ART EXPERIENCE

By M. Hiriyanna

POPULAR ESSAYS IN INDIAN PHILOSOPHY

THE QUEST AFTER PERFECTION
ART EXPERIENCE

BY
M. H I R I Y A N N A

PUBLISHERS
 First Published 1954

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be reproduced either whole or in
part without written permission.

PRINTED IN INDIA
AT THE WESLEY PRESS AND PUBLISHING HOUSE, MYSORE CITY
 PUBLISHERS' NOTE
This is the third volume of Prof, Hiriyanna's essays to be
published. All the papers collected here—including a few
review articles—are devoted to a consideration of the problems
of Aesthetics. Of these, two studies—Indian Aesthetics—2 and
Art and Morality—are being published here for the first time;
the others have appeared, from time to time, in various journals
and publications.
Corrected copies of the essays left by the author have been
made use of in editing the volume and the marginal notes
found in the papers have been, as far as possible, incorporated
either as part of the text or as footnotes. In the few instances
where it was found necessary by the editors to add a word or
two, these have been enclosed within square brackets. Articles
with identical titles have been numbered 1 and 2, for purposes
of easy reference.
We are deeply grateful to the late Prof. Hiriyanna's
daughter who placed at our disposal all the papers needed in
the editing of the volume. We are under a deep debt of
gratitude to Prof. T. N. Sreekantaiya of the Karnatak Uni-
versity, Dharwar, a former pupil of Prof. Hiriyanna, who
gladly took upon himself the editorial responsibility of this
collection including the reading of proofs. Our thanks are
due to Sri N. Sivarama Sastry of the University of Mysore,
who has been extremely helpful editorially; to Sri R. K.
Narayan who has been helpful in many ways; and to the
authorities of the Wesley Press and Publishing House who
have spared no pains to make the volume handsome.
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to Messrs. George Allen and Unwin Ltd., for
their courtesy in allowing me to include in this collection my
Jate father Prof. Hiriyanna's article Art Experience appearing in
Radhakrishnan: Comparative Studies in Philosophy presented in
honour of his sixtieth birthday. My thanks are also due to
the Secretaries of the All-India Oriental Conference,the Registrars
of the Universities of Madras and Mysore and the Registrar of
the Annamalai University, the Editors of the Indian Review, the
Aryan Path and The Hindu and the Authorities of the Adyar
Library, Madras, who readily gave permission to include in the
present volume the several essays and reviews first published
by them.
M. R.

FIRST PUBLICATION
Indian Aesthetics—1: Proceedings of the First All-India Oriental
Conference, 1919.
What to Expect of Poetry ? Mysore University Magazine, 1923.
Art Contemplation: Indian Review, 1946.
Art Experience—1: Aryan Path, 1941.
Art Experience—2: Radhakrishnan: Comparative Studies in
Philosophy presented in honour of his sixtieth birthday. Allen
and Unwin, 1951.
The Number of Rasas: Foreword to The Number of Rasas by
Dr. V. Raghavan. The Adyar Library, Madras, 1940.
The Problem of the Rasavadalamkara: Proceedings of the
Fifteenth All-India Oriental Conference, 1949.
Some Aspects of Literary Criticism in Sanskrit. [=Rasa and
Dhvani]: Journal of the Madras University, 1929.
The Philosophy of Aesthetic Pleasure: Journal of the Annamalai
University, 1941,
Studies on some Concepts of the Alamkara Literature: Journal of
the Madras University, 1942.
Sanskrit Poetics: The Hindu, 8 Oct. 1944.
Process and Purpose in Art: Aryan Path, 1944.
Experience: First and Final: Aryan Path, 1948.
 CONTENTS
PAGE
PUBLISHERS' NOTE V

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Vi

1. INDIAN AESTHETICS—1 . 1
2. WHAT TO EXPECT OF POETRY ? . 17

3. A R T CONTEMPLATION . . . . . . . . 22
4. ART EXPERIENCE—1 . 25
5- ART EXPERIENCE-2 . 29
6. INDIAN AESTHETICS—2 . 43
Introductory—Nature and Art—Art Experience—The Content
of Art—The Method of Art—Art and Morality
7. ART AND MORALITY 55
8. THE NUMBER OF RASAS 62
9. THE PROBLEM OF THE RASAVADALAMKARA . 65
10. RASA AND DHVANI 71
11. THE PHILOSOPHY OF AESTHETIC PLEASURE . 73
12. SOME CONCEPTS OF ALAMKARA LITERATURE . 75
13. SANSKRIT POETICS 77
14. PROCESS AND PURPOSE IN ART 79
15. EXPERIENCE: FIRST AND FINAL 82

