Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c82.s1.76

v2.c82.s1.76

Abhinavagupta goes a step further also in maintaining that the permanent mood, (*sthāyin*), inferred from its *laukika* causes (e g., women, garden etc.) remains in the hearts of the appreciating audience in the subtle form of latent impressions, the idea of *vāsanā* or latent impression having been already admitted by the philosophers. On reading a poem or witnessing a drama, this permanent mood, remaining in the form of latent impression, is suggested by the depicted *vibhāvas* etc., which cease to be called *laukika* causes but go by the name of *vibhāvas* etc. in poetry and drama, and which are taken in their general form without specific connexions. The *vibhāvas*, therefore, are generalised or impersonalised in the minds of the reader, and do not refer to particularities, not through the power of *bhāvakatva*, as supposed by Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka, but generally through the suggestive power of sound and sense and specifically through a skilful use of *guṇa* and *alaṃkāra* in poetry, and clever representation in the drama. In the same way, the *sthāyi-bhāva*, which is the source of *rasa* ³⁶, is also generalised, because the germ of it is already existent in the reader's mind in the form of latent impressions; and this, together with the beauty of the generalised representation of the *vibhāvas* etc., removes all temporal and spatial limitations. The mood is generalised also in the sense that it refers not to any particular reader but to readers in general, so that the particular individual, while relishing it, does not think that it is relished by him alone, but by all persons of poetic sensibility. This relish is known as *rasa* in poetry and drama.