can be experienced or depicted as independent feelings. Mammata tells us that the "occasional predominance" of the Bhavas classed transitory "is like that of the King's servant whose marriage is attended by the King (who, for the time being, occupies a position subordinate to that of the servant)". But when the Bhavas of the one class can be both superior and sub- ordinate to those of the other, there is little justification in calling some permanent and the rest transitory. There is, however, one point which may be put forward in the defence of this classification. The Bhavas placed under the class of permanent feelings are to be termed Sthayībnavas only when they develop into Rasa with the support of the Vibhavas etc." But a Bhava of the transitory class also, 'when supported by the Vibhavas etc., makes à genuine emotion; and hence again there cannot be the least propriety in saying that only some Bhavas ate fit to develop into Rasa while the others are not.

Closely connected with the second is also a third interpretation of the terms Sthayi and Sancari. According to this interpretation certain Bhavas are to be called ० 'रत्यादयोऽप्यनियते रसे स्युर्व्यभिचारिणाः ।" -S.D., p. 143. * Kāvyaprakāša, p. 65. ft ............ संवध्यन्तेऽनुबन्धिभिः । रसत्वं ये पपव्न्ते प्रसिद्धाः स्थायिनोऽ्नर ते॥।" -R,G., p. 37.

À CLÁSSIFICATION OF, BHV AS AND RASADI 163 permanent because of their existing thfoughout a poetical narrative (Prabandha).9 Thus the' Sthayibhava in Rāmāyana is sorrow (Soka), and in Mahābhārata it is tranquillity (Sama).10 It is, however, difficult to conjecture whether the authors of this view ever set themselves to think out its full implications, for in making a Sthayībhava synonymous with the predominant feeling of a long composition they automatically eli- minate many Bhavas from the list of the permanent feelings while actually they do not. The feelings of Anger (Krodha), Fear (Bhaya), Disgust (Ghrna) and Wonder (Vismaya), though classed permanent by them, can never attain the status of a Sthayībhava, for evidently none of them can be the predominant feeling of a whole work.

Thus we see that all the points of difference between a Sthayi and a Sancaribhava are unreal and that it is im- possible to have an absolute classification of the Bhavas of this nature. In concrete instances of complex emo- tional experiences it may, however, be sometimes possible to name the predominant emotion; and, as it has been admitted even by the writers on poetics, such predominence may be acquited also by any of those emotions which have the so-called transitory status on the psychic side.1* It is strange how this classification of the Bhavas inaugurated by Bharata, or perhaps by even a more ancient author, has been admitted for over a score of centuries by the literary scholars of this country in spite of its being based on such false grounds. In the whole range of Samskrta and Hindi poetics there seems to have been only one critic, viz., Rudrata, who had the courage to stand against the great authority of Bharata and to declaré that even the Sancarībhavas make as good Rasas as do 5 "तत्र आप्रबन्ध स्थिरत्वादमीपा भावानां स्थायित्वम् ।" -Ibid., p.37. 10 Vide S.D., p. 145. 11 Refer to Mammata's view on the predominance of the Safcari- bhāvas quoted supra.

166 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

the Sthayis.1.ª But his view was entirely disregarded by the succeeding generations of the literary critics. The reson of the neglect of this view, which was intelli- gently formed, and hence was at least worth considera- tion, is to be sought partly in the excessive influence exercised by Bharata and his great champion Abhinava- gupta and partly in the fact that Rudrata did not take pains to support his thesis by any strong arguments based on a psychological analvsis.

Rasa as a kınd of Asamlaksyakrama Vyangya (Suggestion in which the order of sequence is not perceptible) in the scheme of Dlwani has got seven other coordinate species. They are : Rasābhāsa, Bhāva, Bhāvābhāsa, Bhavāsānti, Bhāvodaya, Bhāvasandhi and Blāva- savalata. All the eight kınds of Asamlaksyakrama Vyang ya, Rasa being the most prominent among them, are often denoted by the term Rasadz meaning 'Rasa and the like'. Rasa, as we have already established, is congruous with Emotion. Let us find out here what are these seven other phenomena which can stand in cooraination with Rasa.

