Rasa: The Semantic Approach RASA is one of those quintessential words in Sanskrit which sum up a whole philosophy or even a civilization. An attempt is made in this article to assess the value of its various aesthetic meanings for a comprehensive theory of rasaswada or aesthetic experience. The two consonantal elements in the word …
CONTINUED FROM PART 1 Rasa: The Transcendental And Immanent Reality The evolution of the subjective and objective meanings of Rasa as “essence” and “taste” and their re-integration into the Supreme Reality (रसो वै सः) has a deep significance for the theories of rasa that followed. The word came to be applied to all the stages …
CONTINUED FROM PART 2 Rasa: The Seership of the Artist It has been shown that Rasa connotes the Supreme Reality. In what manner or measure does it reside in the artist, the seeing eye? There are significant statements made on this subject in Sanskrit which, to the casual reader, sound partial, dogmatic and contradictory. But …
CONTINUED FROM PART 3 Rasa: The Seership of the Artist The seer has, in him, the sattwic buddhi or ahaṅkāra, – the sublimated and purified consciousness. His limited and divided consciousness has, to a certain extent, been made whole by the emergence of the psyche, – a partial suffusion of the egoistic consciousness by the …