vii
 ART EXPERIENCE
INDIAN AESTHETICS-1
It has become somewhat of a commonplace in these days to
speak of the ancient Hindus as having achieved distinction in
philosophy. But the word 'philosophy* is so loosely used and
the phases of philosophic investigation are so many and so varied
in character that such an opinion, standing by itself, cannot be taken
to indicate anything beyond a certain aptitude of the Hindu mind
for abstract speculation. A signal illustration of the indefiniteness
of this opinion is furnished by Max Miiller, the very scholar
that was largely responsible for giving currency to the view that
the ancient Hindus were highly gifted philosophically; for while
he at one time described them as 'a nation of philosophers', yet,
at another time, gave out as his considered opinion that 'the idea
of the beautiful in Nature did not exist in the Hindu mind.'1
The fact is that a vague and general statement like the above is
of little practical value unless it is supported by evidence of
progress made in the various departments of philosophic study,
such as logic, psychology and metaphysics. Here is a vast
field for the student of Indian antiquities to labour in and the
harvest, if well garnered, will be of advantage not only for the
history of Indian thought but also, it may be hoped, for Universal
Philosophy. The object of the present paper is to indicate,
however slightly it may be, the nature of the advance made by
the Indians in one bye-path of philosophy, viz., aesthetics or the
inquiry into the character of beauty in Nature as well as in art.
The most noticeable feature of Indian philosophy is the stress
, which it lays upon the influence which knowledge ought to have
on life. None of the systems that developed in the course of
centuries in India stopped short at the discovery of truth; but
each followed it up by an inquiry as to how the discovered truth
could be best applied to the practical problems of life. The
ultimate goal of philosophic quest was not knowledge (tattva-
jndna) so much as the achievement of true freedom (moksa).
* See The Philosophy of the Beautiful. by William Knight. Part I. d. 17.
2 ART EXPERIENCE
Indian philosophy was thus more than a way of thought; it was a
way of life; and whoever entered upon its study was expected
to aim at more than an intellectual assimilation of its truths and
try to bring his everyday life into conformity with them. Con-
sistently with this pragmatic aim, ethics occupies a very important
place in Indian philosophy. Like ethics, aesthetics is dependent
upon philosophy and like ethics, it aims chiefly at influencing
life. When such is the kinship between ethics and aesthetics,
is it probable that a people who devoted so much attention to
one of them, altogether neglected the other? Is it conceivable
that they who showed special power in the grasp of the good did
not even stumble upon the kindred conception of the beautiful?
We are not however left to such vague surmises; for, not infre-
quently we find in Sanskrit philosophical works1 parallels drawn
from art which imply that the close relation of the beautiful to
the good and the true was not all unknown to ancient India.
We have even more direct evidence in the numerous works in
Sanskrit on poetics which, though their set purpose is only to
elucidate the principles exemplified in poetry and the drama,
yet furnish adequate data for constructing a theory of fine art in
general, A consideration of the teachings of these works shows
us that Indian aesthetics had its own history; and the process of
its evolution, as may well be expected, followed closely that of
general philosophy.
It is well known that the earliest philosophy of India consisted
in the explanation of the universe by means of a number of super-
natural powers called devas, 'the shining ones', or 'gods'. This
pluralistic explanation however soon appeared inadequate to
the growing philosophic consciousness of the Indian; and a quest
began thereafter whose aim was to discover the unity underlying
the diversity of the world. The history of this quest is very
long and can be traced from the Mantras, through the Brahmanas,
down to the period of the Upanisads. Various principles were
in turn regarded as representing this ultimate reality—some
concrete, others abstract—and although each solution was in turn
given up as unsatisfactory, the search itself was not abandoned
until an abiding conclusion was reached in what is known as 'the
atman doctrine' of the Upanisads. The central point of this
1
Compare, e.g., Samkhya-karika, st. 65; Samkhya-tattva-kaumudi on
st. 42, 59; and Pancadasi of Vidyarapya, ch. X.
 INDIAN AESTHETICS—I 3
doctrine is that whatever is, is one; and that its essence is manifested
more clearly in the inner self of man than in the outer world.
This doctrine brought about a total revolution in the point of
view from which speculation had proceeded till then; for the
ultimate reality was no longer regarded as something external but
as fundamentally identical with man's own self. The enunciation
of the absolute kinship of Nature with Man marks the most im-
portant advance in the whole history of Indian thought. I am
not, however, for the moment, concerned with this philosophic
solution in general, reached in the Upanisadic period. I am
interested only in emphasising one aspect of it, viz., that what
we commonly regard as real is not in itself the ultimate reality
but only a semblance of it. The world of sense, equally with the
world of thought, is but an appearance of the ultimate truth—
an imperfect expression of it but yet adequate, if rightly approach-
ed, to point to the underlying unity. Neither our senses nor our
mind can grasp this unity, but so much of it as they can grasp is
sufficient to find out its true meaning and realise it within our-
selves.
There is a second aspect of Indian philosophy to which it is
necessary to draw attention before speaking of Indian art. The
earliest philosophy of India had a supernatural basis. Although
the objects of early Aryan worship were in reality only power
of Nature, there were supposed to be working behind them
supernatural beings. So long as this belief continued, the ambition
of the Indian in this life was to secure the favour of those beings
with a view to attain companionship with them hereafter. This
eschatological view changed with the change of belief in the gods,
but yet for long afterwards there lingered the view that the highest
good that man could attain was attainable only after death. With
an ideal like this, man naturally looked upon the present life as
merely a passage to another and a better one. He lived mainly
for the coming world, disregarding, if not altogether discarding,
the realities of this life. Asceticism was the natural outcome of it.
In course of time this ideal of practical life also underwent a
change, not less important than the change on the speculative
side to which I have already referred and it came to be believed
that the highest ideal that man could attain was attainable on
this side of death, here and now. The full development of this
view belongs to the period that followed the composition of the
4 ART EXPERIENCE
classical Upanisads but its source can be traced earlier in those
Upanisadic passages which refer to jivanmukti1. Jivanmukti,
to speak from the purely philosophic standpoint, marks the highest
conception of freedom. It is one of the points where Indian
philosophy emerges clearly from Indian religion; for, the goal of
existence according to this conception is not the attainment of a
hypothetical bliss hereafter but the finding of true freedom on
this bank and shoal of time. It is difficult to exaggerate the import-
ance of this change. It transformed the whole outlook of the
Indian upon life and remoulded his ethical ideal. The ideal,
no doubt, was yet as far as ever from the average man; but what
once was more or less a matter of pure speculation had been
brought within the possibility of positive experience. The aim
of life was no longer conceived as something to be sought for be-
yond this world, but to be realised here, and if one so willed,
now. The new ideal was the achievement of a life of harmony,
not through the extinguishment of interests but by an expansion
of them—not through repressing natural impulses but by purifying
and refining them. It was a mode of living characterised by
passionless purity and an equal love for all, such for instance as is
described in glowing terms more than once in the Bhagavadgita.2
For the realisation of this ideal, the training of the feelings was a
necessary preliminary and in consequence, the first aim of life
came to be looked upon not so much the cultivation of the
intellect or the development of the will, as the culture of the
emotions.
In these two characteristic features of early Indian philos-
ophy, it seems to me, we have the main influences which moulded
the theory of art as it is disclosed to us in Sanskrit works on
poetics. We do not know when this class of works began to
appear. Tradition is at one8 in counting Bhamaha among the
earliest writers on poetics; but in him we see the subject has
already assumed a definite shape. His name, along with those
of some others like Udbhata, Rudrata, Dandin and Vamana is
associated with a distinctive canon of poetry. There are indeed
1
The word jivarrmukta is not known to the Upanisads; but the concep-
tion is there all the same. Cf., e.g., Kafka Up. II. ii. 1., II. iii. 14.
e.g., v. 23-5.
Comp., e.g., the first sloka of the Prataparudriya; Alamkara-sarvasva
(Nir. S. Pr.), p. 3.
 INDIAN AESTHETICS—I 5
differences in matters of detail among these writers. For instance,
there is no clear distinction recognised between gunas and alam-
kdras by some,1 while others give the one or the other of these
the first place in judging the worth of a poem2. It is not necessary
to enter into these details here; for all these writers, in spite of
minor differences, exhibit cognate ways of thinking. We may
therefore regard them as, on the whole, representing the first
stage in the growth of poetic criticism. In the writers of this
pradna school we find the subject of poetry dealt with under
three heads,—dosas, gunas, and alamkaras. The last, alamkaras,
may be left out of consideration here; for, in the first place, they
are not recognised by all to be essential, and in the second, they
almost exclusively relate to imaginative literature and have no
proper place in any general theory of art. Some of the conditions
laid down under the remaining two heads are intended only to
secure logical or grammatical requirements such as coherence of
thought and correctness of language. Even the others as we
shall presently see, rarely allude to the central essence of poetry.
Where they do involve a reference to this essence, its importance
is misjudged and only a subordinate place is assigned to it.*
The attention of this school is practically confined to the outward
expression of poetry, viz., sabda (word) and artha (sense). Certain
forms of these are regarded as dosas and certain others as gunas;
and it is held that what confers excellence on poetry is the absence
of the one and the presence of the other.
There is another school known as the later or navina school
of critics, the theory advanced by whom is far different. As in
the case of the earlier school, this also seems to have had more
than one branch. We shall here consider the most important
of them as represented by the Dhvanvaloka. Apparently it is
the oldest work of the kind extant; but this very work contains
evidence of the fact that the point of view which it adopts in
judging poetry had been more or less well known for a long time
before.4 This work starts by distinguishing between two kinds of
meaning—the explicit and the implicit—and attempts to estimate
the worth of a poem by reference to the latter rather than to the
1
e-g., by Udbhata (see Alamkara-sarvasva bv Ruyyaka, p. 7.).
2
See Vamana : Kavyalamkara-sutra, III. i. I, 2 and 3.
3
Vide Alamkara-Sarvasva by Ruyyaka pp. 3-7; Dhvanyaloka, pp. 9-10.
4
Vide slokai i 1; iii. 34, 52; also the final sloka of the Aloka.
6 ART EXPERIENCE
1
former. The explicit meaning, no less than the words in which
it is clothed, constitutes, according to this view, the mere vesture
of poetry.* They together are its outward embodiment—the
necessary conditions under which a poetic mood manifests itself.
These external and accidental features alone appealed to the earlier
school. But the critic of the new school concentrated his attention
on the implicit meaning which forms the real essence of poetry.
From this new standpoint things like dosas or gunas, in settling
the nature of which there was once so much controversy, are
easily explained. It is as though we are now in possession of
the right key to the understanding of all poetry. Whatever
in sound or sense subserves the poetic end in view is a guna; what-
ever does not, is a dosa3. Dosas and gunas are relative in character.
There is no absolute standard of valuation for them. They are to
be judged only in reference to the inner meaning which constitutes
the truly poetical. The artist never really feels concerned about
them; for, a thought or feeling experienced with poetic intensity
is sure to find expression. The expression is also likely to be
more or less imperfect, but the question is not whether it is perfect,
but whether it is adequate to convey the thought or emotion to
others. If it is adequate it is good poetry, otherwise it is not.
(The implicit meaning is threefold and the poet may aim at
communicating a fact (vastu) or transferring an imaginative
(alamkara) or an emotional mood (rasa). The first is obviously
the least poetic and whatever artistic character it may possess is
entirely due to treatment and not to subject. We may, there-
fore consider here only the remaining two, which have their
bases respectively in imagination and feeling. True art is no
doubt a compound of feeling and imagination but in any particular
case the one or the other may predominate and the twofold
classification should be regarded as having reference to the pre-
dominant factor. In this view art represents the almost sponta-
neous expression of a responsive mind when it comes under
the spell of an imaginative or an emotional mood.} It was this
expression—the outward element of poetry and not its inner
springs which the older school of critics analysed4. The later
school, as we have already seen, occupied itself with what this
expression signifies. The expression was important to them only
1 2
Vide Dhvanyaloka, i. 3-5. Id., i. 7-12.
3 4
Cf. Dhvanyaloka, ii. 6. See Dhvanyaloka, iii. 52.
 INDIAN AESTHETICS—I 7
as a means of suggesting or pointing to the implicit significance.
Here we find a theory of art which exactly corresponds to the
doctrine of atman. Just as the passing things of experience are
not in themselves real but only imperfect manifestations of reality,
so word and explicit meaning are but the exterior of poetry and
until we penetrate beneath that exterior, we do not reach the poetic
ultimate.
So far we have considered the essence of poetry as consisting
in the imaginative thought or the emotional mood which a poet
succeeds in communicating to us. But gradually more stress
came to be laid upon the latter than upon the former. Under
the influence of the altered ethical ideal to which allusion has
been made above art came to be more and more utilised as a
means of emotional culture. There was peculiar fitness in its
being so used, for it can not only teach, but also please and while
it can successfully persuade, it can keep its persuasive character
concealed from view. It was thus that poetry came to be viewed
as possessing a double aim—the direct one of giving aesthetic
delight (sadyah-paranirvrti) and the indirect one of contributing
toward the refinement of character1. This particular use to
which art was out made rasa more important than either vastu
or alamkara2. (It is this change in the nature of Sanskrit poetry
that is meant when it is stated that rasa is the atman of poetry—
a statement which by the way shows clearly the dependence of
this canon on the atman doctrine of the Upanisads. When
the predominance of rasa came to be insisted upon as indis-
pensable to artistic excellence, many of the systems of philosophy
applied their own fundamental principles to its interpretation
so that in course of time there came to be more than one theory
of rasa. I shall devote the rest of the paper to an elucidation of
these theories according to two of the chief systems, viz., Vedanta
and Samkhya alluding incidentally to the corresponding concep-
tions of beauty in Nature)
And first as regards the vedanta. Among the various appro-
ximate terms used in the Upanisads to denote Brahman, one is
dnanda. Ananda means bliss; and Brahman according to the
monistic and idealistic teaching of the Upanisads, represents
the inner harmony of the universe. Brahman is termed dnanda
1 2
Cf., e.g., Kavya-prakasa, i. 2. Cf., e.g., Dhvanyaloka, p. 27 (com.)-
8 ART EXPERIENCE
because of the restful bliss that results from realising that har-