Rasabhasa or the Semblance of Rasa is Emotion improperly manifested.18 Depiction of anger towards elders and of sexual love with the wife of a preceptor are examples of the semblances of the Raudra and Śrngāra Rasa respectively. In the term Rasābhāsa we cannot make Rasa mean Emotion, for what is indicated by the term is a genuine emotion and not a mere semblance of it, may it be experienced in respect of a person not fit to be so behaved. But even if we make Rasa mean Relish, the phrase semblance of relish can hardly signify anything relevant. In poetry and litera- ture are portrayed characters both noble and villainous. We may condemn the villain for his immoral love, 22 "रसनाद्रसत्वमेषां मधुरादीनामिवोक्तमाचार्येः । निर्वेदादिष्वपि तन्निकाममस्तीति तेऽपि रसाः ।"-Kavyalankara, p.150. * Vide Kāvyaprakāša, p. 62, S.D., p. 172, and R.G., p. 118.

A CLASSIFICATION OF BHAV AS AND RASADI 167

but if the portrayal of his chatacter has been natural and psychological, the piece must command our real interest. It is possible, however, that sometimes, for * one reason or the other, we may fail to relish it; but in between these two cannot exist a third possibility of relishing the, piece, and, yet, relishing it only in semblance. So the innovation of Rasābhāsa, either as a coordinate species to Emotion or as a type of Relish, is as unnecessary as it is meaningless.

A Bhava, according to Viśvanātha, is either a pie- dominant Sancari, or love towards gods and the like, or an undeveloped Sthayi.1* We have already discussed in this very chapter that the Bhavas cannot be classified into permanent and transitory, and have thereby shown that a twofold classification of the emotions suggested by this classification of the Bhavas is an impossibility. So a Bhava from the list of the Sancaris, if developed fully, makes a genuine emotion and hence is nothing different from Rasa. Likewise love or affection for anybody, if shown to have been manifested both mentally and physically, would afford an instance of Emotion and Emotion alone. It may be recalled here from the second chapter of this section that certain authors have already admitted parental, friendly and Godly affections to be permanent feelings capable of being developed into Rasas or emotions. An undeveloped feeling, not only from the list of the Sthayis but also from that of the Sañcaris, can certainly be called a Bhava with full justification, for, as we know, an emotion or a Rasa is not merely a mental condition but the conjunction of a mentál condition and the accompanying organic changes Thus though there has been no mistake in calling a bate feeling a Bhäva, yet, a constituent of Emotion as it is, its mention as a coordinate species to Rasa is in no way defensible.

*"सचारिणा प्रधानानि देवादिविषया रति. । उद्बूद्धमात्र; स्थायी च भाव इत्यभिघीयते ।।" -S.D., p. 170,

168 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

Bhavabhasa or the Semblance of a Bhava has been defined to be an aberration or an improper manifestation of a Bhava. Shyness in a prostitute affords an example. The conception of Bhavabhasa is doubly erroneous. Firstly, as it was in the case of Rasabhasa, there exists no such phenomenon as can rightly be termed 'semblance of Bhava. Sccondly, when Bhava itself is merely a constituent of Emotion, how can its Abhasa or semblance stand in coordination with Rasa?

Bhavasantr and Blāvodaya are respectively allayment and evokation of feelings or emotions.15 only the essential stages of an emotional experience, They are

and neither a kind nor a coordinate species of it.

Bhavasandhi is the conjunction of two and Bhāva- sabalata is the admixture of more than two emotions.16 This mere numerical plurality of the Bhavas and the Rasas again cannot give rise to a new phenomenon fit to constitute a separate class, either coordinate with or subordinate to the class of the emotions.

Thus we see whete the Indian science of poetics stands with ieference to a classification of the emotions, Its only classification worthy of the name is the twofold division of the Bhavas, which are emotions on the psychic side, into permanent and transitory. But there too it fails to find out a clear differentia. In modern psycho- logy we do not come across a classification of the emo- tions parallel to that of the Indian poetics. There are, however, some other types of classifications given by the contemporary psychologists. But to consider and criticize them here in detail is not possible for obvious icasons. We should; therefore, content ourselves with the following remark of Th. Ribot made on such classi- fications : - 15 Vide Kāvaprakāśa, p. 63, etc. 10 Vide ibid., p. 63, etc.

