Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c82.s1.75

v2.c82.s1.75

the power of stirring the reader's soul into *rasa*. The resulting *rasa* cannot be identified with the constituent *vibhāvas*, for the latter are not experienced separately, but the whole appears as *rasa*, which is thus simple and indivisible. At the time of the relish nothing else but the *rasa* is raised to our consciousness. The writers on Poetics are fond of explaining this phenomenon under the analogy of a beverage which, made up of black pepper, candied sugar, camphor and other ingredients, gives us yet a taste different from that of its constituents. The result therefore is an indissoluble unity of taste from which every trace of the constituent elements is obliterated.