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
Now sentiment is one, it is a single, ineffable, transcendental joy,
but it can be subdivided, not according to its own nature, but
according to the emotions which evoke it. Thus the Nāṭyaçāstra
recognizes the existence of eight emotions or dominant feelings; love
(rati), mirth (hāsa), anger (krodha), sorrow (çoka), energy (utsāha),
terror (bhaya), disgust (jugupsā), and astonishment (vismaya), and
corresponding to these eight emotions we have eight forms of sentiment.
The erotic sentiment (çṛn̄gārarasa) is of two kinds, the union
(sambhoga) or sundering (vipralambha) of two lovers, according to the
Çāstra and the great mass of theorists, but the Daçarūpa [682]
distinguishes three cases, privation (ayoga), sundering (viprayoga),
and union. Privation denotes the inability of two young hearts to
secure union, because of obstacles to their marriage; such love passes
through ten stages, [683] longing, anxiety, recollection, enumeration
of the loved one’s merits, distress, raving, insanity, fever, stupor,
and death. Sundering may be due to absence or resentment, and this in
its turn may be caused by a quarrel between two determined lovers, or
indignation at finding out, by sight, hearing or inference, that one’s
lover is devoted to another. The hero may counteract anger by
conciliation, by winning over her friends, by gifts, by humility, by
indifference, and by distracting her attention. Absence again may be
due to business, to accident, or a curse; if the reason is death the
love sentiment cannot, in Dhanaṁjaya’s view, be present, though others
allow of a pathetic variety of this sentiment. [684] In union the lover
should avoid vulgarity or annoyance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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