A CLASSIFICATION OF BHAV AS AND RASADI 169

" ...... A true classification of the emotions-i.c. a distribution into ordeis, genera and species, according to the dominant and subordinate characters-is impossible. Every classification, if not purely empirical, expresses a general theory of affective life, a sysiem, and consequently a hypothesis. More than this it can never congratulate itself on having exhausted its matter, for every emotion, simple or compound, admits of innumerable varieties determined by the individual, the race, the epoch, and the course of civilisation; some are extinct, others again of recent origin. Lastly the existence of the mixed emotions-which are numerous -is a fatal objection to eveiy attempt at distribution into a linear series. The only track to follow is that of genetic filiation-1x, to state first the simple, primaty emotions, then to find out by what mental process, conscious or unconscious, the composite or derived emotions have arisen from them ...... But this work 1s no longer a classification".1T

15 Psych. of Emotions, pp. 138-139, 22

-APPENDIX A

RAS A-DOS AS.

"There 1s' no other circumstance", says Ananda- vardhana, "which leads"to the violation i of Rasaithan ampropriety; the supreme secret of Rasa>consists in 'observing 'the - established rules of propriety".1 It is this impropriety referred to by the authorof Dhvanya- loka which has been, discussed: by vthe later twriterscon poetics under the subject-of the defects cor.LDosast of Rasa. In the phrase 'violation of Rasa'(Rasabhanga) appearing un the' above quotation theterm . Rasatcan mean nothing but relish of poetry, for itlsrelish which is liable to be distorted if any. rules of propriety 'are not 'observed. 'But the term' >Rasadosa, to diffetentiateit from the wider class of the general defects:ofta:literaty composition all of which may affect'our ipoeticrrelish, ought to be 'confined to:comprehend,onlysuchidefects as may 'occur in ther delieation of an emotion. 'This short chapter as an appendix 's restricted cto a brief discussion of the genuine Rasadasas only' 1

The defect which has been dealt with firstrby many of the important authors" is the mention byname of a Rasa or a Sthayi or Sancaribhava. The implications -of admitting'a defect like' this may easily be conjectured. The affected state of the mind tof ta tperson tunder the 'sway of an emotion can never be directly perceived. It is always inferred by the bodily imovements: and the facial expressions of the person 'and by the.situation in which he 'is placed. Now the poet who wishes>to * अनौचित्यादृते नान्यद्रसभंगस्य कारणम्। प्रसिद्धौचित्यबन्धस्तु रसस्योपनिषत्परा ।" -D.A., p. 180. (Translation by Dr. S. K. De). * Such as Mammața, Viśvanātha, Hemacandra and Kanhaiyā- lāla Poddāra,

172 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RAŠA

depict the emotion should not merely mention it by name. He should rather portray the whole scene so graphically, not omitting any relevant detail, that his readers may be able to have a clear vision of it and may know eventually the mental condition of the hero of the scene. But such detailed description of the situa- tion and the expressions cannot always be possible, particularly in a narrative poem in which often there are many characters and a host of emotions and feelings pertaining to each character. At least sometimes the naming of the emotions and the feelings have been regarded faultless even by the writers on poetics. While Hemacandra admits that there is no defect in indicating a Sancarībhava by name when necessary,8 Poddāra holds that sometimes also a Sthayībhava can be so indicated.“ As a matter of fact the mention by name of the Bnāvas or the Rasas should not at all be considered to be a fault. If the description of an emotional experience is already picturesque, it cannot be rendered defective by also naming the emotion. If an emotion is indicated merely by name, where can lie a Rasadosa when abso- lutely there is no delineation of an emotion? And, lastly, if an author wishes to be brief and chooses to describe only the important features of an emotion which he mentions also by name to avoid ambiguity, on no reasonable grounds can we find fault with him or his composition.

The "far-fetched indication"" of the Anubhavas and the Vibhavas has been considered as another Rasa- dosa. The conjunction, as we have alieady observed in the third chapter of the second section of this work, of the Alambana and the Uddipana Vibhavas does not constitute the whole cause of an emotion; and hence if only the two kinds of the Vibhavas are described, we cannot know for certain what emotion they should ,8 Vide K.A., p. 133. * Vide K.K., pp. 374-375. · Kāvyaprakāša, p. 236,