mony. Brahman is so termed for instance in the Tait. Up. iii.
The appropriateness of the term ananda consists just in this sug-
gestion that the harmony of the universe must be realised in one's
own experience and not merely intellectually apprehended;
for there can be no such thing as mediated ananda. This word
contains the clue to the whole aesthetic theory of the Vedanta.
Common experience takes for granted that variety is the ultimate
truth. According to the Vedanta, the final truth lies in the uni-
fication of this variety through a proper synthesis. But this
unification is what takes place in perfect knowledge. Commonly
we are occupied with appearances which give only a fragmentary
view of reality. They alone concern us in our everyday life.
But he who attains perfect knowledge—the jivanmukta—transcends
this fragmentary view. He may continue to perceive variety;
but it ceases to have any ultimate significance for him. He merges
in the unity which he realises all separate existence including
his own and enjoys ananda—the peace that passeth understanding.
This higher viewpoint is not possible for us while we are yet
on the empirical plane. We are absorbed in the narrow distinc-
tion between the self and the not-self. But sometimes, though
rarely, there is a break in this routine and then in the sudden
transition from one empirical state to another, we transcend our
narrow selves. Our connection with the work-a-day world
seems to snap. We do not indeed realise then, like the knower,
the unity of all that is, but we yet resemble him in one respect,
in that we lose sight of ourselves and feel delight, however short-
lived it may be.
But among the myriad impressions that reach us from the
outer world, what is it that gives rise to such an attitude? This
question admits of a variety of answers. It is now symmetry,
now novelty, and now something else; and it is this variety
that accounts for the almost bewildering number of theories of
the beautiful that one finds in any history of aesthetics. Accord-
ing to the Vedanta, these do not constitute true beauty at all
but are only its outward and visible symbols. Though diverse
in themselves they point to the same underlying harmony which
constitutes real beauty. But, this perfect beauty which is identical
with the ultimate reality is revealed only to the knower. We
perceive only its outward symbols and we may describe them as
 INDIAN AESTHETICS—I 9
beautiful in a secondary sense, since we experience ananda at
their sight. Those who identify beauty with these external
factors and seek it as an attribute forget that while these are per-
ceivable by the senses, beauty is disclosed only to the 'inward
eye.1 True beauty is neither expressible in words nor knowable
objectively; it can only be realised.
Beauty in Nature then, as we commonly understand, is any-
thing that brings about a break in the routine life and serves
as a point of departure towards the realisation of delight. This
is the only condition which it should satisfy. But what is the
significance of this break? Generally we lead a life of continuous
tension, bent as we are upon securing aims more or less personal
in character. In Samkara's words life is characterised by avidyd-
kdma-karma, i.e., desire and strife, arising out of the ignorance
of the ultimate truth. When we are not actively engaged we
may feel this tension relaxed; but that feeling of relaxation
is deceptive for even then self-interest persists as may be within
the experience of us all. Delight means the transcending of even
this inner strain. The absence of desire then is the determining
condition of pleasure; and its presence, that of pain. The absence
of desire may be due to any cause whatever—to a particular
desire having been gratified or to there being, for the time, nothing
to desire. The chief thing is that the selfish attitude of the
mind—the 'ego-centric predicament'—must be transcended at
least temporarily, and a point of detachment has to be reached
before we can enjoy happiness. Joy or bliss is the intrinsic
nature of the self according to the Vedanta, that being the signi-
ficance of describing the ultimate reality as ananda. The break
in the routine life restores this character to the self. If its intrinsic
nature is not always manifest, it is because desire veils it. When
this veil is stripped off, no matter how, the real nature of atman
asserts itself and we feel the happiness which is all our own.
In the case of a jnanin the true source of this delight is known;
but even when such enlightenment is lacking we may experience
similar delight. We may enjoy while yet we do not know. To
use Samkara's words again, the ever-recurring series of kama
and karman or interest and activity constitutes life. The elimination
of kama and karman while their cause avidyd continues in a
latent form, marks the aesthetic attitude; the dismissal of avidyd
even in this latent form marks the saintly attitude. Thus the
 10 ART EXPERIENCE
artistic attitude is one of disinterested contemplation but not of true
enlightenment while the attitude of the saint is one of true en-
lightenment and disinterestedness but not necessarily of passivity.
The two attitudes thus resemble each other in one important
respect, viz., unselfishness.
(And now as regards the Vedantic theory of rasa. The
immediate aim of art, as already indicated, being pure delight,
the theory of rasa in the Vedanta will be known if we ascertain
the conditions that determine a pleasurable attitude of the mind.
The overcoming of desire is the indispensable condition of pleasure.
The artist has therefore to induce an attitude of detachment and
he can easily do it by means of the ideal creations of his art.
Being products of fancy they cannot awaken desire and when
attention is once concentrated upon them, the ordinary state of
tension caused by selfish desires is relaxed and joy ensues as a
matter of course. The various devices of art such as rhythm,
symmetry, etc., are intended to help this concentration and success-
fully maintain it. They also serve another important purpose,
viz., securing unity to the subject portrayed. We have seen that
the knower who enjoys perfect beatitude realises unity in Nature's
diversity. Similarly in artistic perception also, which is followed
by pure delight, there is a realisation of unity in variety. But
while in the one case what is realised is the truth of Nature, it is
in the other the truth of art. The latter, no doubt, is a lower
truth; but there is yet a close resemblance between the two
attitudes; and we may well compare the person appreciating art
to jivanmukta. He does indeed get a foretaste of moksa then;
but it is not moksa in fact because it is transient, not being based
upon perfect knowledge.)
To turn to the Samkhya: The essential features of this sys-
tem are its dualism and its realism. It starts with two absolutes
which are altogether disparate—Prakrti and Purusa. The
former splits up on the one hand into the entire psychic apparatus,
with buddhi as its main factor; and, on the other, into the physical
world constituted out of the five elements. The Purusa or
self is awareness, pure and simple. It stands at one extreme
while at the other is the objective world. The whole of the mental
apparatus is designed to bring about a mediation between them.
How buddhi, itself a product of Prakrti, can serve as a connecting
link between them—how a physical stimulus is converted into
 INDIAN AESTHETICS—I 11
a psychical experience—is a question which we need not stop
to discuss. Our concern is not primarily with Samkhya psycho-
logy or metaphysics but only with its conception of art. It is
enough for our purpose if we remember that by such mediation
buddhi enables the Purusa to realise either of the two ideals of
life—bhoga and apavarga—that is, to experience pleasure and
pain or to attain spiritual aloofness through right knowledge.
It is also necessary to make a brief reference here to the theory
of the three gunas. The conception of gunas is as difficult to
understand as it is essential to the system. Of the large number
of effects1 that can be traced to these gunas, sukha, duhkha and
moha, which are respectively the result of sattva, rajas and tamos,
are the most important; and it is possible that the Samkhya
system is less concerned with the intrinsic nature of things than
with their meaning for us. It seems to aim primarily at estimating
the value2 of things as means of pleasure and pain and may there-
fore be described as a philosophy of valuation. Two applications
of the doctrine of gunas, we have to notice in particular here—
(i) Everything whether it belongs to the outer physical world or
to the inner psychic apparatus is made up of these three factors.
But some are predominantly sattvic, others predominantly
rajasic or tamasic. The buddhi is intrinsically sattvic in this
sense.8 We must, however, remember that each individual
buddhi has in it, from the beginning, vasands or acquired impulses
which may modify its intrinsic sattvic character and transform it
into a predominantly rajasic or tamasic entity, (ii) The feeling
of pain or pleasure which we experience arises from the inter-
action of the two spheres of prakrtic development—the buddhi
on the one hand and the objective world on the other, the Purusa
standing by, only as an onlooker. Though the buddhi owing
to its intrinsic sattvic character should give rise only to pleasure,
the play of its acquired impulses coupled with the character of
the particular physical object acting upon it may reverse this
1
Vide quotation from Pancaiikhd in Samkkya-pravacana-bhasya,i. 127.
1
Since no value has any meaning apart from consciousness, we probably
have here an explanation for the persistent effort of certain orientalists to
describe the Samkhya philosophy as idealistic
8
What is meant is that buddhi when purged of all its egoistic impulses
as in the case of a jivanmukta, is sattvic. Compare Samkhya-tattva-kaumudt
on st. 65; Maniprabha on Yogasutras, 1.49; and Samkhya-pravacana-bhasya,
ii. 15.
12 ART EXPERIENCE
result. The same thing may therefore affect different persons
differently. What causes pleasure to one may cause pain to
another, and what one regards as beautiful, another may regard
as ugly; everything that is perceived comes to be viewed through
the distracting medium of individual purpose, and we ordinarily
live in a secondary world, ignoring the intrinsic nature of things
and setting a conventional value upon them according to our
individual bias.
Now according to the Samkhya, the basic cause of this predi-
cament is to be traced to a mistaken identification of the buddhi
with the Purusa. The mistake cannot be avoided until the
Purusa dissociates himself from buddhi altogether, but, according
to the Sarhkhya, the question of neither pleasure nor pain arises
then. So far as the ordinary empirical state is concerned, indi-
vidual purpose or selfish desire is ineradicable and life becomes
a condition of pain mixed with uncertain pleasure. What is
pleasant to one may be unpleasant to another; or even to the same
person at a different time. He, on the other hand, who acquires
true knowledge and realises the intrinsic disparateness of Prakrti
and Purusa transcends the sphere of pain as well as of pleasure.
Such a man is a jivanmukta. He sees things not as related to
him but as related among themselves, that is, as they are absolutely.
Everything impresses him in the same way and nothing excite
his love or hatred so that he is able to maintain complete composure
of mind, and be, as Vijnanabhiksu says, serene like a mountain-
tarn.1
But such absolute detachment is beyond the reach of ordinary
man; for he cannot transcend his buddhi. He cannot therefore
grow impersonal even for a while. But we should not therefore
consider that the average man cannot escape from pain at all:
for although he cannot transcend his buddhi, he can, by resorting
to art, find a temporary release from the natural world, the
second of the two factors contributing to the misery of ordinary
existence. Pleasure untainted by sorrow does not exist in the
real world and has therefore to be sought outside it. The world
of art is no doubt like Nature, but being idealised it does not
evoke our egoistic impulses. There we have a distinct class
of things altogether, which are not made up of the three gunas.
1
Samkhya-sara, vii. 16.
 INDIAN AESTHETICS—I 13
They cannot give rise to either pleasure or pain. The
mind is thus enabled to assume a well-poised attitude of which the
automatic result is a feeling of pleasure. The artist's function
is thus to restore equanimity to the mind by leading us away
from the common world and offering us another in exchange.
I have stated that in not a few systems of philosophy, there
was a deliberate application of fundamental principles to the
interpretation of rasa. The distinctive doctrines of more than
one system are found mentioned in Sanskrit works on poetics.1
As an illustration of them, I shall take up the theory of rasa
associated with the name of Bhatta Nayaka and show how it is
identical with the Samkhya theory as briefly sketched above.2
Bhatta Nayaka was a reputed alamkarika and wrote a work known
as Hrdaya-darpana which, I believe, has not been discovered yet.
But references to it are plentiful in alamkdra works, especially in
Abhinavagupta's commentary on the Dhvanydloka. Bhatta Nayaka
does not seem to have been much older than Abhinavagupta
himself. The following is a resume of the theory as given in the
Kavya-prakasa:
na tatasthyena natmagatatvena rasah pratiyate notpad-
yate nabhivyajyate api tu kavye natye cabhidhato
dvitiyena vibhavadisadharanikaranatmana bhavakatva-
vyaparena bhavyamanah sthayi sattvodrekaprakasa-
n a n d a m a y a s a r h v i d v i s r a n t i s a t a t t v e n a bhogena
bhujyate // (iv.)
If we leave out the references to the other views from which the
present theory differs, there are three points worthy of note here:
(i) The first refers to the nature of the objects contemplated
in art. They have no reference to anybody in particular. In
life everything is consciously or unconsciously related to the indi-
vidual perceiver (atman) or to sorne one else (tatastha); but the
creations of art are wholly impersonal. It is not given to the
ordinary man to transcend personal relations; art by its imperson-
alised forms affords the best means for a temporary escape from
the ills of life arising from such relations.
1
The commentary on Alamkara-sarvasva refers to as many as a dozen
theories. (Vide p. 9.)
2
The Kavya-pradipa identifies this theory as the one corresponding to
the Samkhya.
 14 ART EXPERIENCE
(ii) The next point refers to three stages in the appreciation
of poetry which gradually lead up to aesthetic experience. The
first of them is the apprehension of the meaning of the words of
a poem; the second the finding through them of generalised
conceptions unrelated to any one in particular and lastly the actual
experience of delight. This statement brings out clearly the
characteristic of the Samkhya theory that aesthetic delight is the
result of contemplating the imaginative and therefore impersonal
creations of the poet. In the passage quoted above these three
states are represented as vydpdras or processes ascribable to a work
of art. The first of them is abhidha by means of which the
words constituting a poem convey their ordinary meaning. The
second is bhdvana.1 It is the process of impersonalising by
virtue of which the accessories of the emotion portrayed such as
the vibhavas become generalised (sadhdranikrta) thereby gaining
a power of equal appeal to all. The words and their literal mean-
ings are not therefore to be regarded as important in themselves
but only as pointing to these generalised ideas. The third or
bhoglkarana is that by virtue of which we are enabled to derive
pure pleasure—bhoga—from these idealised creations of the
artist. The purpose of evolution in the Samkhya is bhoga and
apavarga and the use of this word bhoga in this passage constitutes
a link connecting the present theory with the Samkhya. What
is implied by the use of this word here is that the artistic attitude
in spite of its being the source of unalloyed pleasure is more akin
to the empirical than to the saintly attitude. Of these three
vydpdras the first is recognised by all. But it appears strange
that the remaining two should be ascribed to a work of art. If
however we remember that this theory is based on the Samkhya
we see that the statement is not altogether inappropriate. The
Purusa according to the Samkhya conception is absolutely passive
so that all activity must be of Prakrti. Prakrti not only creates
everything but also brings about Purusa's experience of pleasure
and pain through them, by means of its own agency. Thus
Prakrti discharges two functions: (a) that of evolving the things
1
The word bhavana reminds one of Mimdmsd and it is possible that
Bhafta Nayaka was indebted to that system of philosophy for this conception.
He was, we know from Abhinavagupta, a Mimamsaka. In one of his many
unkind remarks against Bhafta Nayaka, Abhinavagupta suggests this. Cf
Dhvanydloka, p. 63.
 INDIAN AESTHETICS—I 15

