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UNIT 2 RASA - DEFINITION, NATURE AND SCOPE

Contents
2.0 Objectives
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Definition
2.3 Nature
2.4 Scope
2.5 Poetry as Emotive Meaning
2.6 The Validity of Rasa as a Theoretical Concept
2.7 Let Us Sum Up
2.8 Key Words
2.9 Further Readings and References

2.0 OBJECTIVES
The objective of this unit is to learn the literary theory from the concept of ’Rasa.’ It would
therefore be appropriate to explain the meaning and scope of the term. It is also very important to
know that in the Indian context, the concept of rasa is central to all discourse about literature. It
can also be seen as a pervasive influence in the theories of painting, sculpture, drama and dance
in addition to poetry. Hence, it is necessary to understand how and why the concept of rasa
dominated the critical scene in India.
Thus by the end of this unit, you should be able:
• to have a basic understanding of the concept
• understand it as a general theory of literature
• it’s study in relation to other theories
• it’s emergence as the major literary concept
• it’s pervasive influence in arts

2.1 INTRODUCTION
As a general theory of literature, the Rasa doctrine (rasa-vada) is based on the premises that
literary works (as verbal compositions) express emotive meanings and that all literature is
typically emotive discourse or discourse that has to do with the portrayal of feelings and attitudes
rather than with ideas, concepts, statements of universal truths, and so forth. It also raises a host
of philosophical questions. What kind of entities are the emotions, what is their objective or
ontological status. How are they recognized? How do they get expressed in words? These and
other related questions will have to be considered seriously.
In the history of Sanskrit literature the concept of rasa has been developed in detail and in a
multifaceted way. It has remained central to all literary discourses. The term ‘rasa’ may not find
a good equivalent in English, but in its basic sense means ‘aesthetic relish’. Though a specific
attitude is required to appreciate rasa yet it is not a conditioning by experience that the
Behaviorists forge. Experience of rasa is also in terms of an inner process that occur in the
individual while going through a literary piece or performance. Hence, this aesthetic relish is not
concerned with mere linguistic behavior in an empty way but communicating a distinct eternal
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flavor or mood such as tragic, comic, erotic and so forth. A distinct role is given to what can be
referred to simply as the common human emotions treated in the poem termed as Bhavas and the
art of emotion or rasa that emerges from such treatment. While it is believed that in the history
of Sanskrit poetics, perhaps no other concept has given rise to so much controversy. It appears to
be a truth to an extent since the author of Rasagangadhara who tries to review in detail the
diverse shades of expert opinion centering round rasa, is driven to confess at the end that the
only common point that emergesis : ‘rasa is felt’ , as that which is invariably connected with the
highest joy and partaking of beauty in the world.
2.2 DEFINITION
The term rasa in the Vedic literature derives from the root ‘ras’ which means to taste, sweet
juice, sap or essence for instance , ‘raso vai madhu’ (Shatapatha Brahmana vi.iv. 3-27) ; ‘raso
vai sah’ (Taittiriya Upanishad. 2.7.2.) etc. The classical interpretations of Bharata’s famous ‘
Rasa-Sutra’ explains it as : “ Emotions in poetry came to be expressed through the conjunction
of their causes and symptoms and other ancillary feelings that accompany the emotions”
(Natyashastra. 6.31). Bharata here stipulates four necessary conditions that must be present for
an emotion to become manifested: (i) causes (vibhavas, (ii) symptoms (anubhavas , (iii) feelings
(vyabhicharin), and (iv) their conjunction (samyoga) (vibhava anubhava vyabhicharisamyogat
rasanishpattih. NS 6.32.). A reading of Natyashastra (NS) will show that Bharata never indulges
in the metaphysical discussion about the aesthetic response of the man/woman of taste. He
recognizes how it varies from individual to individual. It is not justified to estimate rasa with a
set of general arguments by citing experimental results and not by revealing the basic ideas in the
foundations of emotional sensitivity.

Causes (vibhavas): The causes of an emotion are those that generate or excite the emotion or are
the occasion of that emotion. In Sanskrit , the cause is designated by the term vibhava, a word
synonymous with karana, hetu, nimitta, all of them meaning ‘cause.’ It is also called a vibhava
because knowledge of an emotion through words, physical gestures , and involuntary psychic
symptoms (sweating, trembling and so forth) expressive of that emotion.

