Shringaraprakasha 1.p1.1

1.p1.1

The Illumination of Erotic Aesthetic Experience. Composed by the Paramount King of Kings, the illustrious Bhojadeva. First Illumination.

1.1 May the body of Purāri protect you—its girdle broken and unbroken, obtaining an embrace firm and unobtained, kissing received and unreceived, its facial radiance beheld and unperceived—the body blended with his beloved, as if forging a friendship between love in separation and love in union! (1)

Cleansed by the dust of whose lotus-feet, as minds attain the spotless purity of a mirror's surface, the more exalted splendours of linguistic sound and meaning burst forth—may that venerable Gaṇādhinātha remove all obstacles! (2)

They declare erotic aesthetic experience to be a distinctive quality belonging to the self, located in ego-consciousness; in this world it is the very life-breath of Kāma, the mind-born. Its nature as aesthetic relish comes from being savoured by the power of the self; endowed with this, a person is celebrated by the acclaim: "He is an aesthetic connoisseur!" (3)

Arising from a special, pure merit in beings of pure essence, awakened from the latent impressions shaped across different births, the sole cause for the supreme elevation of every richness of the soul, a certain transformation full of self-regard awakens in the heart. (4)

Purport alone delights in speech, poetic suggestion alone in poetry, graceful charm alone in a lover's wealth of virtues, beauty alone on a woman's body, and erotic aesthetic experience alone in the heart of a person endowed with self-regard. (5)

The wise have taught ten rasas bearing the names: erotic aesthetic experience, heroic rasa, pathetic rasa, marvelous rasa, furious rasa, comic rasa, odious rasa, affectionate rasa, terrific rasa, and tranquil rasa; we, however, maintain from its savouring that erotic aesthetic experience alone is aesthetic relish. (6)

And the well-known presence of rasa found here in the heroic, marvelous, and others appears somehow established just like the phantom yakṣa in a banyan tree. This effort of ours is undertaken to set aside that [assumption], which has crept into the world merely under the sway of unthinking imitation. (7)

Because it does not run contrary to the mind, self-regard here is the cause for experiencing cognitive states such as delight; it is to be understood as aesthetic relish because it is savoured through the power of the self. The designation "aesthetic relish," on the other hand, is spurious when applied to an abundance of amorous pleasure and the like. (8)

Fifty emotions minus one, amorous pleasure and the rest, become distinct sources of diverse emotions; surrounding the essence of erotic aesthetic experience from every side, they enhance it just as arrays of flames enhance a seven-flamed fire. (9)