The Sanskrit drama : $b in its origin, development, theory and practiceKeith, Arthur Berriedale
History
The Sanskrit drama : $b in its origin, development, theory and practice
Keith, Arthur Berriedale
Sanskrit drama -- History and criticism
two powers ascribed to poetry, realization, and enjoyment, have no
legitimate foundation.
The view finally adopted by the theorists is that defended, but not
first enunciated, by Abhinavagupta, based on the general doctrine of
suggestion (vyañjanā) as lying at the basis of all poetic pleasure. The
spectator’s state of mind must be considered; it is in him that from
experience of life there come into being emotional complexes, which lie
dormant, ready to be called into activity by the reading of poems or by
seeing plays performed. Those whose life has left them barren of
impressions of emotions are, accordingly, incapable of relishing
dramas, a fate which awaits men whose minds are intent merely on
grammar or on the complexities of the Mīmāṅsā. The sentiment thus
excited is peculiar, in that it is essentially universal in character;
it is common to all other trained spectators, and it has essentially no
personal significance. A sentiment is thus something very different
from an ordinary emotion; it is generic and disinterested, while an
emotion is individual and immediately personal. An emotion again may be
pleasant or painful, but a sentiment is marked by that impersonal joy,
characteristic of the contemplation of the supreme being by the adept,
a bliss which is absolutely without personal feeling. There is in fact
a close parallel between the man of taste (sahṛdaya) [668] and the
adept (yogin); both have in them the possibility of attaining this
bliss, and, to make it real, the one must investigate the determinants,
&c., while the other must apply himself to concentration on the
absolute. It is this peculiar nature of sentiment which forbids it
being created as the result of denotation or indication by speech, of
perception, inference, or recollection. It cannot exist without
determinants, &c., but these are not in the normal sense causes; an
effect can exist when its causes have disappeared, but sentiment exists
only while the determinants, &c., last; the terms used in this regard
are one and all distinct from the normal terminology of causation.
Sentiment is something supernatural (alaukika); its relations to the
factors may be compared with that of a beverage to the black pepper,
candied sugar, camphor, &c., which compose it, but of which as such no
trace remains in the liquor as produced. This characteristic enables us
to understand how it is that the list of sentiments includes that of
horror or odium (bībhatsa) and that of fear (bhayānaka), as well as the
pathetic sentiment. These are awakened into life by things which cause
disgust, fear, and grief in ordinary life, and these emotions in real
life are far from pleasant in any sense of that term. But, conveyed as
ideal and generic, they produce this supernatural pleasure or
happiness, which is not to be compared with normal pleasure, just as
the joy of the contemplation of the absolute is not to be described as
pleasure in the ordinary sense. Bhānudatta, in his Rasataran̄giṇī, a
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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