This is again of two kinds, the first is the primary cause or the object of emotion (internal object
in modern terminology), which is defined as “that, resting on which, as its object , emotions like
love are born’. The Sanskrit term for this is alambana-vibhava. This may be a person, scene,
object or thought that excite a person’s emotion and appears to him in a certain light or under a
certain description. It is not however, the case that the mere presence of the object will
necessarily excite an emotion in a person. It will not, unless the object is ‘intended’ by that
person as an object of his feeling and he is moved to think of it under a certain description.

Second is the exciting cause (uddipana-vibhava). The object of an emotion is the generative
cause of that emotion because, although it is the object to which the emotion is directed, it is also
the reason for that emotion. That is to say that the emotion will not possibly arise in a person
without the actual presence or thought of that object. But the object in itself is not sufficient for
the emotion to develop unless the circumstances are also appropriate. For example, love between
two young people grows into a full-blown passion when conditions, such as privacy, moonlight,
a pleasant climate and so forth are present. So, under the exciting causes are included all the
attended circumstances that enhance the feeling. Familiar examples of these would be the
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‘atmospheric’ setting in Edgar Allen Poes’ ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, and the images of
sterility, dryness, agony and death in Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’. The objects simply help the
emotion to exhibit itself and therefore, are called ‘causes’ in a secondary sense.

Expressions and Symptoms

Emotional states will become objects of discourse only when they are expressed in an overt or
visible way, in speech, action or gesture. In the works of Charlton, “The idea of any emotion
is…in general bound up with the idea of how it is manifested… ” Hence, the conjunction of the
symptoms with the causes is of utmost importance in any discourse about the emotions. The
Sanskrit word for the behavioral expression is ‘anubhava’ which means etymologically, ‘that
which follows or ensues from the feeling (as its effect)’. Anubhava is that which ‘makes the
feeling apprehensible’. The expressions, the words, actions or gestures are in one sense the
effects of their emotions and appear after emotions. But from the point of view of the observer,
they are the indicative signs of the emotions, motions, changes in appearance, and actions that
point to the emotions. Through them, the emotions which being internal conditions, must
otherwise remain unknown, are made known or objectified.

Ancillary Feelings
When a feeling is being expressed in a poem as a primary mood, other feelings that normally
accompany it are called its ancillaries. No feeling, however basic, appears in its severest purity of
form but attracts other emotions as well. Thus, if love-in-union is the emotion being treated, it
will attract a host of other feelings, bashfulness, infatuation, agitation eagerness, pride,
vacillation and others. These ancillary feelings are called vyabhichari or sanchari-bhavas
(transient or fleeting emotions) because they come and go at will in association with the principal
emotions and help stabilize them. Without the reinforcement of the fleeting emotions, no
emotion can be developed into an enduring mood. Poetic organization consists, not only in
developing an emotion into a sustained mood, but also in developing an emotion into a sustained
mood by exhibiting an entire emotional sequence of alternating stands.

Their Conjunction
As Abhinavagupta points out, it is only when the full paraphernalia of objects, expressions and
accessory feelings is present that the composition will be most effective. For this reason, the
dramatic presentation has been regarded as the best form of entertainment. Therefore, in it , a
whole situation is elaborated with a picture- like vividness. In a written composition, however,
this picturesqueness results from the verbal descriptions, and the appropriate actions have to be
realized.
2.3 NATURE
Although, rasa, as originally propounded by Bharata was purely an aesthetic concept, it has
through the centuries, been absorbed into theological discussions and consequently become
strongly tinged with one or the other metaphysical trend. Bharata’s commentators themselves
sought , from time to time , to give a metaphysical twist to the rasa theory. Rasa, according to
Bharata is the first known formulator of the relishable quality inherent in an artistic work which
according to him, is its emotive content. Every work, poem or play is supposed to treat an
emotive theme and communicate a distinct emotional flavor or mood, such as tragic, comic and
so forth. In this sense, one can speak of the rasa of a work and also, since there are many such
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moods of poetic or dramatic ‘moods’ or ‘emotions’, of rasas in the plural. A distinction is also
made between the common human emotions, treated in the poem which are termed ‘bhavas’ and
the art of emotion or ‘rasa’ that emerges from such a treatment, the assumption being that the
raw stuff of the emotions presented as undergone by characters in a play or by the speaker of a
lyric poem is transformed in the process into a universalized emotion and rendered fit for a
contemplative enjoyment. In the second sense in which the term is understood, rasa is relishable
experience occasioned by the work in the reader or spectator which may be referred to as the
‘rasa experience’.

