The Theory of Rasa

Pravas Jivan Chaudhury

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 24, No. 1, Supplement to the Oriental Issue: The
Aesthetic Attitude in Indian Aesthetics: Pravas Jivan Chaudhury. (Autumn, 1965), pp. 145-149.

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 THE THEORY OF RASA

Rasa LITERALLY MEANS taste or savor, and, as used to denote the essence of
poetry,l it signifies the peculiar experience that poetry affords us. T h e rasa
school stresses this experiential or subjective side of poetic meaning.2 This
seems rather pointless, -for ultimately everything is an experience, such as a
color, taste, or emotion, and can be known as it is in itself only through direct
acquaintance. Yet we have classes of similar experiences, each class being repre-
sented by a general idea of it (and by a word), and we have a descriptive knowl-
edge of it in terms of phenomena which are found to be its natural correlates or
determinants. Thus, for instance, we know what is sound directly by hearing
it; indirectly or descriptively in terms of vibrations in the sounding body and
air which we may know directly. This is all right so long as we do not confuse
the descriptive knowledge with the direct one; do not regard sound as "nothing
but" vibrations. T h e rasa school holds the essence of poetry to be a quality dis-
tinct from its determinants which are more commonly known characters, such
as natural situations, human actions and emotions. (Rasa itself is not an emo-
tion, as we shall see presently.) Thus poetry is not essentially an imitation of
nature (which includes life and emotions) though nature is depicted in it. T o
check the naturalistic fallacy in poetics the rasa school emphasized the experi-
ential aspect of poetic value, the qualitatively new product that must be di-
rectly experienced in order not to confuse it with an aggregate of its natural
constituents. Rasa is regarded as extraordinary or unworldly;3 the pleasure
which accompanies it as transcendental.4
Remembering that the essence of poetry is a distinct quality by itself which
can only be known as it is through direct acquaintance, we can proceed to ac-
quire a descriptive knowledge about it by studying its natural correlates. Rasa
is realized when an emotion is awakened in the mind in such a manner that it
has none of its usual conative tendencies and is experienced in an impersonal,
contemplative mood. An emotion in this peculiar manner is caused by repre-
sentations in art of those objects which excite it in nature, such as natural situ-
ations, persons of known characters, their actions and physical expressions of
emotions (e.g. trembling, smiling, scowling, etc.). These representations,
through words in case of poetry and through both words and concrete presenta-
tions in case of drama, are generalized and so idealized aspects of objects
masquerading as particulars. They are significant neither cognitively nor
conatively, for they belong to a different world. T h e representations have only
emotive significance and the emotions appearing through their medium are not
suffered in the ordinary blind and passive manner but enjoyed actively with
 146 THE AESTHETIC ATTITUDE IN INDIAN AESTHETICS