through which pleasure or pain may be derived, and (b) that of

enabling Purusa to experience such pleasure and pain. These
two steps may be seen in art also, if we distinguish the apprehen-
sion of idealised forms from the aesthetic enjoyment derivable
from them. There is no doubt a touch of personification in the
manner of its statement by Bhatta Nayaka: but that is probably
to be attributed to a desire to maintain the parallelism with
Samkhya metaphysics.
(iii) The third point refers to the nature of the aesthetic
attitude itself. This attitude is one of samvit, i.e., contemplation
dissociated from all practical interest as is shown by visranti—
'composure'. Thus the artistic attitude differs from the natural
as well as the spiritual attitude; for while the former is not
always pleasurable and the latter neither pleasurable nor painful
art produces a condition of pure pleasure. We have here the
expression sattvodreka which is important inasmuch as it contains
another indication of the theory being based upon Samkhya
philosophy.
To sum up the essential differences between the Vedanta and
Samkhya aesthetics. According to pessimistic Samkhya, Nature
is not wholly beautiful but has in it phases of beauty as well
as of ugliness. It does not indeed say the objects in Nature do
not give delight at all. What it means is that there is nothing
in Nature which at all times is pleasurable to all. For pure un-
alloyed pleasure we must therefore look elsewhere than in the
real world. According to optimistic Vedanta on the other hand
everything is beautiful and there is nothing in the universe to
mar its inward harmony. This is indeed the first corollary of
the atman doctrine and the saint is the greatest artist, for every-
thing delights him. Although we may not possess the saint's
knowledge that everything is atman, we can occasionally
derive aesthetic enjoyment from Nature. But ordinarily we are
too dull to perceive the beauty of the universe. The artist who is
endowed with an eye for the beautiful derives pleasure from
Nature where we cannot and through the expression which he
spontaneously gives to his feeling, he opens our eyes to what we
miss. In a sense this art is Nature herself presented in such a
manner that it appeals to us. The aim of art according to both
the systems is to induce a mood of detachment. But according
to idealistic Vedanta the artistic attitude is characterised by a
16 ART EXPERIENCE
forgetting, though temporary, of our individuality; while according
to realistic Samkhya, it is due to an escape from the natural
world. According to the former, art serves as a pathway to Reality;
but according to the latter, it is so to speak a 'deflection' from
Reality. The one reveals the best in Nature, while the other
fashions something better than Nature.
I must in conclusion say a word in regard to my selecting a
subject which may appear to some as rather out of the way.
Research has till now been largely confined to linguistic, historical
and similar aspects of oriental learning; but there are still other
aspects of it which cannot be regarded as either less instructive
or less interesting. It appears necessary in the future not only
to carry research further in the departments already worked,
but also to widen considerably the sphere of research itself.
What I have attempted in this paper does not profess to be more
than a first and a very imperfect sketch of the subject I have
selected; but I trust it is sufficient to indicate what vast fields of
ancient Indian learning lie unexplored.
 WHAT TO EXPECT OF POETRY?
There are numerous works in Sanskrit on poetics, and with
their help chiefly it is proposed here to find an answer to the
question: What are we to expect from poetry? The considera-
tion of this question presupposes a knowledge on our part of
what poetry is; but we need not attempt anything so rash as to
define that term. There are, as may be expected, several defini-
tions of poetry to be found in these ancient books. They are
neither better nor worse than those one meets with in modern
works on the subject and we do not therefore cite any of these
definitions, but shall content ourselves merely with pointing out
the meaning of the Sanskrit word for poetry, viz., kavya. This
word, it may be noted in passing, is equally applicable to verse
as well as to prose; and it is explained as kavi-karma, which
amounts to saying that poetry is what the poet writes. So far
as the nature of poetry is concerned, this explanation is not very
illuminating. It is useful, however, in this respect that it shifts
the question from poetry to the poet; and it seems much less
difficult to say what the Indians thought of the poet than of poetry.
The common view of the poet is to regard him as a creator or
maker; but there is also another, according to which his foremost
aim is not to invent anything new but to represent life as it is—
"to hold the mirror up to nature" as it is said. Of these, it is only
the former view we come across in Sanskrit poetics. The poet
as conceived here is not to rest content with merely copying
Nature or life. His skill does not consist in selecting the salient
features of an existing situation and portraying them exactly as
they are, but rather in creating new situations. These situations
will of course be modelled upon Nature; for the ideal, as Bain long
ago observed, needs, like paper-currency, to rest always on a
sufficient basis of the real. But at the same time, the poet's
work involves the invention of many new elements; and it is for
this reason that in Sanskrit literature the poet is often found
compared to the Creator and the Creator to the poet.
So much about the Indian conception of the poet. But it
takes two to make a poem, as some one has said; and we must now
add a few words about the other party to it, viz., the reader of
2
18 ART EXPERIENCE
poetry. A fit reader of poetry is known in Sanskrit as sa-hrdaya
which word will tell us all that we need know about him. The
second element of this compound—hrdaya means 'heart' and the
first stands for samdna, i.e., 'same' or 'similar/ so that the whole
word signifies 'one of similar heart.' That is, the poet and the
reader of poetry are of the same temperament. Both possess
what is known as the 'poetic heart'; and its possession is the most
important qualification of the reader of poetry. This identity of
temperament between the two is assumed throughout Sanskrit
poetics and the process of appreciating poetry is looked upon as
essentially the same as producing it. Hence we frequently
find Sanskrit writers describe the poet and the reader of poetry
by the same set of terms. There is perhaps nothing very
novel in the kinship here noticed; the point is that it receives
particular emphasis in Indian works. The identity of tempera-
ment between the two means no doubt a certain restriction of
the circle of competent readers of poetry; but there seems to be
a good deal of truth in the restriction, for there is no warrant for
assuming that the aesthetic sense is universal.
In this affinity between the poet and the reader of poetry we
find a clue to the answer to our question. Every lover of poetry
in this view is virtually a poet. Both possess, as already stated,
the poetic heart, though it pulses much lower in the one than in
the other. The poet, while he is under the finer influences of life,
feels so intensely and vividly that his feeling spontaneously finds
utterance. We, on the other hand, under similar circumstances
are almost dumb. The lack of expression in us does not, how-
ever, necessarily mean that there is nothing to express. We
also respond to such influences in our own way, but the resulting
experience is faint and vague—so much so that we can hardly
call it ours until it is properly articulated for us by the poet.
Poetic feeling without poetic expression—that is why we do not
by ourselves reach the truly poetic level, that is where we stand
in need of the poet's assistance. The tiny stream also is to reach
the ocean, but it is too feeble to do so without mingling with a
mighty river. So we may say that it is for a fuller self-revelation
that we seek the aid of poetry. This is, however, only a part
and, comparatively speaking, a minor part of the answer to our
question. It is true that the thoughts and feelings enshrined in
poetry are sometimes the same as ours, finding clear and beautiful
 WHAT TO EXPECT OF POETRY? 19
expression there; yet surely it would be absurd to say that we
always went to the poet to have our own experiences unfolded
to us. There is another and a far more important answer to our
question and to discover it we have to recur to the conception of
the poet as a creator.
What is the significance of this conception? and what in
particular is the point in comparing the poet to the Maker of the
universe? We need not discuss here whether the world as created
by God is perfect or imperfect. What matters for us now is that
the poet's world should be perfect. If the world of Nature also is
perfect, it is certain we commonly miss the perfection or at best
only catch a passing glimpse of it. This tragic aspect of our life
has been splendidly expressed by a modern English poet in the
following lines:
"Fate from an unimaginable throne
Scatters a million roses on the world,
They fall like shooting stars across the sky
Glittering. Under a dark clump of trees
Man, a gaunt creature, squats upon the ground
Ape-like and grins to see those brilliant flowers
Raining thro* the dark foliage; he tries
Sometimes to clutch at them, but in his hands
They melt like snow. Then in despair he turns
Back to his wigwam, stirs the embers, pats
His blear-eyed dog and smokes a pipe and soon
Wrapped in a blanket, drowses off to sleep."
It is the peculiar glory of the poet that he never loses sight of these
"brilliant flowers." He has always his eyes on the joy and beauty
of the universe; and in his poems constructs for us new situations
through which we are enabled to see and understand them.
The function of the poet in this respect may be illustrated by that
of a scientist who, discovering for himself a truth of Nature,
hidden from the common view, devises a special apparatus to
enable others to see that truth as clearly as he himself has done.
It is not the truth of Nature that is invented here but only the
medium through which it is revealed to us. Similarly in creating
a new world, the aim of the poet is to reveal to us the inner signi-
ficance of the world of Nature. This conception of the poet as
a revealer is implied in the Sanskrit word for him, viz., kavi
 20 ART EXPERIENCE
itself, which occurs as early as the Rg-Veda. Philologists trace
the word to a parent root from which the English verb "show"
also is descended. Thus kavi literally means 'one that shows'
and he who shows must necessarily have himself seen. We
may in this sense understand our word kavi as the equivalent of
'seer.' He portrays Nature, not as it is commonly known, but
as it ought to be; and it is the vision of the true world we get
through his work that is, according to this view, the source of
our satisfaction in reading poetry. If instead of this we suppose
the world of Nature to be imperfect and to contain evil with good,
ugliness with beauty, the poet has to fashion something better
than it, so that in his work at least man may find joy untainted by
sorrow. This is the implication of passages in certain works on
Sanskrit poetics where the poet is contrasted with the Creator.
The Kavya-prakasa, one of the best known works on the subject,
begins with such a contrast and describes the work of the poet
in such well-chosen words that he is easily made out to be the
more skilful of the two. According to both view-points, the
poet ought to be a creator—only while in the one, the forms he
creates disclose to us the truth of Nature commonly obscured,
but yet there; in the other, they present for our contemplation
something that is superior to Nature and is not there.
tlf such be the impulse behind poetry, what is it that we may
seek from it? The answer must be twofold in accordance with
the twofold explanation we have just given. If it is from an
optimistic standpoint that we look at it, it is to draw ourselves
closer to the intrinsic truth and beauty of the universe that we
seek the aid of poetry; if from the pessimistic, it is to draw ourselves
away from the sufferings and perplexities of actual life. In either
case we are transported as it were from our usual surroundings
and, moving in a world which the poet's fancy has called into being,
we forget ourselves. Then we resemble the poet most: the only
difference is that while he attains that condition spontaneously,
ours is induced by him. It is this transcending of self-conscious-
ness—this migrating from our narrow self, to put it otherwise,
that constitutes the secret of aesthetic, delight. The highest
function of the poet who easily rises to this mood is to communi-
cate the same to us. As the alchemist's herb is said to change even
a common thing at once into gold, so the poet metamorphoses
us instantly. He cannot indeed pass on to us his inspiration,
 WHAT TO EXPECT OF POETRY? 21
but the poetic experience itself—its result, he can; and thereby
he becomes our supreme benefactor. It is this wholly unique
experience that is termed rasa in Sanskrit; and it is for attaining
it that we almost instinctively go to poetry. That is the chief
answer which we find in Sanskrit poetics to our question: What
have we to expect of poetry?
Poetry then is to be regarded first and foremost as a means of
securing a spell of detachment from common life and not for any
lessons or 'criticism of life' it may contain. There is no doubt
that it has many such lessons for us and that their value is great.
But they are only the further good resulting fromppetic experience
and not the good which that experience itself is. Jroetry represents
an attitude, it also yields certain results; and the attitude is not
less important than the results which follow from it. The
time we devote to the reading of poetry, we must never forget,,
is itself a part of our life. It is necessary to lay stress on this
point, for there is commonly some confusion between the reading
of poetry and its uses. Indian writers have always clearly dis-
cerned the difference between the two and have recognised the
reading of poetry as more an end in itself than as a means to some-
thing else. That is the underlying truth of the conception of
rasa. This rasdnubhava or aesthetic experience is to be preferred
not only to whatever good may result from it, but also, in one
sense, to the very writing of poetry; for as a Sanskrit sloka has
it—"If you are not conversant with the best of poets—the kings
among them—how can you purpose to write poetry? and, if you
are, why should you?"
 ART CONTEMPLATION
Although art, in one sense, may be concerned with the very
essence of reality, it is clear that the persons and things with
which it immediately deals, like the characters it describes or
the scenes of external nature in which it presents them, are by
no means real. But they are not therefore to be reckoned as
illusions in the ordinary sense of the word, for they never mislead
us. We merely entertain them, as it is said, neither believing
nor disbelieving in them. The example commonly given by
Indian writers in this connection is that of a painted horse (citra-
turaga). We speak and think of it as a horse; but, all the time,
we know that it is not one. This characteristic of art implies
that it can have no bearing upon our activity, for all activity is
directed towards real objects. In illustrating this fact, viz.,
that the content of art lies outside actual life, a well-known
Shakespearian scholar has stated that "we dismiss the agony of
Lear in a moment, if the kitten goes and burns its nose".
This dissociation of art from our practical interests often
gives rise to a misapprehension that the contemplation of the
aesthetic object is quite passive. People take for granted that
beauty is given ready-made in a work of art, and that we have
merely to yield ourselves entirely to its influence to derive delight
from it. Any effort that may be required on our part, they think,
is restricted to keep out from our mind distracting factors that
may wake us to a sense of the actual world from which we have
withdrawn ourselves for the time being. This is not the view
of uninstructed laymen alone; it sometimes receives support
from even writers of standing in the field of art criticism. Thus
Addison, referring to 'the pleasures of the imagination* by which
he means the pleasures that may arise from the contemplation
of nature or of art, speaks of the ease with which they can be
secured. They require, he says, 'Very little attention of thought or
application of mind in the beholder." 1
What is overlooked in this naive view, as we may call it, is
the essentially creative character of art. So far as the artist is
•concerned, it is not difficult to see the need for constructive
' Grant Allen also holds the same view. See William Knight's The
Philosophy of the Beautiful, Vol. 1, p 250.
 ART CONTEMPLATION 23
power. Even in realistic art, where he is supposed to be repro-
ducing what is given in Nature and not aiming at the creation of
beauty, he has to exercise a good deal of activity in the form of
selecting, from among the features presented, those that are fit
for portrayal and properly unifying them. For Nature, even at its
best, contains irrelevant features, if not also ugly or disagreeable
ones. To paint a landscape is more than to photograph it.
The painter does not reproduce it as it is, but as his imagination
represents it to him. In other words, the artist never copies the
given mechanically, but idealises it; and in this idealisation lies
the secret of his art. In the case of the spectator, doubtless,
no such effort is necessary; for there are the aids, which the
genius of the artist has provided, to guide him in his contem-
plation.1 But the process should still involve activity, inasmuch
as a proper appreciation of a work embodying the results of ideal-
isation is impossible without an imaginative reconstruction of its
content. It is only when thus ideally reconstructed that the
beauty of the work becomes actual for the spectator; and it is only
when it is thus Verified by his own heart', as the Sanskrit expression
goes, that he, rising above the interests of common life, forgets
himself and is said to realise the aesthetic end. To put the same
in the Indian way, the beautiful as a value needs to be striven
for and achieved (sadhyd), no matter whether one approaches it
as an artist or as a spectator.2
This view of art contemplation entirely transforms the idea
of the aesthetic end. In the naive view alluded to above, the end
is delight, to which contemplation is but a means; and the contem-
plation is justified by the end to which it leads. But here no
such dualism of end and means is recognised. There is only
a single self-justifying process of contemplation, which represents a
progressive appreciation of the aesthetic object. The purpose is
thus present throughout the process or is immanent in it3; and,
if we look upon its culminating stage as the result, it is because
1
This is at best the significance of the view that art contemplation is
passive, when, e.g., Bhatta Nayaka says so. [See Abhinavagupta's commentary
on the DA., p. 29.]
2
This contemplation, we should add, is positive and therefore over and
above the negative one whose aim, as stated earlier, is to enable us to continue
to be in the peculiar atmosphere of art in which we have placed ourselves.
8
Hence the familiar expression " art for art's sake ". It means that art
has no purpose beyond itself, and not that it has none at all.
24 ART EXPERIENCE
that stage is marked by the repose of achievement.1 \The
value of art accordingly consists not in providing mere delight
for us, but in the totality of experience for which aesthetic con-
templation stands. The feeling of pleasure is, no doubt, there,
but only as an aspect of that experience. This is the significance
of the term rasa, used in Sanskrit for aesthetic value—a term
which literally means 'savour' or 'savouring' and implies that
art valuation is an active process of which delight is only a charac-
teristic feature. It is therefore wrong to think that art exists
for our delectation. If it did, some at all events would not attach
much importance to it. It aims rather at inducing in us a unique
attitude of mind which signifies not only pleasure but also com-
plete disinterestedness and a sympathetic insight into the whole
situation depicted by the artist. The uniqueness of this attitude
will become clear when we mention that, in the view of Indian
thinkers, it is comparable to the ideal state of the jivannmukta
or one that has realised the goal of life.
We have stated that art has no aim beyond itself; but it may
appear that this is not consistent with fact, since it is found
actually utilised in various spheres of life. For example, it
has been used to further the interests of religion in all countries
and in all ages. But this is only an apparent inconsistency.
When we say that art is its own end, we think of the aesthetic
process as integral and self-sufficing, so that its purpose is included
in it. Art may have other purposes also, like the one to which
allusion has just been made. But the point to be particularly
noted is that, however excellent such purposes may in themselves
be, they are external to art and possess no aesthetic value.8 To
give an illustration from the parallel realm of conduct, the ethical
value of a good deed consists in the doing of it and in the right
direction of the will involved in it. Any consequences that may
follow from the deed are extraneous to it; and they, as students of
the Gita will well realise, have no direct bearing upon that value.
One and the same work of art may have both these aims. But it takes
away nothing from its worth if, while fulfilling its intrinsic purpose,
it does not serve as a means to an external end. If, however,
the reverse holds good in any case, e.g., a poem that is purely
didactic, we may still value it for its usefulness but not as art.
1
Cf. Visrdntidhamatva of rasa: Dhvanyaloka-locana-kaumudi (KSRI
Edn.), p. 102. The category of means and end is relevant here, for art
is conceived as instrumental in attaining these purposes.
 ART EXPERIENCE—1
The eagerness with which people visit places like theatres
and music-halls shows the intrinsic attractiveness of art. We
shall not attempt here the difficult task of accounting for this
attractiveness, but shall only draw attention to some of the features
that are distinctive of the enjoyment of art with a view to indicating
its place in the scheme of human experience. In the first place>
the contemplation of a work of art leads to an attitude of mind
which is quite impersonal. Whatever strain or conscious effort
may be required for getting into that attitude, when once it is
attained man forgets himself altogether; and he will be aware
then of nothing beyond the object or the situation portrayed
by the artist. In the second place, and probably as a consequence
of such self-forgetfulness, the contemplation of art yields a
kind of spontaneous joy. In both these respects, the aesthetic
attitude stands higher than that of common or everyday life,
which is generally characterised by personal interests of one kind
or another and therefore also involves a variable degree of mental
tension. It is for this reason that Indian philosophers, especially
the Vedantins among them, compare the experience of art with
that of the ideal state which they describe as moksa. But the two
experiences are only of the same order and not identical, for the
former has certain limitations which are not found in the latter.
To begin with, art experience is transient. It does not endure
long but passes away sooner or later, for it depends for its continu-
ance upon the presence of the external stimulus which has evoked
it. The ideal state, on the other hand, if it should answer to
that description at all, must, when attained, necessarily become
a permanent feature of life. Its attainment consequently means
the rising, once for all, above the narrow interests of routine
life and the mental strain which those interests invlove. It is
not suggested by this that art experience will not leave its good
influence behind. All that is meant is that, whatever may be
the nature and the extent of that influence, the experience itself,
with the features that make it comparable to the ideal state,
disappears after a time.
Secondly, art may prove so seductive to man that, in his zest
26 ART EXPERIENCE
for the pleasure it brings, he may grow negligent of his obligations
to fellow-men. That is the moral, for instance, of Tennyson's
Palace of Art. In it, as is well known, the poet describes a gifted
soul as building for itself a fine and spacious mansion amidst
magnificent surroundings, but on the summit of a hill far away
from the common people. After ornamenting it with artistic
works of great beauty and splendour, it enters the happy abode
saying to itself, "All these are mine; and let the world have peace
or wars, it is one to me". This self-complacent attitude, no
doubt, does not continue very long, for the soul, which has thus
isolated itself from others grows penitent of its pride and unsocial
behaviour and at last steps down from its lofty position to join the
common life and share its sorrows and its joys. But the poem
makes it clear that there is nothing in aesthetic experience itself to
guarantee against a life of self-centred satisfaction.
The ideal state will never be thus divorced from sympathy
for fellow beings because, on the Indian view, it cannot be attained
by any one who has not learnt to render loving service to others
as the result of a thorough training in social morality. The
Katha Upanisad (I. ii. 24), for instance, is emphatic in stating
that no one who has not overcome selfishness will ever reach the
goal of life.
Lastly, the impersonal joy of art experience is induced arti-
ficially from' outside, while that of the ideal state springs naturally