The rasa theory states that the aim of poetry is the expression and evocation of emotions and that
a poem exists for no other purpose than that it should be relished by the reader. Aesthetic
experience is this act of relishing or gestation (rasana). The idea that poetry expresses emotions
and moves us is not of course new to Western criticism. It is implicit in Aristotle’s ‘Poetics’, in
the Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition generally, in Longinus particularly, in Romantic
expressionistic aestheticians down to Croce, and in such modern critics as Richards and Eliot.
But the Western prejudice against emotions in poetry, too, is as old as Plato and the Puritans.
Traditionally, Western criticism has reflected a division of loyalties between the opposite
principles of ‘dulce’ and ‘utile’, so much so that a complete aesthetics of the emotions was not
possible unless it was also justified by moral, cognitive or philosophical values. This is true even
of Aristotle. In the Indian tradition, on the other hand, one finds a more consistent and systematic
theorizing about poetry in terms of the emotions and an attempt to explain the whole area of
poetic semantics as well as aesthetic psychology centrally from the standpoint of emotions.
The emotive theory was not by any means the only theory to be advanced by the classical
Sanskrit critics. Sanskrit poetics had its school of metaphor (Alankara), which thought of
figurative or deviant expression as the special characteristic of poetic language and its school of
style (Riti), which believed that a special arrangement of words, of phonetic and syntactic
features, constituted the essence of poetry. Then there was this influential school, that of
suggestion (Dhvani), led by Anandavardhana, and his commentator Abhinavagupta. This school
argued that poetic indirection was a special, supernumerary activity of words, outside both literal
and metaphoric functions. However, these two critics were also responsible for developing
Bharata’s doctrine of emotions, which Bharata himself applied mainly to dramatic literature, into
a unified theory of poetry. At their hands, the concept of rasa became the central criterion of
poetic semantics, it subsumed even the principle of suggestion.
The rasa theory implies that there are a number of specific emotions, each with its distinct tone
or flavor, and not an anonymous aesthetic emotion or a host of nameless emotions. As Bharata
said, “Drama is the representation of the mental states, actions and conduct of people”
Natyashastra. 2.112). Thus, Bharata lists as many as forty nine emotional states (bhavas), of
which eight are primary or durable states (sthayin), with their corresponding rasas or aesthetic
moods ; thirty-three are transitory states (vyabhicharin); and eight are involuntary expressions,
like tears, horripilation, trembling, and so on , which are also thought to be mental states even
though they appear as physical conditions. The eight basic emotions are erotic love, comic
laughter, grief, fury, heroic spirit, fear, wonder, and disgust or revulsion. Only these basic
emotions can be developed into distinct aesthetic moods, whereas the other , transient emotions
come and go according to their affinity with the durable emotions. Later commentators, however,
added a ninth emotion to Bharata’s list of eight basic states, namely subsidence or serenity
(shanta). The final number of basic emotions in the rasa tradition is therefore taken to be nine.
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Check Your Progress I

Note: Use the space provided for your answers.
1) What is Aesthetic relish?
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2) What are the premises of rasa doctrine?
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2.4 SCOPE
Sanskrit poetics also avoids the pitfalls of the various transcendental revelatory theories
associated with Romanticism and traceable largely to neo-Platonic doctrines. Theorists in this
tradition believe that the artist has a vision of reality hidden behind the appearance of things and
makes the revelation of this vision the object of his art. The trouble with this view is that the
critic has no means of knowing this vision of ultimate reality except through the work itself and
that when he does come to know about it, he cannot ascertain whether it has been faithfully
reproduced or embodied in the work. The Sanskrit critics speak of art as an object of enjoyment
rather than as a medium for transmitting inspired versions of ultimate reality. Although for them
art occasions a supernal delight, its matrix is common staff of human emotions. Aesthetic
experience is simply the apprehension of the created work as delight, and the pleasure principle
cannot be supported from aesthetic contemplation. This delight is regarded as its end and as
having no immediate relation to the practical concerns of the world or to the pragmatic aims of
moral improvement or spiritual salvation. Sanskrit theory is thus opposed to a didactic, hortative
view of literature. Abhinavagupta declares that poetry is fundamentally different from ethics or
religion and that the principal element in aesthetic experience is not knowledge but delight,
although poetry may also lead to the expression of our being and enrich our power of intuition
(NS 2.115).