lucid self-awareness and knowledge of them.5 The secret of this extraordinary

mode of experiencing emotion lies in the dissolution of the practical and egois-
tic side of our self in the poetic attitude and the consequent appearance of the
universal contemplative self. Emotions are latent in the self in their generalized
form as dispositions connected with their general, not particular, associations.
So, when generalized objects and situations are presented in poetry they
awaken the generalized emotions which are felt in an impersonal and contem-
plative manner. They do not relate specifically to any individual person or any
object. However, all this depends upon the dissolution of the practical self, and
this in its turn depends upon many factors, some relating to the poetry which
is to be appreciated, others to the nature of the appreciator's mind. Thus if
there is too much of naturalism (i.e., topicality or verisimilitude) and too little
of impersonality, the autobiographical elements, including the author's own
dispositions and opinions, being manifest, there will be naturalistic responses,
Again if the reader is too much of a matter-of-fact person seeking information
('news'), instruction, or sensation from poetry, his practical realistic attitude
cannot wholly be suspended even by good poetry full of idealization. T o coun-
teract and cure the naturalistic attitude in the reader poetry employs, besides
idealization, such devices as line and stanza structure, rhythm, and rhyme, while
drama utilizes music, stage decorations, and other effects.
Rasa is realized when, because of the factors related above, the self loses its
egoistic, pragmatic aspect and assumes an impersonal contemplative attitude,
which is said to be one of its higher modes of being.6 Rasa, thus, is a realization
of the impersonal contemplative aspect of the self which is usually veiled in life
by the appetitive part of it. As the contemplative self is free from all craving,
striving and external necessity, it is blissful. This bliss is of a different quality
from the pleasure we derive in life from satisfaction of some need or passion.
Now it may be noted that rasa as realization of one's contemplative and blissful
self is essentially one. But this realization is associated in poetry with an experi-
ence by this self of some emotion in its generalized form. So that this self is self-
aware and self-enjoying through awareness and enjoyment of an emotion which
colors it. Rasa is therefore said to be many and a poem is said to impart a par-
ticular kind of rasa, e.g., of love, fear, bravery, etc., depending upon the emo-
tion predominant in it.
This is in outline the rasa theory of poetry. One further point is to be
noted. Emotions awakened in poetry are of two classes, one consisting of those
that more or less dominate a poem, others of those that are transient and sub-
servient to them.? Thus the pervading emotion in a poem may be love, while
longing, jealousy, stupefaction, anxiety, joy, sadness, anger, pity, and some
others may function as transient accessories, all suggesting and sustaining love.
In a good poem the different dominant emotions and their accessories are so
organized that there is mutual reinforcement, balance, and harmony, a perfect
adjustment of means to their ends and of parts to the whole. The emotions that
may more aptly serve as dominants in poetry are those that are more elemental
and powerful in man, his permanent dispositions, such as love, pity, fear, and
T h e Theory of Rasa 147
wonder. These emotions manifest themselves through a multiplicity of sub-
sidiary and transient emotions and are, therefore, expressible in poetry through
them. While these transient emotions appear and disappear in a poem in quick
succession, a certain dominant emotion suggested by them remains steady like a
pervading emotional atmosphere. The chief and over-all rasa of the poem is
derived from a contemplation of this dominant emotion, and this rasa is ob-
viously richer and profounder than the rasa as derived from contemplation of
a lighter or simpler emotion having a few accessories or none at all. Thus it is
that a long composition depicting a major emotion through a variety of acces-
sories is richer in poetic worth than a short one which can adequately express
only a few accessories and, so, only a relatively simpler dominant emotion.
Even if it attempts a major emotion such as love or pity, it cannot do as much
justice to it as can a long composition. Now, self-awareness which is one aspect
of rasa (the other being awareness of an emotion) is proportionally richer and
profounder the more basic or elemental is the emotion contemplated and the
more adequate or thorough is this contemplation. For the deeper will be pene-
tration through the thick layer of practical, egoistic disposition to the essential
contemplative core of the self. Great poetry breaks our blind egoistic shell to
reveal the universal enlightened self within.
Let us now see briefly if the main points of this rasa theory can be under-
stood in the light of our generally held ideas about poetry. That poetry is an
expression of emotions and that emotions are objectified and disinterestedly
contemplated is widely believed. Aristotle8 seems to have held a similar view
which we find also in Hege1,g Croce,l0 and Bosanquet.ll That poetry affords a
higher kind of emotional delight is also commonly accepted, but that this
delight is the joy of self-revelation or of the truth of the higher contemplative
and universal spirit in us is peculiarly Indian, though some affinities with the
Scholastic theory of art can be seen. The Scholastics attribute poetic delight to
the perception of some intelligible (non-conceptual) form in the emotions
which is in harmony with the intelligent principle in the mind.l* However, it
appears that the Scholastic theory stresses the form of the emotion presented in
poetry, its order, proportion, and harmony, which makes it intelligible (other-
wise it is a confused agitation); while the rasa theory points to the peculiar,
self-contained nature of the emotion as divested of its conative tendencies and
felt for its own sake. In both theories the mind in poetic appreciation is
regarded as revealing its quiet contemplative character which is essentially
joyful. Hence the extraordinary kind of joy experienced in poetry. The insula-
tion of emotions as enjoyed in poetry from their ordinary practical manifesta-
tions and enjoyment of them in a disinterested manner made possible by many
factors inside and outside the poem (as described before) is another notion in
rasa theory which is more or less recognized in the theory of "psychical dis-
tance." l3
A further notion of some importance is the distinction in poetry between
two classes of emotions, the so-called permanent or dominant and the transient.
These differ in nature and function. No clear conception of this distinction is
 148 THE AESTHETIC A~TITUDE IN INDIAN AESTHETICS

