Rasa Revisited

This week’s readings highlighted some of the issues that we discussed over the past couple of weeks, regarding rasa. There are a few things that particularly stood out. The first thing I would like to discuss is the question we left open at the ending of last week’s class. Professor Rao asked if theories such as rasa and dhvani can be applied to “western” religions. Upon doing the readings I realized that it would be a very difficult task. This is because of more than one concept. The most prominent is this idea of religious experience. Not only does this imply that rasa imposes karma, through the idea of refining emotions, but also the idea that an aesthetic experience would have to be one that is culturally shared. More specifically, in “Aesthetic Rapture”, the author argues that “nothing in the real world happens or is affected” (24), adding to the fact that whatever happens in the drama is a reenactment of what happened in the past. This not only culturally assumes that one believe in karma or numerous lives, but also assumes that this experience of rasa is culturally understood. In other words, even though the author does make clear that rasa is individually experienced, the elaborate work that has been done to explain rasa alludes to the idea that one must understand societal conventions in order to fully grasp this idea of rasa. This is seen through the fact that Rama’s characteristics must be understood fully by both the actor and audience in order to eventually transcend one’s own personality.

This on its own is very problematic. On the one hand religious experience is understood and explained through rasa, but then on the other hand how can the irrational such as ones experiences and emotions be fully comprehendible to the point of an aesthetic experience? I guess this is why the author points out that post-Abhinava a lot of commentators were silenced.

Another interesting point that was reiterated through our readings on the rasa theory was the idea of the theory starting out as the foundation, and then later commentators such as Abhinava building or refining this foundation. Much like a building needs exact measurements, it is very interesting to see how rasa theory needs much refining to make it understandable. What would be fascinating to know, is how Abhinava was able to filter out this theory as already existing in art, and how the rasa theory was understood by those who were “awed” by Abhinava’s intelligence.

This idea of multiplicity of the rasa’s refined to one rasa highlighted in “On Santa Rasa in Sanskrit Poetics” is another theme that I found particularly interested in. The author states, “just as Brahman is the one real basis of all apparent multiplicity”. In this regard, the author shows how love is the one real basis of all the other apparent feelings. However, as the rasa theory makes clear the experiencing of multiplicity must happen before the experiencing of oneness/truth/ love. Therefore, it is only through the experiencing of these emotions that one is able to refine or transcend these emotions to experience the true rasa of love. One can agree with this argument on the basis of dualism. The idea is that one cannot know pleasure unless they have experienced pain. In this regard one is able to know the exact understandings of what each stand for.

On the contrary, definitions are socially created and one knows without touching the stove, that it is extremely hot. In this instance, the idea of multiplicity is discredited and the emotions experienced are not other worldly but instead worldly.

I guess the more readings you do on Rasa does make the subject matter more understandable, but at the same time more confusing.