The whole problem concerning the language of poetic emotions centers on the question, Can
emotional qualities be tested as they are normally taken to reside in the subjective experience of
the writer or reader? The answer to this question hinges on our being able to describe the
connection between the work of art and the feeling in the work of art itself and, in a sense, make
it testable. The approach in the light of Wittgenstein’s logic seeks to avoid the dangers of both
expressionist and affective theories by locating feelings squarely in the work of art itself instead
of imputing them to any actual person, artist or observer. It does not evaluate the work either by
inquiring whether it has faithfully expressed the author’s alleged feelings or by examining its
effects on the minds of the audience. The feelings we find in the poem or play are objective
qualities present in the work. They are not the feelings of anybody in particular; they are just
feelings defined by their objects and situational contexts. The language of feeling is not then a
private language; it is more a system of symbols, a language game that is understood by those
who have learned it’s conventions and usages.
This objective emphasis is, in fact, quite congenial to the Indian theorist. The rasa theory itself,
as formulated by Bharata in his Natyashastra, deals with the emotions in an entirely objective
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way. In his famous rasa-sutra (formula), Bharata explains how emotions are expressed in poetry:
“Emotions in poetry come to be expressed through the conjunction of their causes and
symptoms, and other ancillary feelings that accompany the emotions”. Here Bharata stipulates
three conditions or situational factors that must be present together for an emotion to become
manifested :(i) that which generates the emotion, which includes (a) the object to which the
emotion is directed (i.e. , the intentional object, alambanavibhava), for example, Juliet, and (b)
other exciting circumstances (uddipanavibhava), for example, youth, privacy, moonlight etc.: (ii)
the overt expressions (actions and gestures) that exhibit the emotion, called anubhavas, for
example, tears, laughter etc. : and (iii) other ancillary feelings, such as depression, elevation,
agitation etc. that normally accompany that emotion. The object, thus set forth by Bharata, of
representing the various emotions in terms of their attendant conditions make the poetic situation
very much a public situation.
Bharata’s commentators, were careful to point out the emotions treated in poetry are neither the
projections of the reader’s own mental states nor the private feelings of the poet: rather, they are
the objective situations abiding in the poem (kavyagata), as its cognitive content. The sorrow
presented in the Ramayana is to be taken not as the personal sorrow of the poet but sorrow itself
in its generalized form and identified by its criteria. If it were only a feeling personal to the poet,
it would not attain the status of a poem (shlokatva) and would not be fit for the reader’s
contemplation. It is further stated that the possibility of the poetic emotions being objectified in
the work is dependent on their representation in words. Rasa is apprehended as residing in the
work, in the situational factors presented in an appropriate language.
That poetic emotions have their ‘life in the poem’ and arise only in relation to their formal
representation in the poem is also the conclusion of T.S. Eliot. Speaking of Ezra Pound’s poetry,
Eliot says that Pound’s verse is always definite and concrete because “he has always a definite
emotion it. Feelings and passions, Eliot further argues, are not merely subjective but objective
and public. Bharata’s rasa-sutra affirms as much. Emotions exist and are manifested in
inalienable association with their causes and circumstances. As they are known in life by their
objective signs, so also are they apprehended from the language that describes them. It would
therefore be wrong to bring the charge of subjectivism or naïve emotionalism against the rasa
theory.
A critic may pose a problem as follows: Meanings and ideas are of course objectively present in
the work; they can, for instance, be adequately and most often unambiguously specified. But
since there can be no equally sensitive control of emotional response we are here in the realm of
the subjective. This difficulty is fully appreciated by the rasa theorist. Hence, Bharata and
following him, Anandavardhana set up an elaborate logic of the emotions and a body of criteria
for situation appraisal, rasauchitya (propriety in the treatment of emotions), based on public
norms and standards (lokadharmi, lokapramana). It must not be forgotten that what the Sanskrit
critics are talking about are not the elusive inner happenings of the Cartesian theory but’
meanings’ of emotive situations and behavior as they enter into human discourse. Emotions in
poetry are as objective and public as ‘meanings and ideas’ are and can be specified as adequately
as the others can be.
The Sanskrit critics however do not wish to banish the affections from the poetic experience. Nor
do they entirely dispense with mental concepts. Bharata whose approach to aesthetics was more
practical than philosophical, assumed that the emotions expressed in poetry are the emotions felt
by the poet and shared by the audience. But Shankuka, an early commentator on Bharata, saw
the difficulty implicit in Bharata’s formula for emotional expression and stated that emotions,
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being mental states cannot be directly known or expressed; the knowledge of them is made
possible only by their perceptible causes and effects which are their logical signs, not of intra-
psychic states themselves.
Abhnavagupta too, recognizes this distinction between inner mental states and their conditions
and signs and points out that, while these signs serve to manifest or make known the emotions,
they are not identical with emotions themselves. The two belong to two different orders of
existence (the one is physical and insentient and the other mental and sentient), and they are
apprehended by different organs of perception. Both Shankuka and Abhinavagupta agree that
emotions are mental entities that are not identical with their natural expressions or with their
verbal representations. Thus, they both assume that they are logically and epistemologically prior
to their outward manifestations while at the same time they admit they can become known to
others only through their external signs.
In Sanskrit criticism, there is a lively debate on the nature of poetic truth. In his commentary on
Bharata, Abhinavagupta sums up many views on the nature of dramatic representation and
argues against the prevalent theories of imitation and Illusion. Bharata defined drama by the
term ‘anukarana’, which may be translated as ‘mimetic reproduction’: “Drama is a reproduction
of the mental states, actions and conduct of people”. Abhinavagupta’s prdecessors, Lollata and
Shankuka, who commented on Bharata’s work, understood dramatic representation in mimetic
terms and held that aesthetic perception is illusory cognition (mithyajnana), although it does
produce real emotions in the spectator.
The connection between the imitation and illusion theories is obvious. An imitative reproduction
of the real, whether in the medium of paint, words, or physical gestures, cannot be the real thing:
consequently, the response evoked by it is base on illusion. Abhinavagupta argues that drama,
and by extension all poetry (kavya), is not an imitation but a depiction or description in words (or
enactment in the case of theatrical performance) of the life of the emotions that in turn, arouses
the latent emotive dispositions of the actor or spectator and causes him to reflect on the presented
situation with a degree of sympathetic identification.
Check Your Progress II
Note: Use the space provided for your answers.
1) Can emotional qualities be tasted?
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2) How will you explain Bharata’s rasa-sutra?
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2.5 POETRY AS EMOTIVE MEANING

