A History of Indian Literature v3.c35.s2.19

v3.c35.s2.19

The basic principle of rasas or "sentiments" in Indian poetics and aesthetics must have been developed for the first time in the Nāṭyaśāstra⁴. The word rasa primarily means "taste". Just as different spices leave behind different tastes, sweet or sour or bitter, even so does the emotion (bhāva) represented on the stage arouse in the mind of the audience apt sentiments. Bharat observes eight such rasas, namely : the sentiments excited through love (śṛṅgāra), humour (hāsya), pity (karuṇā) terror (raudra), heroism (vīra), fear (bhayānaka), aversion (bībhatsa)⁵ and astonishment (adbhuta)⁶. From this theory of the rasas originates the remarkable system of Indian aesthetics as an inevitable offshoot from its psychological theory of emotions (bhāvas). When one reads, however, the strikingly apt and scientific, though elaborated classification of the plot (vastu, itivṛtta) of heroes (nāyakas) and heroines (nāyikās)¹ and of many another matter besides, it becomes clear unfortunately that we have before us a pretty fruitless science that is devoted more to classification and systematisation than to exploration of facts and formulation of rules. Much the same is the case with poetics too.