from within. A few words are, perhaps, necessary to explain
how this distinction between them arises:
(i) We have already referred to the dependence of art ex-
perience on an external stimulus. We have now to remark that
it results from the contemplation not of a real, but of an imaginative
or a fictitious situation created by the artist. That situation is
also self-complete, for art, as is well known, deals in wholes. A
perfect work of art has, indeed, been compared to a monad, for
it admits of neither additions nor subtractions. The unique
experience which accompanies the witnessing of a drama, say,
is conditioned by both these features. Its impersonal character
is explained by the unreality of the incidents represented on the
stage. A frightful object appearing there will not incline even
the most timid in the audience to shrink from it; nor will an
alluring one prompt even the most covetous to cast a wishful
eye on it. The attitude of the spectator towards them is one of
 ART EXPERIENCE—I 27
appreciation merely, and there is no suggestion of anything to
be done. Similarly, its restful joy is to be traced to the perfect
unity of the situation depicted which, when realised, so satisfies
the yearning in man for complete comprehension, or for knowing
whatever there is to know, that it allays, for the moment, all his
doubts and discomposing thoughts.
(2) Now as regards the ideal state: As pointed out before,
it can be attained by no one that has not successfully undergone
a course of moral training. That, however, is only one of the
qualifications for reaching it. There is another, viz., the acquisi-
tion of philosophic knowledge or, more strictly, the realisation
of the ultimate truth. The ideal state is therefore the result
of a combined pursuit of the values of truth and of goodness;
and a person who succeeds in that pursuit comes to possess a
comprehensive view of reality as well as a spirit of complete
unselfishness. The same two conditions being thus present here
as in the case of art experience, he derives the same kind of detached
joy directly from the real universe. But the noteworthy point here
is that, as the one represents a stable conviction about the nature
of the universe and the other a permanent transformation of
character, the state becomes not merely an adventitious one like
art experience, depending upon an outer stimulus, but a natural
and necessary expression of an inner attitude of the soul.
We may summarise what has been set forth, so far, as follows:
The experience of art, like that of the ideal condition, is an ultimate
value, in the sense that it is sought for its own sake and not as a
means to anything else. Like the ideal condition again, art experi-
ence is characterised by a unique kind of delight; and in this,
it is superior to common experience. But as it does not last very
long, it may, when it passes off in consequence of the art stimulus
being withdrawn, be succeeded by routine life with all its strifes
and perplexities. In the case of the ideal experience, on the
other hand, no such lapse is conceivable for it arises once for all
and is permanent. Again, art experience does not require as a
necessary condition of its attainment either philosophic knowledge
or moral worth. It can be brought into being, even in their
absence, by the power which all true works of art possess. That
aesthetic contemplation can lead to the same kind of exalted ex-
perience as that of the ideal state, without all the arduous discipline
—moral as well as intellectual—required for the latter, may appear
28 ART EXPERIENCE
to be an excellence of it. In a sense, no doubt, it is; and an old
Indian art critic has declared, with exultation, that the bliss of
moksa, which the yogin has to strain himself for long to win, is no
match for it. But we should remember that art experience is
woefully fugitive, and that the enduring character of the satisfac-
tion that attends the ideal experience more than compensates for
all the trouble and the exertion involved in attaining it.
It is, of course, possible to deny that there is any such enduring
experience at all. An ideal like moksa, it may be said, is nothing
more than a glorified idea—"the type of the perfect" in our
mind which can never be actualised; it is because such experience
is altogether beyond the reach of man that he has invented art as
a means to escape from the cares and the responsibilities of ordinary
life. This view assumes that the real neither is nor can ever
become perfect, and that the ideal is always bound to remain
unreal. It thus postulates a complete lack of harmony between
the world of facts and the world of ideals. That is pessimism,
pure and simple. It looks upon life as "a vale of tears", and
regards art as nothing more than a hobby or a pastime to which
man may turn for relief from the troubles of life. It may be
that this doctrine of despair cannot be logically refuted. Yet
the best thought all over the world is different. In any case,
this pessimism has never commended itself to Indian thinkers;
and many of them believe not only that it is possible to realise
this goal, but that it can be reached even within the limits of the
present life. According to them, art is much more than a means
to secure for man a temporary escape from the imperfections of
common life; it is an 'intimation' to him of the possibility of
rising permanently above those imperfections. The limitations of
the experience of art, to which we have alluded, do not affect the
conclusion that it is of the same order as that of the ideal state;
and we may well deduce from the fact of the one the feasibility of
the other. Further, art experience is well adapted to arouse our
interest in the ideal state by giving us a foretaste of it, and thus
to serve as a powerful incentive to the pursuit of that state.
By provisionally fulfilling the need felt by man for restful joy,
art experience may impel him to do his utmost to secure such
joy finally.
 ART EXPERIENCE—2
(Of the Indian theories of art the most important is the one
known as the Rasa theory! References to it are found in very
early Sanskrit works, but it was not formulated and clearly ex-
pounded until the 9th century A.D.1 In various directions,
it marks an advance on the earlier theories and has virtually
superseded them, fin one respect, viz., its conception of the aim
of art, it is quite unique. The purpose of the present article is
to explain the nature of this conception, and briefly to indicate
wherein its uniqueness lies. /Though the theory applies equally
to all the fine arts, it has been particularly well-developed in
relation to poetry and the drama;and we shall therefore consider
it here mainly from that standpoint. But before we proceed to
do so, it is desirable, for the sake of contrast, to make a reference
to the general Indian view of poetry so far as it bears on the topic
we are to consider.
I
\There are two points of view from which the aim of poetry
may be considered—one, of the poet, and the other, of the reader
of poetry.2 But for us, in explaining the distinctive feature of
the view taken of it in the Rasa school, it is the latter that is
more importan^J Let us therefore begin by asking the question:
What is the use of poetry to its reader? (The answer)that is
almost universally given to this question by Indian writers Qs
pleasure) (priti)3 It may have other uses also for him. For
example, it may have some lesson or cirticism of life to convey
to him; but they are all more or less remote, unlike pleasure
which is its immediate use4 or value for him. But pleasure
1
This formulation is found in the Dhvanyaloka of Anandavardhana. It
was authoritatively commented upon in the 10th century A.D. by Abhinava-
gupta. We shall hereafter refer to this work as DA., and our references will be
to the first edition of it printed at Bombay in 1891.
2
It is not meant by this that the two view-points necessarily differ in
eyery3 respect.
See e.g., Vamana's Kavyalamkara-sutra, I. i. 5.
4
Cf. the term sadyah (' instantly') used in describing the aim of poetry
in Kavya-prakasa, (Bombay Sanskrit Series), p. 8: sadyatt paranirvrti. This
work will be referred to as KP., hereafter.
 30 ART EXPERIENCE
here is not to be taken in the abstract; rather, to judge from the
explanation given of its nature in Indian works, fit stands for a
state of the self or a mode of experience of which it is a constant
and conspicuous feature. Hence pleasure, by itself, does not
constitute the whole of what is experienced at the time of poetic
appreciation, but is only an aspect of it. The immediate value
of poetry for the reader then is the attainment of this enjoyable
experience and not mere pleasure. That is its primary use, and
any other use it may have for him is a further good which poetry
brings.)
But pleasure, even when thus understood, is* an end that is
associated with many kinds of activities such, for example, as
eating or bathing which none would place on the same level
as poetry. It is therefore necessary to distinguish between the
two. The distinction depends chiefly on the fact that, though
art may eventually be based upon Nature, we are, in appreciating
the objects it depicts, concerned more with their appearance than
with their actual existence. In art, as it has been stated, "we
value the semblance above the reality". So the artist selects
only those among the features of the object to be depicted that
are necessary for making his representation appear like it, and
omits all the rest. A painter, for example, does not actually
show us the thickness or depth of the things he paints, but yet
succeeds in giving us an idea of their solidity. Art objects have
consequently no place in the everyday world of space and time;
and, owing to this lack of spatio-temporal position or physical
status, the question of reality does not apply to them. This
does not mean that they are unreal; it only means that the distinc-
tion of existence and non-existence does not arise at all in their
case.1
But we should not think that these objects may therefore be
of no interest to the reader. They have their own attraction for
him, because a certain element of novelty enters into their re-
presentation. We have stated that the artist selects those features
of the object he deals with which will make it retain its resem-
blance to the real. But that is notjhe whole truth, for he has also
recourse often to fresh invention. \Thus an Indian poet, in referring
to the appearance of the earth on a moonlit night, represents it as
1
Cf. KP.. pp. 102-3, where this point is illustrated by the example of a
" painted horse " (citra-turaga).
 ART EXPERIENCE—2 31
"carved out of ivory" Almost all the writers on poetics lay down
that pratibhdna, which may be rendered in English as "creative
fancy", is an indispensable condition of genuine poetry. It is
"the seed of poetry" (kavitva-bija) according to thenj But
the Sanskrit word further connotes that the object so fancied
is experienced as if it is being actually perceived—"like a globular
fruit", it is said, "placed on the palm of one's own hand". But
such invention does not mean the introduction of new features
for their own sake. They are not merely pleasant fictions. When
a poet, for instance, pictures fairies as dwelling in flowers or a
cloud as carrying a message of love, he does so in strict conformity
to the total imaginative vision which has inspired him to the
creation of the particular work of art. The art object is thus
much more than an appearance of the actual. It involves a good
deal of mental construction and far surpasses in quality its counter-
part in Nature.1 (in other words, the poet idealises the objects in
depicting them; and it is in this process that they are raised to
the level of art and acquire aesthetic significance and, though
not real, come to be of interest to the reader.
(As a result) of their idealised character, art objects lose their
appeal to the egoistic or practical self and appear the same to all.
That is, fart appreciation is indifferent not only to the distinction
between the real and the unreal, but also to that between desire
and aversion. They become impersonal in their appeal, and there-
fore enjoyable in and for themselves.2 It is the complete detach-
ment with which, in consequence, we view them, that makes
our attitude then one of pure contemplation. But we must be
careful to remember that by describing this attitude as contemplat-
ive, we do not mean that it is passive and excludes all activity.
The very fact that it is an appreciative attitude implies that it is-
active. The belief that it is passive is the result of mistaking the
disinterested for what is totally lacking in interest. But, as we
have seen, the art object has its own interest to the spectator;
1
The following anecdote narrated about a famous painter of modern
times brings out this feature very well. When the artist had painted a sunset,
somebody said to him, " I never saw a sunset like that"; and he replied,
"Don't you wish you could ? "
* Cf. KP.t p. 107. This does not, however, mean that the response to
them will be the same in the case of all. It will certainly vary, but only
according to the aesthetic sensibilities of particular individuals and not
according to their other personal peculiarities.
 32 ART EXPERIENCE
and, so long as his mind is under the selective control of interest, it can
by no means be regarded as passive. All that is meant by saying
that the art object makes no appeal to the practical self is that our
attention then is confined wholly to that object, and that it is not
diverted therefrom by any thought of an ulterior use to which
it may be put.
This transcendence of the egoistic self in the contemplation of
art profoundly alters the nature of the pleasure derived from it.
Being altogether divorced from reference to personal interests,
one's own or that of others', art experience is free from all the
limitations of common pleasure, due to the prejudices of everyday
life such as narrow attachment and envy, fin a word, the con-
templation being disinterested, the pleasure which it yields will
be absolutely pure. That is the significance of its description by
Indian writers as "higher pleasure" (para-nirvrti) And art
will yield such pleasure, it should be observed, not only when
its subject-matter is pleasant, but even when it is not, as in a
tragedy with its representation of unusual suffering and irremediable
disaster. The facts poetised may, as parts of the actual world,
be the source of pain as well as pleasure; but, when they are
contemplated in their idealised form, they should necessarily
give rise only to the latter. It is for this reason that pleasure is
represented in Indian works as the sole aim of all art.2 It means
that the spectator, in appreciating art, rises above the duality of
pain and pleasure as commonly known, and experiences pure joy.
Here we see the differentia of poetic pleasure or, more generally,
aesthetic delight.
II
iThe Rasa school agrees with the above conception of the poetic
aim, but it distinguishes between two forms of it; and, since the
distinction depends upon the view which the school takes of the
theme of poetry we have first to indicate the nature of that view.
The theme of poetry, according to the general Indian theory,
1
See Note 4 above on p. 29. Cf. the explanation of priti as alaukika-
camatkara in DA., p. 203 (com.). In view of this higher character, it would be
better to substitute for it a word like "joy " or " delight". But for the sake of
uniformity, we shall generally use the word " pleasure " itself.
2
KP., i. 1 (p. 2): (hladaikamayi). Since no pleasure, as commonly
known, answers to this description, it is not a hedonistic view of art, in the
accepted sense, that we have here.
 ART EXPERIENCE—2 33
may be anything. One of the oldest writers on poetics in Sanskrit
remarks that there is nothing in the realm of being or in that of
thought which does not serve the poet's purpose.1 Nor is any
distinction made there between one topic and another as regards
fitness for poetic treatment. One subject is as good as another,
and there is none on which a fine poem might not be written.
The Rasa school also admits the suitability of all themes for poetic
treatment, but it divides them into two classes—one comprising
those that are dominated by some emotion, particularly an elemental
one like love or pathos, and the other all the remaining ones;
and it holds that, for the purpose of poetic treatment, the first
is superior to the second.! I The exact significance of this
bifurcation of themes will Become clear as we proceed. For
the present, it will suffice to say that there are two types or orders
of poetry, according to this school, one dealing with "emotional
situations" in life, as we may describe them, and the other,8
dealing with the other situations in life or with objects of external
nature; and that the latter is reckoned as relatively inferior poetry.
It is in justifying this discrimination that the Rasa school makes
the differentiation in the purpose of poetry to which we have
just referred.) But before attempting to explain it, it is desirable
to draw attention to one or two important points concerning
emotional situations regarded as the theme of poetry.
(A poem of the higher type, we have stated, depicts a situation
which is predominantly emotional. This emphasis on the emot-
ional character of the theme may lead one to suppose that the
type resembles lyrical poetry, as distinguished (say) from the epic
and the drama. The expression "lyrical poetry" does not seem
to have any very definite significance. But if, as implied by
common usage, it stands for a particular class of poetry and signifies
the expression by the poet of his own feelings,4 we must say that,
on neither of these considerations, is the above supposition correct:
/In the first place, emotional situations may here be the chief
theme of any kind of poetry. In fact, their importance is discussed
in the works of the school, particularly with reference to the drama '
1
Bhimaha's Kavyalamkara, v. 4. 2 DA., p. 28; pp. 20-7 (com.).
* This class is further divided in a twofold way, but the division is not
of importance for us here.
4
Cf. " Lyric poetry is the expression by the poet of his own feelings ":
Ruskin.
34 ART EXPERIENCE
and the adoption of such a method is fully supported by the
facts of India's literary history. Thus it is a situation of love
that is dramatised by Kalidasa in his famous play the Sakuntala*
and, in the case of the equally famous play of Bhavabhuti,.
the Uttara-rdma-carita which treats of the desertion of Sita
by her royal husband, it is one of deep pathos. It is not
merely dramas that may choose such topics for treatment; even
extensive epics are not precluded from doing so. Thus the
emotional element serves here as the basis for contrasting different
grades, rather than different forms of poetry. We may adopt
any classification of it we like. Every one of the resulting classes,
according to the present view, will comprise two grades of poetry
—one the higher, in which the theme is predominantly emotional,,
and the other the lower, in which it is not so.
^In the next place, the poet's own feeling, according to the
Rasa view, is never the theme of poetry) This point is usually
explained by reference to the episode narrated in the beginning
of the Ramayana about the birth of Sanskrit classical poetry.
The details of the episode are attractive enough to bear repetition,
and they are briefly as follows: On a certain day, in a beautiful
forest bordering on his hermitage, Valmiki, the future author of
the epic, it is said, chanced to witness a fowler killing one of a
pair of lovely birds that were disporting themselves on the branch
of a tree. The evil-minded fowler had singled out the male bird,,
and had brought it down at one stroke. Seeing it lie dead on the
ground, all bathed in blood, its companion began to wail in plaintive
tones. The soft-hearted sage was moved intensely by the sight;
and he burst into song which was full of pathos and which, according
to tradition, became the prelude to the composition of the first
great epic in Sanskrit.
This poetic utterance is apt to be viewed as the expression
of the sage's sorrow at the sight he witnessed; but writers of the
Rasa school point out that it cannot really be so,1 for the utterance
of personal feeling would be quite different. It is hardly natural,
they say, for one that is tormented by grief to play the poet.2
The sage is not preoccupied with his own immediate reaction
1
Na tu munch soka iti mantavyam: DA.t pp. 27-8 (com.).
1
[In another paper called "The Idea of Rasa" which was not published
and which seems to be an earlier and shorter version of the present one, Prof.
Hiriyanna has, at this place, the following footnote:—"This should not
 ART EXPERIENCE—2 35
to what he saw, but with something else, viz.y the objective scene
itself. He is less concerned with his own feelings than with what
has stirred them, and the song gives expression to the poignancy
of the latter. But, as in the case of other poetic themes, it is not
the emotional situation as it actually was (laukika) that is
represented in it. That would by no means constitute art. It
is the situation as it is in the poet's vision,1 or as it has been trans-
figured by his sensitive nature and imaginative power (alaukika).
In other words, the situation is idealised. Absorption in such a
situation, for the reason already set forth, means transcending
the tensions of ordinary life, and thereby attaining a unique
form of experience. It is when the poet is fully under the spell
of such experience that he spontaneously expresses2 himself
in the form of poetry.
Ill
(To explain now the nature of the differentiation which the
Rasa school makes in the aim of poetry: We have stated that
poems may be of two kinds—one with an emotional theme and
the other in which the theme is different, like (say) natural
scenery:
(i) In the latter, there are the words of the poem; and the
thoughts and images which they convey8 form its essential content.
It is the disinterested contemplation of them that gives rise to
the joy of poetry. This contemplation, as a mental state, involves
a subjective as well as an objective factor; and it is the total
absorption in the objective factor, forgetting the subjective,
that constitutes poetic experience here.
be taken to mean the elimination of all lyric poetry which, as ordinarily
understood, gives expression to the poet's own feeling. It may well do so;
only we have to look upon that feeling also as treated objectively by him in it.
Cf. Wordsworth's saying,' Poetry springs from emotion recollected* (and, we
should add, 'sublimated') * in tranquillity.' "—Ed.]
1
Indian writers describe this as ' in the poem' (kavya-gata) to distin-
guish it from the fact poetised, which is outside it. See DA., p. 56 (com.).
* Yavat purno na caitena tavan naiva vamaty amum: DA., p. 27 (com.).
8
It is not meant that words in a poem always or necessarily form only
the medium of conveying thoughts or images. They may, and often do
contribute directly to the beauty of the poem. We are overlooking that point
since our purpose here is to bring out the distinction in aim in the case of the
two types of poetry we are considering, and not to explain the nature of cither
completely.
 36 ART EXPERIENCE
(2) But the case is altogether different in the other type of
poetry. For the central feature of the situation to be portrayed
in it is an emotion; and no emotion is, in its essence, directly
describable. The poet cannot therefore communicate it, as he
can a thought or image.1 He can only suggest it2 to the reader,
who has already had personal experience of it (for it cannot be
made known to any other), by delineating its causes and conse-
quences or, in other words, the objects that prompt it and the
reactions which they provoke. That is, the emotional aspect of
the situation can be indicated only in an indirect or mediate
sense, the media being the thoughts and images, as conveyed by
the poet's words, of the objective constituents of that situation.
Thus what, by themselves, form the content in the other type
of poetry here become the means to its suggestion. They accord-
ingly occupy a place here similar to the one occupied by words
there;8 and the final aesthetic fact in this type of poetry thereby
comes to be, not thoughts and images as in the other, but the
emotional mood which they help to induce in the reader. Now,
as an emotion is a phase of our own being and not a presentation,
this mood cannot be contemplated, but can only be lived through;*
and it is this inner process of experiencing that is the ultimate
meaning or aim in this type of poetry.^ There is a presentational
element involved in this case also, as certainly as there is in the
other, and it has, of course, its own poetic quality or beauty,
1
The use of words like " love " and " anger " may convey to a person,
who knows their meaning, an idea of the corresponding emotion; but it will
be only an idea of them, while what is meant here is a felt emotion. See DA.,
pp. 24-6.
2
To use technical terms, it will necessarily be vyangya. Thoughts and
images also may be suggested; but they are, at the same time expressible and
therefore vacya also.
8
See DA, pp. 31-2, lc,0-l.
4
The same may appear to hold good of the other phases of mind also,
but it does not. To consider the case of " thought", the only one of them
that has a bearing on our subject (see next Note): According to the Indian
conception, the term " thought" (jnana) means " what reveals " (prakdiaka);
and thought, in this sense, is always intimately connected with "what is
revealed " by it (prakasya), viz., the object. Hence the process of thinking,
apart from reference to some presentation, is meaningless. When it has
meaning, i.e., "when it is considered along with the presentational element",
it becomes expressible and can also be contemplated. Cf. Arthenaiva viseso his
mirakarataya dhiyam.
 ART EXPERIENCE—2 37
if we like to put it so; but reduced, as it becomes here, to merely
a condition of suggesting the emotion, it slides into the margin
in our consciousness, instead of occupying the focus as it does!