The best definition of literature is perhaps contextual and one that takes into account the nature
of the literary situation and the purpose and motivation of the sentences employed in it. It is
easier to define the nature and type of a discourse by its context than by its linguistic form. It is
in these terms that the rasa theory conceives of the nature of literature. The purpose of literary
discourse is, according to this theory, neither the statement of universal truths nor the prompting
of men to action but ‘evocation’. Bhattanayaka, a staunch defender of the rasa doctrine as well
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as a critic of dhvani theory, distinguishes the poetic from the other forms of literature, such as the
Vedas, scientific, ethical and historical texts, by it’s evocative aim (bhavakatva). In poetry, both
words and meanings directly contribute to the aim of rasa-evocation and are subordinated to that
activity.
Abhinavagupta agrees with Bhattanayaka that the function of poetic language can be said to
consist only in evocation. Pleasure alone is the primary end of poetry: the instruction provided by
it is but a remote aim. Poetry too, he declares, is in this sense essentially enactment, although
language is its sole medium and mode of presentation. Bharata had stated that “no poetic
meaning subsists without rasa”. According to his etymology, bhavas (emotions in poetry) are so
called because they bring into being (bhavayanti, evoke) corresponding aesthetic moods. They
are an ‘instrument of causation’. Therefore, Abhinavagupta concludes that’ rasa is the
fundamental aim and purport of poetry.’ Anandavardhana too says ‘Where rasa , in it’s various
forms, is not the subject matter of discourse there no manner of poetry is possible.’