ŘAŠA-DÓŠ ÁŠ 173

have aroused. Similarly as different feelings can mani- fest themselves in similar expressions, a mention of the Anubhavas only cannot always suggest unequivocally the intended emotion. So in either case the delineation of the emotion would be incomplete. The absent factor, Anubhavas in the first case and Vibhavas in the second, would have to be imagined by the reader, who in doing so would certainly feel both doubt and difficulty and would also be liable to mistake. This defect of ambiguity resulting from the incomplete depiction of an emotion has, therefore, been rightly conceived. It was admitted also by Abhinavagupta in his seventh obstacle in the realization of Rasa, viz., Samsayayoga.®

The third Rasadosa consists in the import of the clements (Vibhava, Anubhava and Sancarībhava) of an opposite Rasa in the delineation of a Rasa.T This defect is based on the conception of the opposition and friendship of emotions. Rasas have been related with one another in three ways: (1) either as enemies or antagoniss (Virodhi or Satru Rasa), or as friends ( Avirodhi or Mitra Rasa), or as neutrals (Udāsīna or Tatastha Rasa). And then each Rasa has got certain specific Sañcarībhavas, which alone can be blended with it, the rest being again incongruous. The defect under discussion is manifested when the emotions said to be inconsistent with each other are shown to exist simul- taneously in the same person in respect of the same object, or when they have a common Asraya and a common Alambana. But this defect in any delineation of the emotions can be admitted only when the coexistence of the so-called antagonistic emotions has not been accounted for by a clear background of the scene. If, however, the bygone happenings are such as may fully justify psychologically the concurrence 5 Vide Phil. of Aesth. Pieasure, pp. 190-191, and Theorzes of Rasa and Dhvam, pp. 105 and 108. -- D.A., p. 199.

.174 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RIAŠA

of any two or. more- emotions, we cannot rationally censor their simultaneous happening. In Akāsadīpa of Jayaśankara Prasada we find an instance of the coexistence of such antagonistic feelings as, love and hate. It is Campa who loves Buddhagupta, and we cannot doubt the sincerity and ardency of her. love, fo1 she can sacrifice even her life for his sake. It is again Campa who hates Buddhagupta, the murderer of her father; and like her love her hate is also .real, for she cannot wed him in spite of her desire to do so. But evidently in this delineation of the opposite, emo- tions in respect of the same Aśraya and the same Alambana no defect can be discovered, for in the environment, in which Campa, the Asraya, is placed, it is natural for her to experience these emotions simul- -taneously.

There are even other defects which have -been related to Rasa. But they can hardly be regarded as genuine instances of Rasadosas, for they do not refer to any in'ner fault in the delincation of an emotion. Let us consider "an example of 'untimely introduction' ", which "we have in the second Act of Venīsamhāra, wheie, while the slaughter of numerous heroes .is procecding, the poct proceeds to describe the loving dalliances of Duryodhana with Bhanumati". Here though the introduction of the erotics in the, midst ot a murderous fighting may cause a distractionof the elish, yet so fai as the depiction of the sexual emotion in itself as concerned, there is nothing to be found fault with by the defect 'untimely introduction of an cmotion'.

• "मे तुम्हे घृणा करती हूँ, फिर भी तुम्हारे लिए मर सकती हूँ। अन्घेर हैं, जलदस्यु ! मे तुम्हे प्यार करती हूँ।"-Madhnkari, vol. I, p.10. · Kātyaprakāša, p, 240,

APPENDIX B

BIBLIOGRAPHY

WORKS 'CITED FOR OPINION 1. Abhinavabharati by Abhinavagupta, published with Natya- sastra of Bharata. 2. Agmpurana,, English Translation by 'M. N. Dutt, Calcutta," 1904 .! 3. Analytıc Psychologj by G. F 'Stout, London, 1909. 4. An' Anthology of Critical Statements, Edited by Amaranatha- Jha, Allahabady 1931. 5. Bhavartlasa by Deva, Payaga, S. 1991. . Candraloka by Jayadeva, Banaras, 1937. 7. Class Lertures by Ramacandra Srīvastava, Delivered Verbally at Agra during 1935 '36. 8. Dasariaka by Dhanañjaya, N.S.P, 1941; also 'Englısh" Translation by 'C. O. Haas, 'Columbia University!' 9." Defmition of Poetry or Kavya by D. T. Tatacarya Stromanı; published in 1.O.R.M., vols III & IV. 10. Dhvanyalokr by Anandavardhana, N S.P., 1935. 11. Eckermann's'Cowversation with'Goethe, London' 12. Elements of Psychology by M. Drummond and S. H. Mellone; London, 1926. 13. Emotions of Men by F. H. Lund, New York, 1930. 14. The Essence .of Aesthetic by Benedetto Croce, London, 1921. 15. The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animils by Cnarles* Darwin, London, 1934. 16. The Foundations 'of Character by A. F. Shand, London, 1914." 17. Groundn or k of Educational Psychology by James S Ross, London, 1931. 18. Hindi Sahitya ki Bhumika by Havari Prasada Dvivedi, Bombay,* 1940.' 19. Instinct in Man by James Drever, Cambridge,' 1921." 20. An Introduction to Social Psychology by William McDougall, London, 1936. 21. An Introduction to the Study of Literature by W. H. Hudson, London, 1939,