bus the experience for which poetic appreciation stands

here is vastly different from that for which it does in the other
type of poetry. It also connotes detached joy; but, while the
other experience takes the form of contemplating the poetic
object, this one takes the form entirely of an inward realization.
The distinction will become clear, if we consider one or two
examples. Let us contrast the example, already cited, of imagining
the moonlit earth as 'carved out of ivory', with the appreciation
of Kalidasa's Cloud Messenger, which depicts the forlorn state of a
lover exiled from his home. In the former, there is plainly an
external object in the focus of our attention; but in the latter,
though it abounds in exquisite pictures of external nature, we
have finally to look within in order to appreciate properly its
ultimate meaning, viz., the deep anguish of forced separation
from the beloved. To take another pair of illustrations, let us
compare Milton's description, in the Nativity Hymn, of the rising
sun as "in bed curtained with cloudy red" and as pillowing "his
chin upon an orient wave", and Tennyson's well-known lyric,
Break, break, break, with its poignant lament for lost love,
heightened by a knowledge of the indifference of the world, as
a whole, to the suffering of the individual. In the former, the
reader is engrossed in an object outside himself; but, in the latter,
he has to retreat, as it were, into his inner self to realize its final
emotional import. Both varieties of experience, as being aesthetic,
are marked by a temporary forgetting of the self. But while in
one case, the objective factor is integral to the ultimate poetic
experience; in the other, it is not so2, becauseithas, as we have seen,
only a marginal significance. {That is, the emotion is experienced
here virtually by itself, and the experience may accordingly be said
to transcend, in a sense, the subject-object relation, and therefore

1
Ordinarily an emotion, no doubt, is also directed upon some object;
but here, as aesthetic activity is not practical in its usual sense, this element
is lacking.
2
Cf. Rasadir artho hi sahaiva vacyenavabhasate: DA., p. 67. See also
pp. 182-7.
31 ART EXPERIENCE
to be of a higher order1 than the mere contemplation of the
Other kind of poetry. It is this higher experience, that is called

he word "Rasa" primarily means "taste" or "savour", such

as sweetness; and, by a metaphorical extension, it has been applied
to the type of experience referred to above. The point of the
metaphor is that, as in the case of a taste like sweetness, there is
no knowing of Rasa apart from directly experiencing it.2 This
experience, in addition to having its own affective tone or feeling
of pleasure which is common to all aesthetic appreciation, is, as we
know, predominantly emotional; and it is the latter feature, viz.,
the predominance of its emotional quality, that distinguishes it
from the experience derivable from the other type of poetry, dealing
with a subject like natural scenery. It naturally differs according
to the specific kind of emotion portrayed—love, pathos, fear,
wonder and the like; and, on the basis of this internal difference,
Rasa experience is ordinarily divided into eight or nine kinds.
But it is not necessary for our present purpose to enter into
these details. Besides, Rasa is, in its intrinsic nature, but one
according to the best authorities;8 and its so called varieties are
only different forms of it, due to a difference in their respective
psychological determinants. In its fundamental character, it
signifies a mood of emotional exaltation which, on the ground
of what has been stated so far, may be characterized as quite
unique.
It is necessary to dwell further on the nature of this experience,
if what is meant by Rasa is to be properly understood. We have
shown that when a poet treats of an emotional theme, he never
depicts his own feeling, but only that which distinguishes the
objective situation occasioning that feeling. This should not
be taken to mean that it is the awareness (to revert to our earlier
illustration) of the bird's sorrow at the loss of its mate, even in
its idealised form, which constitutes Rasa experience;WAS already
1
It will be noticed that, in thus ascribing a superior status to Rasa
experience, the value of neither the subjective nor the objective factor is denied,
since the need for it of personal experience (remotely) and of appropriate
objective accompaniments (externally) is fully recognized.
2
Cf. asvadyamanata-pranataya bhantii DA., p. 24 (com,).
3
Cf. Abhinava-bharati, I. pp. 273-4 and 293.
4
DA., pp. 56-7 (com.).
 ART EXPERIENCE—2 39
implied, it consists in an ideal revival (udbodhana) in the reader's
mind of a like emotion which, being elemental by hypothesis,
may be expected to lie latent in all. Being a revival, it necessa-
rily goes back to his past experience; but it is, at the same time,
very much more than a reminiscence. In particular, the emotional
situation, owing to the profound transformation which it undergoes
in the process of poetic treatment, will throw a new light on that
experience, and reveal its deeper significance for life as, for instance,
in the case of love, in Kalidasa's Sakuntala, which appears
first as the manifestation of a natural impulse but is transformed
before the play concludes into what has been described as "a
spiritual welding of hearts." To realize such significance fully,
the reader's own efforts become necessary in the way of
imaginatively re-producing in his mind the whole situation as it has
been depicted by the poet. Rasa experience is thus the outcome
more of reconstruction than of remembrance. The whole theory is
based on the recognition of an affinity of nature between the poet
and the reader of poetry; and, on the basis of this affinity, it is
explained that appreciation of poetry is essentially the same as
the creation of it1) The need for presupposing past experience
arises from the peculiar nature of emotion, to which we have
already drawn attention, viz.y its essential privacy owing to which
it remains opaque, as it were, to all those who have not personally
felt it. But past experience serves merely as the centre round
which the reconstruction takes place; and, in this reconstructed
form^ it is anything but personal.1
[Tlie point to be specially noticed here is that emotions are
not communicated by the poet to the reader, as it is often assumed.8
In fact, they cannot be communicated according to the present
theory. All that the poet can do is to awaken in him an emotion
similar to the one he is depicting.^ Even this awakening, it
should be noted, is not the result ot any conscious purpose on
the part of the poet. The spontaneous character of all poetic
utterance precludes such a supposition. The poet is intent, not
upon influencing the reader in this or that way, but upon giving
expression, as best he can, to his unique experience. It is this
1
Nayakasya kaveh srotuh samanonubhavah. DA., p. 20 (com.). Cf.
" To listen to a harmony is to commune with its composer ".
2
Tat-kala-vigalita-parimita-pramatr-bhdva: KP., p. 108.
* Cf. What has been described as the " infection theory " of Tolstoy.
40 ART EXPERIENCE
expression, that is primary, and the kindling up or waking to life
of the emotion in the mind of the reader is more in the nature
of its consequence than the result of any set purpose behind it.
The reader starts from the poet's expression; and, if he is com-
petent, that is, if he is sufficiently sensitive and sympathetic, he
succeeds in capturing for himself the experience which it embodies.
The process whereby such ideal awakening takes place is des-
cribed 1(Briefly, the mind of the responsive reader first becomes
attuned to the emotional situation portrayed (hrdaya-samvdda),
through one or more of the knowing touches which every good
poem is sure to contain; is then absorbed in its portrayal (tanwayi-
bhavana); and this absorption, in the deeper sense already explained,
results in the aesthetic rapture of Rasa (rasdnubhava).
If this type of poetry were identical with lyrical and with
short poems, we might have a relatively simple emotion as its
characteristic feature. But when its scope is widened as here,
the emotions involved may be very complex, indeed. In an epic,
for example, practically all the familiar emotions are likely to appear
at one stage or another; and, if they are not well co-ordinated,
the aesthetic value of the poem will suffer. Hence the exponents
of the Rasa view lay down that the treatment of the theme by the
poet should be such as to secure the unity of the different emotions
suggested—a unity which, they insist, is as important a canon
of poetic composition here, as the unity of action is admitted to
be in the case of all poetry.2) Only a single emotion should
be represented in a poem as dominant on the whole; and its
progressive development from the moment of its emergence to
its natural culmination should be methodically delineated. Its
many and varied manifestations should be properly related to it,
so that its portrayal may become internally coherent. Where other
emotions, not altogether incompatible with it, enter the situation,
they should all be synthetically related to it. Everything else
also, like the construction of the plot, the interludes, characterisa-
tion and the poetic imagery in which the artist clothes his ideas
should be oriented towards the ruling emotion. Even the diction
and the other refinements of style must be appropriate to its
nature, pi one word, fitness (aucitya) of everything that has any

* See e.g., DA., pp. 11, 15, 24 and 27 (com.).