There is no poetic theme that is not infused with rasa, no object that does not become the cause
of an emotion. Even as all themes and ideas become poetic when infused with rasa, all elements
of language viz. figure, meter, rhyme and all such verbal and phonological devices must also
derive their efficacy from a rasa context by contributing to the evocative function. They do not
rest in themselves since they can be understood only through rasa, which is the final resting
point of all poetic discourse.
2.6 THE VALIDITY OF RASA AS A THEORETICAL CONCEPT
Bharata’s rasa doctrine was commented on in diverse ways both before and after
Abhinavagupta, and many reformulations and mutations of it appeared in the course of its
history. Valid criteria for evaluative judgments can be formulated only on the basis of permanent
or necessary properties, which all literature must possess and not on the basis of non-necessary
properties, such as complexity, irony and so on. Auchitya, translated as ‘propriety’ is understood
by the Sanskrit writers as the harmonious adaptation of the poetic means like the language,
figure, image and so on to the poetic end. This end is conceived by the rasa theorist as the
evocation of rasa. While , thus, the final ground of reference in poetic criticism is evocation of
aesthetic moods, the only criterion of beauty is appropriateness, the idea that , in poetry good and
bad is to be determined on the ground of appropriateness and inappropriateness and that merits
and faults do not obtain abstractly but depend on many inter-related factors, such as suitability
of language to theme , tone, context and so forth. All writers, from Bharata down, assumed
decorum to be a central regulative principle. Bharata treats ‘auchitya’ in relation to the problems
of drama and stage presentation. Anandavardhana also considers propriety an imperative but he
is emphatic in stating that the sole consideration in deciding the propriety of form and matter is
the end of delineating the rasas, to which all other features must be subordinated.
In modern times L.A. Reid says that what art embodies are emotive values, which can be
perceived as objective qualities of the work, ‘not facts or ideas as such’ many Continental
theorists down to Croce had a stake in the emotionality of art, including music. But they were for
the most part thinking either of the artist’s self-expression or of the reader’s or viewer’s
response. For instance, Eugene Vernon focuses on the artist’s character and genius, whereas
Tolstoy, with his ‘infection’ theory focuses on the communicative aspect. Kant’s theory of
disinterested delight as being characteristic of aesthetic attitude has a parallel in Abhinavagupta’s
aesthetics. But his philosophy of taste is response oriented, although judgments of taste are taken
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to be valid interpersonally, whereas the emphasis of the rasa theory is object centered. Susan
Langer is undoubtedly one of the prominent aestheticians who have accorded a central place to
‘feeling’ in the philosophy of art. Her theory of art and literature should be of great interest to the
Indian theorist not only because of certain affinities to the rasa concept but because she makes a
particular mention of that concept in the context of her discussion of the dramatic form.
Bharata, in his Natyashastra, assigned specific emotional or suggestive values to musical note
(svaras) and melodic patterns or ‘jatis’ (later called ragas) when they were used in stage
presentation for evocative purposes. But there is no suggestion in Bharata that the musical notes
by themselves express any particular emotions. A raga is so called because, etymologically. It
produces a mood, albeit in a vague way, or is colored by it. Any given raga may be adapted to a
variety of moods. A raga can become the vehicle of a mood when it is employed in an
expressive context, when, for instance, a lyric is set in a raga. Therefore, melody is related to the
meanings of the song, not as an expresser (vachaka), but as a suggestor (vyanjaka). Both
Anandavardhana and Abhinavagupta recognize that musical sounds too can be suggestive of
rasa in this way.
The great emphasis placed on abhinaya or gestural enactment is a clear indication of the
influence of the rasa concept on Indian dancing and on play-acting as well. Bharata dealt with
both dance and drama, and so both these arts were for him natural adjuncts of the theatre and
vehicles of dramatic expression. The relation of rasa doctrine to the arts of painting and
sculpture is, however, more intimate since these arts are understood by the ancient Indian writers
as being essentially representational. According to the Vishnudharmottara Purana, painting and
sculpture, like expressive dance, ‘reproduce all that is the object of experience’. They employ the
same eye-expressions, hand-gestures and body postures that are found in dance. Even as one
speaks of the dramatic emotions (natya-rasas), one can also speak of the rasas expressed in
painting or sculpture (citra-rasas). Emotion ( bhava) is thus accepted as one of the criteria of
painting, together with symmetry, similarity, proper disposition of colors, and so on.
Check your progress III

Note: Use the space provided for your answers.

1) What is the Scope of rasa?

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2) Reflect on the Validity of the concept of rasa.
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2.7 LET US SUM UP
A brief profile of the major concept of criticism in Sanskrit literature viz. the theory of rasa
together with a meaningful discourse, wherever possible is given. The Nature, Scope and other
related areas have been discussed within the permitted space. Also, an attempt to introduce in a
comparative light, the views and critical thinking in the West is made to enable students for their
own further studies.
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2.8 KEY WORDS

Rasa: Relishing, taste.
Dhvani: Suggestion
Alamkara : Figuration
2.9 FURTHER READINGS AND REFERENCES
Anandavardhana. Dhvnyaloka. Ed. K. Krishnamoorthy. Dharwar: Karnatak University,1975.
Aristotle. Aristotle On Poetry And Style. Trans. G.M.A. Grube. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill,
1958.
Bharata. Natyashastra. Ed. M. M. Ghosh. Calcutta: Manisha Granthalaya, 1967.
Brough, J. Some Indian Theories of Meaning. Transactions of the Philological Society. London:
1953.
De, Sushil Kumar. Some Problems of Sanskrit Poetics. Calcutta: Firma K L Mukhopadhyaya,
1960.
Langer, Susanne K. Feeling and Form. New York: Scribners, 1953.