176 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

22. Jagadvinoda by Padmākara, in Padmākara-Pañcāmțta, Kashi, S. 1992. 23. Kavita Kya Hat? by Ramacandra Sukla, in Hindī-Nibandha- Mala, Allahabad, S, 1989. 24. Kauya-Kalpadruma by Kanhaiyalala Poddāra, Mathurā, S. 1998 25. Kāvyālankāra by Rudrata, N.S P., 1928. 26. Kāvyālankāra-Sūtra by Vāmana, N.S.P., 1926. 27. Kauyanusasana by Hemacandra, N.S.P., 1934. 28. Kavyannsasana by Vagbhata (Secondus), N.S.P., 1915. 29. Kāryaprakasa by Mammata, English Translation by Ganga- nātha Jha, Allahabad, 1925 30. La Rhetorigue Sanskrite by Paul Regnaud, Paris, 1884. 31. Locana by Abhinavagupta, published with Dhvanyaloka of Anandavardhana. 32. Madhava Nidana, a Samskrta Work on Medicine (Public Library, Allahabad, J 44). 33. A Mannal of Psychology by G. F. Stout, London, 1919. 34. Natyasasta by Bharata, Baroda, First Edition. 35. Navarasataranga by Beni Pravīņa, Kashi, 1925. 36. On Different Perceptions of Literary Facts by A. Baramikov, in D.A. Grantha. 37. An Outline of Psycholgy by William McDougall. 38. Pain, Pleaste and Aesthetics by H. R. Marshall. 39. Paicadha Bhakt: by Gırīndranarāyana Mallika, published in the Sadhananka of the Kalyana, Gorakhpur. 40 Philosophy of Aesthetic Pleasure by P. Pancapagesa Śāstrī, Annamalainagar, 1940. 41. Prinables of Literary Criticsm by I. A. Richards, London,

23. Psychology by R. S. Woodworth, 1937. 1925.

24. Psychology by William James, London, 1892. 44 The Pgchology of the Emotions by Th. Ribot, New York, 1911. 45 Ramacarıtamānasa by Tulasīdasā, published as Mānasānka of the Kalyāna, Gorakhpur. 46 Rasa aura Manovynana by Gulābaraya, published in the Sahitya- Sandesa, vol. V, Agra. 47. Rasagangadhara by Jagannatha, N.S.P., 1939. 48. Racalilasa by Ayodhyasımha Upadhyaya 'Hariaudha', Patna, First Edition,

BIBLIOGRAPHY 177

49. Rasa-Mimamsa by Dr. Bhagavan Das, 1h D.A. Grantha. 50. Rasa-Prabodha by Gulāmanabī, Kashı, 1895. 51. Rasaraja by Matliama, in Matirama-Granthavali, Lucknow, S. 1996. 52. Rasıkaprıyā by Keśavadāsa, Bombay, S. 1971. 53. Sādhāranīkāranā aura Vyaktwvarcutrayavāda by Rāmacandra Sukla, in D. A Grantha. 54. Sahtlyadarpana by Viśvanātha, with Hindi Commentary by Śālagrāma Śāstrī, Lucknow, S. 1991. 55. Sāhttyālocana by Śyamasundara Dāsa, Allahabad, 1938. 56. Sahitya-Sagara by Biharilala Bhatta, Lucknow, S. 1994. 57. Saketa by Maithilīsarana Gupta 58. Samskrta Sāhıtva ka itıhāsa by Kanhaiyālāla Poddāra, Naval- garh, 1938. 59. Sarasratīkanthabharana by Bhoja, N.SP, 1934. 60. The Scrence of the Emotions by Dr. Bhagavan Das, Adyat, 1924 61. Some Aspects of Literary Criticism in Sanskrit or the Thcories of Rasa and Dhiam by A Sankaran, Madras, 1929. 62. Studres in the History oj Sanskrit Poettes by Dr. S K De, London, 1925. 63. A Text-Book of Pychology by S. C. Sep, Calcutta, Fourth Edition. 64. Theory of Drama by Allardyce Nicoll. ' 65. Unvalanīlamanı by Rūpagosvāmī, Nırnaya Sāgara Press Bombay, 1932 66. Uttararamacarita by Bhavabhūti, Edited by M. R. Kale, Bombay, 1934. 67. Vagbhatālankāra, by Vāgbhata (Primus), N.S P, 1933.