» DA.9 pp. 170-1.
 ART EXPERIENCE—2 41
1
bearing on it is the life-breath of Rasa This topic occupies
considerable space in the works of the school; but, in view of its
uniform recognition of the spontaneity of all poetic utterance,
the rules formulated in this connection are to be looked upon more
as aids in appraising the worth of a poem of this type than as
restraints placed upon the freedom of the poet.
But the intrinsic worth of a poem is not all that is needed *
for its true appreciation. The reader also should be properly
equipped for it. No doubt, the emotion depicted in this type
of poetry is elemental, and therefore familiar to all. But that
only signifies the universality of its appeal. It means that nobody
is excluded from appreciating it, merely by virtue of its theme.
The reader, in addition to possessing a general artistic aptitude
which is required for the appreciation of all poetry, should be
specially qualified, if he is to appraise and enjoy a poem of the
present type.2 These qualifications are compendiously indicated
by saying that he should be a sa~hrdaya? a word which cannot
easily be rendered in English. It literally means "one of similar
heart", and may be taken to signify a person whose insight
into the nature of poetry is, in point of depth, next only to
that of the poet. In the absence of adequate equipment, he may
lose sight of the Rasa aspect and get absorbed in the objective
details portrayed by the poet which also, as we said, have a poetic
quality of their own. We would then be preferring the externals
of true poetry to its essence; or, as Indian critics put it, he would
mistake the "body" (sarira) of poetry for its "soul" (atman)4
To cite a parallel from another of the fine arts, he will be like a
person who, in looking on a statue of Buddha in meditative
posture, remains satisfied with admiring the beauty, naturalness
and proportion of its outward features, but fails to realize the
ideal of serenity and calm depicted there, which constitutes its
ultimate meaning. It is on this basis, viz., that it is not merely
the intrinsic excellence of a poem that is required for attaining
Rasa experience but also a special capacity for it in the reader,
that the present school explains how, though great poets like
Kalidasa have tacitly endorsed the Rasa view by the place of
supremacy they have given to emotion in their best works. it
took so long for theorists to discover that they had done so.
* DA., p. 145. » DA., pp. 18-9 (com.).
1
DA., p. 11 (com.). * DA., p. 13 (com.).
42 ART EXPERIENCE
Such, in brief outline, is the Rasa view advocated by what
is known as the 'later" (navina) school of art critics in India,
as distinguished from the "earlier" (pracina). We have already
drawn attention to one or two important points in the Rasa theory,
in which it differs from the generality of aesthetic views. For
example, it rejects the very common view that a poet may, and
often does, give expression to his own feelings in poetry. Here
is another point which is far more important, viz., the discovery
that there is an order of poetry which requires a deeper form of
appreciation and yields a higher kind of aesthetic experience than
is ordinarily acknowledged; and in this discovery, we may say,
consists one of the chief contributions of India to the general
philosopy of an.
 INDIAN AESTHETICS—2
INTRODUCTORY

It is usual for every prominent philosopher in the West to

regard the question of beauty as a part of the problem he is
attempting to solve. Hence aesthetics has come to be recognised
there as a regular part of philosophy. The intrinsic relation
implied in this between aesthetics and philosophy is not denied in
India; but the former of these studies is carried on by a distinct
class of thinkers—alamkarikas, as they are called or literary critics
—who are not, generally speaking, professional philosophers.
This separation of aesthetic problems, in the matter of investiga-
tion, from those of general philosophy may at first sight appear
not only strange but also defective; a little reflection, however,
will show that it is not really so. Before explaining this point,
however, it is necessary to state that when we say that Indian
philosophers have not troubled themselves with questions of beauty,
what is meant is only that they do not deal with beauty in art and
not also beauty in nature. The latter is certainly included; but,
while it is explicit in some systems, it is only implicit in others.
The exact view which they hold in this respect will become clear
as we proceed. As regards their neglect of beauty in art, the
reason is that its pursuit cannot, according to them, directly minister
to the attainment of the final goal of life, which is the prime concern
of Indian philosophers. Perhaps some among them thought that
its pursuit might even tend to lead man away from that goal, in
which case their attitude towards art would be like that of Plato
towards the same.
So far from being a defect, the separation of aesthetics in this
sense from general philosophy has many positive advantages. It
has thereby been able to get rid of the constraint which particular
types of metaphysical thought may impose upon it. When a
philosopher holds a particular view of reality, he is bound to
square his theory of art, if he formulates one, with it; and the
consequence is that we have as many theories of art in the West
as there are theories of reality. This cannot be helped in the case
of beauty in nature, but there is no reason for acquiescing in such
diversity of views in a theory of art. That is the view of Indian
44 ART EXPERIENCE
aestheticians. Thus the postulation by Indian aestheticians of
what is called vyangydrtha, which is not only not recognised by any
school of philosophy but is definitely opposed, shows the freedom
with which aesthetic investigation has been carried on in India.2
They have succeeded in this in evolving a theory of meaning
which, as we shall try to point out, certainly sheds new light on the
nature of art. Where it is not necessary to devise such a new
theory, Indian aestheticians select one or other of the views held
by the philosophic schools according to the needs of the case. Such
eclecticism results in a more detached view (from the aesthetic
standpoint) than would be the case if a particular philosophic
point of view were adopted in its entirety. This does not, however,
mean that there is a dull uniformity in the Indian theory of art.
There is as much diversity in it as in any Western treatment of the
subject; but the important point is that the diversity is based upon
purely artistic considerations and is therefore more genuine.
There is another reason to support the Indian practice. Reality,
as represented in art, as is generally admitted, is a unity in diversity,
so that there is no room for any divergence of opinion in regard to
it, so far as art is concerned. The aim of art is not to discover the
nature of reality but to secure for us the highest experience of life.
It does not pronounce any final opinion on the tenability or other-
wise of the view of reality it thus uses. In other word$, aesthetics,
unlike ethics for instance, is alogical. While it is closely connected
with psychology it regards logic, or more properly epistemology,
as irrelevant to its purpose. Art is a short cut to the ultimate value
of life, by-passing logic. Even supposing it is not admitted that
reality, as represented in art, is necessarily a unity in diversity, the
view of reality that may be accepted in its stead does not matter,
for it is to serve but as the medium through which the value is
realised, art being concerned less with facts than with values.

i. NATURE AND ART

We have distinguished nature from art. The question will
naturally arise here whether there is any need for seeking beauty in
art, if it is found in nature. As G. E. Moore has stated in his
Principia Ethica, when other things are the same, beauty which is
1
See Jayaratha'a commentary on Ruyyaka'e Alamkdrasarvasva, p. 10,
(Nir. S. Pr.)
 INDIAN AESTHETICS—2 45
found in actual objects is decidedly better than that in imaginary
ones. It is therefore necessary to point out why art is necessary,
though in certain respects the beauty which it presents may be
inferior to that in nature. As regards the latter, two views are
possible.
(i) We may hold, with the idealists, that nature as a whole is
beautiful, but that when it is looked at in parts, it may or may not
be so. That is, though nature may, in reality, be beautiful, there
may appear ugliness in it when we take a partial view of it as,
ordinarily speaking, we are bound to do. This means that,
though in the case of those few who can take a synoptic view of
nature, art may be superfluous, it is not so in the case of the many.
As an old Vedantic stanza has it, it is only "when man has overcome
selfishness and realised the highest truth, he will be in rapt ecstasy
wherever he may turn", for he sees the glory of Being everywhere.
Till then therefore he can have an experience of complete beauty
only in art. Further, even as regards the parts that appear beauti-
ful in nature, there is no certainty that they will continue to be so
for long. For there may come to be a change in our attitude
towards them, when their appeal will become non-aesthetic. Or
the situations in nature may themselves so change in course of
time that they will cease to appear beautiful. Hence it is that we
require the creations of art which are not subject to these defects—
a change in the presentations of nature or in our attitude towards
them. This is the need for art according to the idealistic view of
nature.
(ii) The second view of nature is that though it may be beauti-
ful, that feature is inevitably associated with ugliness and that the
latter element cannot be eliminated from it without, at the same
time, eliminating the former also. According to this pessimistic
view, art becomes even more necessary. In fact, it is the sole
means, in this view, of satisfying the quest for unmixed joy which
somehow actuates all men or, to state the same otherwise, the need
for escaping from the struggles and perplexities of everyday life.
Whatever the worth of these two metaphysical theories in
themselves may be, the point that is important for us now is that
there is a need for art in either case. To state this need in terms
applicable to both the views, it is the presence, on the one hand,
of evil in life and, on the other, of an ideal within us that has led
to the invention of art. Here we may observe, in passing, we have
46 ART EXPERIENCE
another instance of Indian aesthetics transcending the differences
that characterise the metaphysical schools. Art is a device for the
provisional attainment of the final ideal of life, whether or not we
look forward to a state which eventually renders it superfluous.1

2. ART EXPERIENCE
The aim of art is implicit in what we have said so far. It is to
secure for man a unique form of experience which, according to
one view, can never be attained in actual life and, according to the
other, can be attained only when self-perfection is achieved.
But either way, it is an ultimate value in the sense that it is sought
for its own sake and not as a means to anything else.1 The charac-
teristics of this art experience are two:
(1) The first is unselfishness. It is true that all or nearly all
men, in virtue of their social nature, show more or less of unselfish-
ness in their behaviour; but it may be the result of habit or of
prudential, and therefore eventually of selfish, considerations.
Such outward unselfishness is not what is meant here. Even
when it is spontaneous and therefore quite genuine, it is not com-
plete. The selflessness signified by art experience, on the other
hand, is not only spontaneous but also complete. Man grows so
unselfish then that he becomes virtually unconscious of his private
self. This is the meaning of saying that art experience consists
in the disinterested contemplation of beauty. The intrusion of
any personal aim is sure to vitiate it, and make the pursuit of art
unsuccessful.
(2) The second characteristic, which is probably a consequence
of the first, is that it yields a kind of joy which is pure and untainted
by even the least pain. This is a further indication of the trans-
cendental character of art experience; and it shows that the
aesthetic attitude stands higher than that of common or everyday
life which is invariably characterised by more or less of mental
tension.
1
There is an ultimate ideal according to the second view also; but it is
a state transcending joy as well as suffering. Positivistically speaking, this
means that man may cultivate detachment to such an extent that he will
ignore nature altogether. But there is nothing resembling aesthetic pleasure
then, unless we understand the aesthetic end itself in an uncommon way.
1
Self-realisation in Advaita is value-realisation, for the Self is the
ultimate value.
 INDIAN AESTHETICS 2 47
On account of these excellences, art experience is regarded as
identifiable with the ultimate goal of life as it is conceived by the
idealists. When we take the ideal of life, as it is conceived
by others, art experience affords the same escape from worldly
concerns as that ideal, when attained, does; but it also does more
for, while the latter does not represent a state of supreme joy, the
former does. According to both, it is one of the only two such
values recognised by Indians—atmananda and rasanubhava.
THE CONTENT OF ART
But what is the means whereby the artist is able to secure
for us such experience? All art is a blend of form and content;
and it is through certain excellences characterising either, that he
succeeds in inducing in us the artistic attitude. In the case of
poetry, for example, the content is constituted by the figurative ideas
and sentiments it expresses; and the form, by the musical language
through which they find expression. Of these, the form varies
much from one art to another; and it is also technical. We
shall not refer to it here at any length, and shall confine our
attention mainly to the content. We shall only observe, in
passing, that the legitimate function of form is to subserve the
content; and if it assumes greater importance, the work in
which it does so marks a lapse from the best type of art.
The content of art may be defined generally as the meaning
which it expresses. The excellences that may characterise it are
many, and they have been classified in various ways. But these
details, while they are undoubtedly helpful in indicating to us their
character in a concrete manner, can never be exhaustively enumer-
ated. As one Indian literary critic observes,1 they can only be
indicated generally. This general character of the content of
art is that it must be drawn from actual life, but that it should also
be judiciously idealised. The purpose of the idealisation is two-
fold: In the first place, it is that, having its source in the artist's
imagination, it may appeal to the same faculty in the spectator
and not to his intellect merely. In the second place, it is that the
particular things of common experience may thereby be trans-
formed into general ones, and thus readily induce a detached
attitude in the spectator which, as we have pointed out, is a salient
feature of all art experience. But it is necessary to add that the
1
Cf. Vagbhatalamkara, p. 77.
 48 ART EXPERIENCE
things represented in art will not become false or fictitious
through such idealisation. For a spectator to mistake them for
'.real objects, as we do in illusions, will be to lapse from the truly
aesthetic attitude, because he will then cease to remain detached.
But at the same time, they cannot be viewed as unreal or false
because then they will cease to interest him. Thus the things
depicted in art assume a unique character which the spectator can
describe as neither real nor unreal. In brief, we do not take a
logical view of them. We neither believe nor disbelieve in their
reality. We merely entertain them.1
This is the general view of the content of art which is prevalent
•everywhere. Indian aestheticians also held the same opinion
for a long time; but a profound change in this respect, the germs of
which seem to have been there all along, was introduced about
the 9th century A.D. The change was to look upon what had so far
been regarded as the content of art, viz., the meaning also as only
the outer vesture of art and to take emotion as its true content.2
When the meaning in general was regarded as the content, it might
be emotion or might not be; but now it is laid down that it should
be only emotion. We have stated that the appeal of art should
be to the imagination; and imagination always implies the presence
of emotion in some degree or other. But it is not this emotion that
we should think of now. It is the emotional character of the
situation depicted by the artist that constitutes the true content of
art, and the type of experience to which it gives rise in the spectator
is called rasa. A consequence of this change in the idea of the
content of art was to deny that the expressed meaning can have
any excellences of its own and to assert that, like the form, it also
has them only in relation to the emotion which it is intended to
subserve. The excellences of meaning may be the very best,
according to earlier standards; but yet they may produce the exact
opposite of artistic feeling in the spectator, if they are out of
harmony with the emotion depicted. This rightly introduces a
relativistic view into art criticism; and neither form nor meaning
was thenceforward regarded as beautiful in itself. The standards
by which they were judged remained more or less the same, but
?they ceased to be taken as absolute.
We may point out before concluding this topic that the earlier
view of art as consisting in the excellences characterising its form
1 2
Cf. " Poetic Truth". [Poetry was] brought nearer music thereby.
 INDIAN AESTHETICS—2 49
and meaning was not abandoned. That view also was retained;
but works answering to that description came to be assigned an
inferior status. It is designated citra, a term which, ia ail prob-
ability signifies that its merit lies more in skill which appeals to
our intellect rather than in affecting our life or soul.
THE METHOD OF ART
Now emotions cannot be directly communicated. We can,
of course, talk of (say) love or fear; but these words, when used by
themselves, merely convey the idea of the corresponding feeling
and do not communicate it to the listener. Such communication
' of it is possible only through a proper portrayal of select aspects
of its causes and consequences. That is, the artist is obliged, if he
is to succeed in what is his foremost aim, to adopt an indirect
method in dealing with his material. This method is called
dhvani] and secondarily, the work of art also, which is characterised
by it, is designated by the same term. It had always been recog-
nised as important for the artist, but only as one of those at his
disposal for conveying the appropriate sentiment to the spectator.
We may instance, as illustrating this point, alamkaras like paryd-
yokta and samdsokti, which are mentioned in the earliest alamkdra
works. The discovery that was made later was that it was the sole
method of the best type of art. This, we may add, was the
direct consequence of recognising rasa to be the aim/>#r excellence
of the artist. The method of art is thus as unique as its aim.
The method of dhvani has naturally been extended to other
spheres of art where direct communication is possible, viz.,
alamkaras; and has led to a preference being shown to them when
they are indirectly suggested, instead of being directly expressed.
Owing, however, to the intimate connection between imagination
on which alamkaras are chiefly based and emotion on which rasa
is, the difference between them is not always quite definite. The
one may easily pass into another. Hence the decision in any parti-
cular case, depends upon the view one takes of it; and it
accordingly becomes personal, illustrating the well-known saying
that tastes differ. Another extension of this theory of dhvani is to
those poetic representations, which can be regarded neither as rasa
nor as alamkara and are therefore indefinitely designated as vastu.
The innovation thus introduced by the dhvani canon here,
like that in the case of alamkaras, we may observe, is more in
4
56 ART EXPERIENCE
re-arranging conclusions that had already been reached than in
making any new additions. The above statements enable us to
divide the subject of first-rate art in a triple way. It may be
emotion, when the resulting experience is called rasa-dhvani,
it may be any other imaginative situation, in which case it
will be alamkdradhvani; or it may be a matter-of-fact representa-
tion, in which case it will be vastu-dhvani.
The discovery that the dhvani method is the secret of true art
furnishes another instance of what we described above as the
alogical character of art. The conclusions suggested by this method
vary according to the persons concerned and the contexts to which
they belong, although the premises given are the same. At best,
the mental process involved resembles analogical reasoning. Some
of the erroneous views current before the method of dhvani was
formulated or after are due to mistaking the method of art to be
logical. Thus Mahima Bhatta tried to make out that the process
involved in the so-called dhvani was nothing but inferential; and
others like Mukula Bhatta represented the secondary senses of
words as derived through the pramana known as arthapatti. Both
forgot that the dhvani lacks the element of necessity, which is.
essential to what is strictly a logical process.

