Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c79.87

v2.c79.87

The original outlines of the theory, however, are accepted as fixed by Bharata. It is practically admitted on all hands, on semi-psychological considerations of poetry, that the *rasa* is a state of relish in the reader of the principal sentiment in the composition, a subjective condition of his mind which is brought about when the principal or permanent mood (*sthāyi-bhāva*) is brought into a relishable condition through the three elements, the *vibhāva*, the *anubhāva* and the *vyabhicāri-bhāva*, exhibited in the drama. Of these elements, the first two are important, the *vyabhicārin* being only concomitant or accessory. Bharata’s explanation of these terms is rendered with greater precision by his followers. By the *sthāyi-bhāva* in poetry and drama are meant certain more or less permanent mental states, such as Love, Grief, Anger or Fear. This permanent mood, constituting the principal theme of a composition and running through all other moods like the thread of a garland, cannot be overcome by those akin to it or those opposed to it, but can only be reinforced. Those elements which respectively excite, follow and strengthen (if we may use these expressions) the *sthāyi-bhāva* are in poetry and drama known as *vibhāva*, *anu-bhāva* and *vyabhicāri-* (also called *sañcāri-*) *bhāva*¹, corresponding in ordinary life (as opposed to the extraordinary world of poetry) to the mundane causes and effects (*laukika kāraṇa* and *kārya*). Deviod of technicalities, a *vibhāva* may be taken as that which makes the permanent mood capable of being sensed, an *anubhāva* as that which makes it actually sensed, while a *vyabhicāri-bhāva* is that which acts as an auxiliary or gives a fresh impetus to it. In the case of Love as a permanent mood, the stock-examples given of a *vibhāva* are women and the seasons; of *anubhāva*, glance and embrace; of *vyabhicārin*, the transient subordinate feelings of joy or anxiety. Now Bharata says that the reader is enabled to realise or relish as *rasa* the permanent mood of a composition through a certain correlation of these elements with the permanent mood, the correlation taking place apparently for the purpose of manifesting it and bringing it to a relishable condition. The question, therefore, arises, to which Bharata himself gives no definite solution, viz, what relation these elements bear to *rasa*, or in other words, how do they bring about this subjective condition of relish in the reader's mind, the solution depending, as we have noted above, upon the explanation of the two much-discussed terms *saṃyoga* (lit. correlation) and *niṣpatti* (lit. consummation) in the original *sūtra* of Bharata. This is the central pivot round which all later theories move, and we shall take it up again in their connexion below (ch. iv).