Rasa: Savour of the Self…?

Some of you may already be aware of the sad fact that I don’t watch movies, neither in the theatres or on television. However, I did succeed in watching one last month. I was babysitting my nieces, Anjali, 7, and Emily, 5. They’re quite the little ladies: fun, charming, smart, cute and full of energy. I had gotten them C.S. Lewis’ “Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe” for Christmas, and they quite enjoyed hearing the story (as I remember quite enjoying hearing it as a child). My sister had rented the movie, and Emily insisted I watched it with her. How could I refuse? I was not so concerned with my enjoyment of the film, but was rather eager to facilitate Emily’s. This, for me, is reminiscent of the typology of feeling advanced by K.C. Bhattacaryya, as articulated both by himself (in “The Concept of Rasa”) and by J. N. Mohanty (in “Feelings, Poetics, and Religion”). His classification asserts three essential levels of feeling: primary object feeling, sympathy with object feeling, and sympathy with sympathy. These correspond to three different ways in which consciousness relates with an object. If I may apply this scheme to the experience with Emily, had I held a particular attachment in seeing the movie myself, I would have been engaging in ‘primary object feeling’, where my consciousness (through feeling) would be attached to the object. However, this was not the case. Rather, I was attached to the notion of helping her enjoy the film, and so, this would fall under “sympathy with object feeling”. I sympathized with her enjoyment of the film rather than pursuing my own enjoyment thereof. In order for me to have exhibited level three of Bhattacharyya’s distinction, my sympathy would have had to lie with sympathy itself, without fixating particularly on Emily’s enjoyment, or any other object specifically. Had I ruminated on the carefree joy experienced by children viewing films (without particularly focusing on my own love of the story, or Emily’s), I would have experienced sympathy with sympathy, which Bhattacharyya associates with the experience of rasa. Although I would like more practice applying his theory to practical situations, it quite appeals to me on paper.

I proceeded to watch the movie with the little one in my lap, enjoying her enjoyment at the scenes unfolding. I was happy to be there with her, and I was happy that she was happy. But my mind often drifted -- to my own reading of the book, to Jungian archetypes, to my courses, to classes, to errands needing to be done, etc. However, there was a point in the film where Aslan, the majestic lion, King of Narnia, was sacrificed upon a stone table. I watched intently as the girl-protagonists, Susan and Lucy, cried bitterly, before the corpse of the noble beast. I was totally absorbed in that moment, at the dawn, when the table cracked and that same slain lion was resurrected in actual flesh, the moment when the injustice inherent in his sacrifice succeeded in outweighing even the gravity of death itself. I not only grieved for the death of the lion, not only grieved for the grief of the girls, but I was lost to grief itself. The lion did not matter, the girls did not matter, nor did my own personal experience: all was washed away by waves of grief. In that moment, I forgot my responsibilities, forgot that Emily was on my lap, forgot that I was in my parent’s living room in front of a television set. I was lost in the film. This, I believe, coincides with the experience of rasa.


I have been reflecting on these very concepts pertaining to rasa, particularly as outlined in Section V, “Rasa – Imaginative Experiences”, of J.L. Mason and M.V. Parwardhan “Aesthetic Rapture: The RasŒdhyŒya of the NŒ ya§Œstra” (the tag-team feud instigated by Aklujkar and Gerow against Mason and Parwardhan will not be addressed here; we’ll surely have amply opportunity to do so in class). One of the most intriguing observations included in this reading is that aesthetic experience (e.g., the sorrow generated by the spiteful slaughter of the noble lion) does not latch itself to the concerns of actual space and time. It does not impinge on any ‘actual’ event. It occurs in a dream-like world which is construed of real life elements, but whose constituent aspects (plot, characterizations, props) in no way affect the course of reality. The dramatic action exists somehow insulated form our normal time and space. While watching the scene, I, myself, was not sorrowful, but sorrow was awakened in me. My real-word sequence of events run parallel with the sequence of events in the film, but the agents of sorrow stemmed from the film, not reality, therefore, it could not rightly be said that I was experiencing sorrow, for, my experience was not grounded in any ‘real’ cause. The agents of the grief are not real, but exist only in the dream-world of drama. The Indian literary critics are sure to highlight the distinction between real life causes (karana), and causes giving rise to aesthetic experience (vibhavas-s). They are not the same. A karana gives rise to actual sorrow because it harms the observer in a lasting way. The vibhava only invokes the permanent emotional state (e.g., §oka), but it is itself fleeting, and can inflict no lasting pain or damage to the observer. While experiencing karuöa rasa, one cannot really be grieving, because one has lost nothing. This distancing from the actual causes of sorrow is what affords the relishing of that sorrow, else the observer would be filled with suffering proper. Indeed, I am not sure where my personality self even fits into the whole experience. As the authors write, the spectator does not completely identify with the actor or the character; a certain “aesthetic distance” is retained. Hence the difficulty in assigning as locus to the rasa. My sorrow was not occurring in my personality-self as a result of real-life adversity.

I am very much intrigued by the notion that rasa experiences are similar to religious experiences in that they are inner, subjective, and “liable to evaporate under rigorous questioning”. This sentiment is quite nicely articulated in the following quote: “I respect the person who in the face of great poetry is forced into silence. His visibly thrilled body bears testimony to the intention of the poet which is beyond the reach of words, but which vibrates in his language that overflows with emotion” (26). Although I didn’t have as powerful an experience while watching The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe as that, there nevertheless was a moment when I lost track of time, forgot where I was, and indeed, lost myself. If my personality-self was lost to the film, who I wonder, was remaining? In whom, or what, resided the relishing of sorrow? The difficulty of assigning a locus to rasa, confirms, for me, the presence of a transcendental dimension to the experience of rasa. It seems impossible to grapple with issues pertaining to rasa theory without metaphysical import. Not only does the play/film take place in a realm divorced of actual space and time, but it is a realm into which the observer can journey, like the children falling into Narnia at the back of the wardrobe. When one is engaged in the experience of rasa, one is oblivious to the factors that contribute towards the experience (actors, gestures, props, plot sequence, setting, and the like). One seems to become oblivious of ordinary causality. Indeed it is said that time stands still in the presence of great art. But what could this mean? Is this the same timelessness which the mystics purport to experience? Interestingly enough rasa is not subject to our will. We cannot merely will it to occur. We must be carried away, but by what? It cannot stem from the aspect of self which exercises will, nor in the aspect which perceives time and space. What is left? In rasa, where are we, when are we, indeed, who are we? The more deeply I reflect upon the nature, origin, and locus of rasa, the more of a parallel I see between Rasa Theory and Heidegger’s Poetic Dwelling, particularly insofar as both schools of thought impinge upon conceptions of human selfhood. So much does this parallel appeal to me that I am dangerously toying with the idea of exploring this connection for my term paper. It would be challenging, but rewarding I think to explore this potential relation. Please, somebody talk me out if it. The quote above speaks about the association between the aesthetic experience and silence, and in so doing notions of the ineffable, the numinous, the sublime, the mystical do not seem to be far-fetched. I wish to close with a line from English Romantic poet John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (for fellow poetry nerd, the poem in may be found in its entirety at the link below). The work itself reflects upon an object of beauty, an ancient urn, itself timeless, serving as an apt symbol for the timeless relishing of its beauty. The poem culminates in Keats timeless stanza, which, is phrased as a message from the urn itself, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Thanks for reading,
Raj


http://englishhistory.net/keats/poetry/odeonagrecianurn.html