Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c82.s1.78

v2.c82.s1.78

To state it briefly and without any technicality, there is in the mind a latent impression of feelings which we once went through (or which we acquired from previous births), and this is roused when we read a poem which describe similar things. By universal sympathy or community of feeling we become part and parcel of the same feeling and imagine ourselves in that condition. Thus the feeling is raised to a state of relish, called *rasa*, in which lies the essence of poetic enjoyment. It will be noticed that these theorists presuppose latent impression of experience (*vāsanā*) and universal sympathy (*sādhāraṇya* or *sādhāraṇīkaraṇa*). Those who have not experienced the feeling of love, for instance, and have therefore no impression of experience left in them, as well as those who have no sense of community of human feelings, can never relish *rasa*. The *vāsanā*, we are told, is natural (*naisargikī*) and may have been left in our mind through the *saṃskāra* of previous births, but it may also be acquired by study and experience. The writers on Poetics, therefore, are merciless in their satire on dull grammarians and old Mīmāṃsakas, to whom such relish of *rasa* is denied, and they declare unanimously that the *rasika* alone is capable of realising the *rasa*; for the *rasa* is not an objective entity which can reside in the hero or the actor, but a subjective condition realised by the reader's own capacity of aesthetic enjoyment. Thus, a degree of culture, experience and aesthetic instinct is demanded in the critic, the *rasika* or *sahṛdaya*, in conformity with this subtle conception of poetry. As Abhinavagupta puts it, *adhikārī cātra vimala-pratibhānaśālī-hṛdayaḥ*, and describes such a *sahṛdaya* (*Locana* p. 11) as yeṣāṃ kāvyānuśilanābhyāsa-vaśād viśadībhūte mano-mukure varṇanīya-tanmayībhavanayogyatā te hṛdaya-saṃvādabhājaḥ sahrdayāḥ.