WORKS CITED FOR ILLUSTRATION 68. Akasadīpd by Jayasankara Prasada, in Madhukurī, vol I, Kashı. 69. Āmsū by Jayášankara Prasāda. 70. Candraguhta by Jayasankara Prasāda. 71. Citralekha (Screen-Drama). 72. Cıtrarekhā by Dr. Rāmakumāra Varmā. 73. Dulāre-Dokāvalī by Dulārelāla. 74. Grāmīņa Samaja by Śarat, 75. Grfijana by Sumitranandana Panta.

178 PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES IN RASA

76. Jaraba (Screen-Drama). 77. Jhūla (Screen-Drama). 78. Kabira, Works. 79. Kālidāsa, Works. 80 Keśava, Works. 81. Khazānci (Screen-Diama). 82. La Langne Braja by Dr. Dhirendra Varma. 83. Mahābhārata 84. Mudrārāksasa by Visākhadatta. 85. Rāmacaritamānasa by Tulasīdāsa. 86. Ramānātaka by Sarat. 87. Rāmājana by Rādheśyāma Kathāvacaka, Bareilly. 88. Saketa by Maithilīsarana Gupta. 89. Satsar by Bıharī (Bthārī-Bodhanī). 90 Sevasadana by Premacanda. 91. Shakespeare, Works. 92. Sıkandara (Screen-Drama). 93. Suradasa, Works. 94. Vajrapāta (Short Story) by Premacanda, in Gadyaratnāvalī, Allahabad, 1940.

AUTHORS CITED INDIRECTLY THROUGH OTHERS' WORKS 1. Archer, Wm. 15. Doyle 2. Arstotle 16. Dryden, J. 3. Arnold, M. 17. Fontenelle 4. Augustine, St. 18. Gāndhī, Mahātmā 5. Berkeley, Dr. 19 Goldsmith 6. Bhämaha 20. Gunacandra (Nātyadarpana) 7. Bhattalollata 21. Hamilton 8. Bhattanāyaka 22. Hazlitt, W. 9. Bhattatauta 23. Hegel 10. Carlyle, T. 24. Herbart 11. Colerdge, S. T. 25. Hoffding 12. Courthone 26. Hunt, L. 13. Dandi 27. Johnson, S. 14. Dennis, J. 28. Keble

BIBLIOGRAPHY 179

29. Külpe 46. Schlegel 30. Kuntala 47. Schopenhauer 31. Ladd 48. Shelley, P. B. 32. Lange 49. Sherrington 33. Lewes 50. Sully 34. Macaulay 51. Sydney, P. 35. Mill, J. S. 52. Tagore, R. N. 36. Milton, J. 53. Taittiriyopavişad, Authors of 37. Nandikeśvara 54. Temple, W. 38. Newman, j. H. 55. Timocles 39. Poe, E. A. 56. Tolstoy 40. Prabhākarabhatța 57. Vidyānātha 41. Rājacūdāmanidikșita 58. Ward 42. Rājaśekhara 59. Watts-Dunton 43. Rāmacandra (Nātyada) paņa) 60. Whately, R. H. 44. Ruskin 61. Wordsworth, W. 45. Sańkuka 62. Wundt

--- प्राकत ग्र 57: 8530. - --

Thesis Approved for the Degree of : DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ARTS in the University of Allahabad ,

PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES

IN RASA

BY

Dr. RAKEŚAGUPTA, M.A., D. Phil., Assistant Professor iHmd BANARAS HIG F VERSITY

FEBRUARY, 1950.

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