met in contemporary poetics. Aristotle may have held a distinction of this na-
ture. He, according to Butcher, meant by character "the permanent dispositions
of the mind which reveal a certain condition of the will" and by emotion "the
more transient emotions, the passing moods of feelings." 14 Now since both
character and emotion are represented in poetry and character is depicted
through the emotions (besides thoughts and actions), it is probable that Aris-
totle thought the more permanent dispositions defining character to be expressi-
ble through the transient moods. C. K. Ogden perceives that certain feelings,
such as doubt and belief, are emotions that do not leave behind any permanent
disposition in the mind; they are dependent upon some other emotions and
also give rise to them.lj This is an approximation to the idea that certain ele-
mental emotions are expressible in art through certain subsidiary ones because
in nature the latter spring from the former, being their manifestations. The
importance in poetics of this distinction between two classes of emotions is
obvious and many literary critics make this distinction without clearly knowing
it, in their concrete expository or critical work. A. C. Bradley speaks of "sadness,
mystery and waste" as the predominant notes in a Shakespeare tragedy.16 Cer-
tainly these notes are struck up by a number of minor notes.
In conclusion we may remark that the rasa theory offers many useful keys
to the understanding of poetry. Though a good many of these have their
Western parallels and have proved their worth, some have no such parallels.
The latter ought to be studied with an open mind in the light of modern psy-
chology. Such a work will prove very helpful towards a comprehensive theory
of poetry.

= T h e doctrine that rasa is the essence of poetry starts from Bharata (first century A.D.)
"No composition can proceed without rasa," said he in his famous work on dramaturgy,
Natyashatra. Abhinavagupta (10th century), the most important thinker in Indian aesthet-
ics, held this doctrine: "There is no poetry without rasa." (Dhanydloka Locana 2.3. This
book will be referred to as D.L.). Again, "The meaning of poetry is rasa; what is principally
looked for is meaning." (Abhinavabhdrati (A.B.) 7.1). VisvanPth (4th c. A.D.) wrote, "A
composition touched with rasa is poetry." (Sdhityadarpana 1.3).
lSee Bharata, op. cit., 6.35; "Rasa is realization of one's own consciousness as colored by
emotions." Again, "Rasa and emotion cannot be expressed directly through words, their
essence being immediate experience; so they can only be suggested by words." @.L. 1.4).
"Rasa is identical with the taste of one's own blissful self." Visvanith, op. cit., 3.35.
".B. 6.34; D.L. 1.18.
'It is said to be "like the relish of the ultimate reality" (parabrahmdsvZdsachiva). D.L.
2.4. Also "as the twin of this relish of Brahmd" (Sdhityadarpana 3.35). Brahma is the same
as Atma, the highest self. In yoga this is realized in its purest form as an indeterminate spirit
with no object confronting it, as it transcends all subject-object duality. But in poetic con-
templation the self is a subject aware of emotions and their determinants and is self-aware
through this awareness of objects. This mode of self-realization is accompanied by an extraor-
dinary kind of delight, called sadya-paraniwrtti, immediate higher pleasure, by Mammata
(11th c. A.D.), in Kavyaprakdsha and alaukika camatkdra, extraordinary charm, by Abhina-
vagupta in D.L. 3.33. T h e pleasure in poetry, derived ultimately from relish of the higher
self, must be different in quality from ordinary pleasure derived from satisfaction of the
lower self, the practical ego, lost in and suffering emotions instead of contemplating them.
See Mammata, op. cit., 4.28, where he summarizes Abhinavagupta's view of the matter.
See note 4 above. Also A.B. 6.34.
T h e Theory of Rasa 149
' Bharata, 09.cit., 7.1 1-7.43.
S. H. Butcher, Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Arts (4th ed.). T h e appeal of poetry is
said to be to the feelings of emotions of their egoistic elements and transformation of them
into something pure and tranquil (pp. 254,268).
Philosophy of Fine Arts, "Introduction."

lo Aesthetics, Ch. 11.

" Three Lectures on Aesthetics (1915), Ch. I.

Jacques Maritain, Art and Scholasticism (1946), p. 51.

IS See the author's paper, "Psychical Distance in Indian Aesthetics," Journal of Aesthetics
and Art Criticism, Dec. 1948.
Butcher, op. cit., p. 123.
C . K. Ogden, A.B.C.'s oj Psychology (1941),pp. 205-7.
lB Oxford Lectures on Poetly (1905), p. 23.