3. ART AND MORALITY

We have referred to two views of reality in explaining the need
for art. Whichever of them we may adopt, the implication is the
presence of evil in life. According to one of these views, evil is
finally removable; according to the other also it is so, only its
removal involves the removal of good as well along with it. Over-
looking this distinction which is really irrelevant for art, we may ask
what the bearing of art is on the problem of evil, which it thus
implicitly postulates.1
(it may appear that art cannot be unconnected with morality,
since the experience which it yields is, as we have pointed out,
essentially disinterested; and disinterestedness is the very root of
all morality. It is therefore necessary to examine what precisely
the significance of this attitude is. To begin with, the ethical
attitude is more than one of mere detachment. It is essentially
active; but activity is, from the very nature of the case, wholly
1
It is the problem of evil that gives rise to art as well as to philosophy*
 INDIAN AESTHETICS—2 51
excluded from art experience. Or to state the same otherwise,
the ethical attitude is orientated towards some purpose, while the
artistic is quite the reverse, its sole purpose being the transcend-
ence of all purpose. It is an attitude of contemplation rather
than of achievement. Even as regards the unselfishness, which it
shares with the ethical attitude, there is a vital distinction. There
are two points to be noted in connection with it. In the first place,
the aesthetic attitude is induced by an external stimulus. When
once it has arisen, it may be quite genuine; but we cannot overlook
the fact that it is due to an external influence. Morality which
springs from fear of punishment or hope of reward is really no
morality at all. The unselfishness characterising the ethical
attitude, on the other hand, springs from inside and is quite spont-
aneous. It is only when it is the result of an inner urge that it
will be of an enduring influence on life. But this latter feature
is lacking in the case of the art attitude, which we chiefly owe to
the power that all true works of art possess. That such an exalted
attitude can be produced, without any arduous trouble on the part
of the spectator, is indeed an excellence of it; but it is unfortunately
fugitive. Sooner or later, it comes to an end for it cannot last
longer than the outside stimulus which has evoked it. Even such
short-lived experience may, through refining emotions, leave some
good influence behind; but the point to be noted is that there is no
guarantee that it will. In the second place, the disinterestedness
of the aesthetic attitude marks a reaction to an imaginary situation
and not to a real one. It results from the contemplation not of
actual but fictitious situations created by the artist. Fiction
facilitates detachment. The consequence of this again is un-
favourable to true morality, whose proper sphere is actual life.
Thus even though perfect selflessness may be a prominent mark
of art experience, its influence on the moral side of man may be
very little. When that experience ceases he may lapse into the
former state of tension and perplexity, which has its source in a
selfish outlook on life.
According to some, this is no defect at all; for art, they
maintain, has nothing to do with morality and is ethically
neutral. But if that is so, it ceases to be a human value; and its
recognition of evil as a fact of life becomes virtually meaningless.1
1
It would also then cease to appeal to the whole being of man which, as an
ultimate value, it is expected to do.
52 ART EXPERIENCE
There has been much controversy in this respect among art critics;
but if we take a comprehensive view of man's nature and his aims,
it seems that art cannot be altogether divorced from morality.1
Art is, no doubt, for its own sake. But, in the result, it should be
more by being a criticism of life's values. This explains, for
instance, the double standard of our judging a character appearing
in a work of art. To take the case of lago, as an example, we
not only speak of him as a perfect creation of Shakespeare but also
condemn him as wicked in the extreme. The practice of the
best artists is our support here. And the close alliance,
again, of art with religion in all countries and in all times appears
to be for saving art from possible degeneration by its separation
from morality.2 Art, correctly conceived, cannot be merely a
selfish escape from life; it must also influence life permanently or,
at least, tend to do so. But the view that art is not connected
with morality is not altogether baseless. The truth underlying
it is that art has nothing directly to do with morality. It should
influence character indirectly; and what is discountenanced is only
direct instruction in that regard, for it will militate against the
primary purpose of art which is to raise man above all strife and
secure a form of unique joyful experience.8
When even the primary aim of art is to be attained indirectly,
it is natural to ask: What is this indirect connection between art
and morality? It cannot be due to the method of art, for fables
and parables teach morality indirectly but are not art. It must
be through the characters which it introduces or, what comes to the
same thing, through the general significance of the plot, that art can
exercise moral influence on the spectators.4 The implied outlook
of these characters on life and the world should be moral. "That
is a true poem", says an old Indian authority, "which treats of the
doings of the good and the great". The best examples of this are
1
It would then amount to a selfish escape from the tedium of life—a
view as blameworthy as pure asceticism is in ethics. Both are at bottom
egoistic, being preoccupied with oneself and not caring in the least for society.
1
The association of art with religion, in all probability, is primarily to
make the latter attractive; but it has undoubtedly helped to prevent the
former from deteriorating.
8
In this sense, the following statement of Bhatta Nayaka is correct:
Kavye rasayita sarvo na boddha na niyoga-bhak. [Quoted in DA. (com.), p. 12.]
4
It is not what the characters say that counts; but what they are and what
they do.
 INDIAN AESTHETICS—2 53
to be found in the great epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabha-
rata whose indirect influence on Indian men and women has all
along been greater than that of any other single factor. In a work
of art where no such characters are found, say, a lyric poem, it is
the artist's outlook on what he portrays that counts. The conclus-
ion to be drawn from this is that art should not have a moral aim,
but must necessarily have a moral view, if it should fulfil its true
purpose.1 This is not to make art didactic, for morality does not
form either its content or its purpose according to this view.
In addition to this general moral view, there maybe some aspect
of the moral ideal dominating the conduct of the hero or of other
characters, and be thus intimately woven into the structure of the
plot.2 It will then become an organic part of the content of art.
A very good example of it is found in Bhavabhuti's drama, Uttara-
rama-carita. Here, as in any other great work of art, there is a
general moral view pervading the whole piece. It includes not a
single character which leads to any lapse from the high level that is
expected in a play of which Rama is the hero. But over and above
this, there is Rama's sense of public duty (as interpreted by him,
of course) and his determination that it should have priority over
all private obligations, which forms the very pivot on which the
whole of the story here dramatised turns.8 Unlike the general
moral view, this is in the foreground of the picture. But it must
be added that it, in no way, encroaches upon the artistic function
of the play which is to awaken in us the emotion of love—not as
the source of all life's joy, but as leading to pathos which so often
and so inexplicably comes in its wake. This emphasis on the
importance of public duty may be the main lesson of the story.
But the story is not the end in dramatic art; it is only a means
to the communication to the spectators of the rasa in question.
That is, the creations of art must leave a moral influence on
1
No artist will present characters like I ago as examples to be followed.
But this negative attitude towards them is not enough. He should do his
best to leave the impression on us that they are warnings.
1
This is the meaning of Indian critics saying that any of the purusarthas
may be the content of art. When either artha or kama forms the content, a
general moral view is expected to prevail; when dkarma becomes the content,
there is this additional emphasis on morality.
8
There is no hesitation whatever before the dictate of reason that a ruler
must put public good before private inclination and there is a majestic sadness
in the banishment of Slta as a consequence.
54 ART EXPERIENCE
the spectator without his knowing that he is being so influenced.
Though theoretically, the theme of art may be anything which
has a basis in life, this additional requirement makes it necessary
to restrict the scope of the artist's choice to the higher aspects of
life. Otherwise, art not only ceases to exert any moral influence;
it may turn out in the end to be a means of corrupting character
and degrading ideals.
 ART AND MORALITY
Both art and morality spring from a sense of deficiency in the
existing state of things. Morality represents an attempt to rectify
that deficiency by actually changing the state, while art affords an
escape from it by providing a world of ideal construction. If man
were a perfect being placed in the midst of a perfect environment—
social as well as natural—there would be little need for either art
or morality.
But it may be asked whether all conscious activity does not have
the same end, viz., the rectification of or escape from some
deficiency in a given situation. That is, no doubt, so; but there
is one important difference in the case of art and morality. They
signify an attitude of absolute disinterestedness. They imply that
one and the same end may be pursued in two ways—with selfish
inclination allowed to have its play or without it; and it is the
preference
* of the latter to the former that differentiates art and
morality from common activities. Uf we are working for an end,
the activity becomes moral when that end is sought to the complete
exclusion of selfish gain.) Similarly, if we are contemplating a
situation, the contemplation becomes aesthetic when we are so
much overpowered by it that we forget ourselves. Whether art
and morality signify anything more is a matter for us to consider
later. For the present, it will suffice to observe that they imply
not merely a consciousness of deficiency in a given situation but
also a dissatisfaction with the way in which attempts1 are usually
made to get over it. Man here asserts not only his character as a
self-conscious being, but also his other unique feature of being
spiritual, his spirituality consisting in this capacity to rise above
selfish motives. That is, art and morality involve a criticism of life
as it is commonly led; but the criticism is not such as leads to the
abandonment of life's activities. They only aim at purifying the
desires and impulses underlying those activities by purging them
of all taint of selfishness.
We shall now try to find out how far art and morality can
succeed in their aim of securing complete unselfishness. To take
up morality first. It is clear that a person does not earn the
1
Reactions not only to actual contexts in life but also against the routine
ways of reacting to thein.
56 ART EXPERIENCE
title to be described as unselfish, if he acts disinterestedly only
occasionally. We do not call a man charitable if, once in a while,
he gives a few coins to the poor. Charity must become a predomin-
ant, if not a constant, feature of his conduct towards the needy.
Similarly, here also a man should be disinterested in whatever
he does, if he is to be regarded as unselfish. Further, it must
become a fixed habit with him so that he acts unselfishly without
deliberation and almost instinctively. Ut must cease to be the
result of conscious effort, and become instead the expression of a
permanent attitude of mind.) Let us see whether the stimulus to
moral action is adequate to achieve this end. There is first of all
the spiritual instinct in man but for which such activity would be
altogether inexplicable. It would be impossible to make a non-
moral being moral, whatever be the nature of the means adopted
thereto. But this instinct does not, practically speaking, count
for much. What counts more is the force of example. The
example may be that of persons actually before us as in the case of our
parents and teachers, or of those like Rama and Buddha whose
memory is preserved for us in religious tradition or history. These
examples, indeed, go a long way and are sufficient to guide us
ordinarily. But new situations arise in life, or there will be a con-
flict of duties, where they may fail us. Here arises the necessity
for our exercising independent reflection which means that the
need for unselfish behaviour is prominently brought before our
mind. That is to say, however long one may practise unselfishness,
one will not wholly transcend the necessity for fresh reflection.
Such reflection may conceivably lead us astray; but even granting
that it does not, it will mean conscious effort. Qur own moral
intuition must help us on such occasions; but that, from what we
stated above regarding the spiritual instinct, may not. In other
words, if the highest form of moral activity is that in which un-
selfishness appears as purely incidental to the purpose which that
activity serves, that state is never attainable by common morality.
It can never transcend the stage of conscious strife and become the
outward expression of an inner attitude, and so long as it remains
thus, it cannot be said that the attitude of disinterestedness is fully
established. It may appear that we achieve such complete unself-
ishness in art, if not in morality, for it is recognised that aesthetic
experience by its very nature is completely impersonal. The end
which the moral agent seeks, it may therefore seem, is found
 ART AND MORALITY 57
accomplished in art. But this impersonal attitude is transient and
it disappears sooner or later.1 There is a lapse from it into
routine life—a reversion to the common mode of life, with its
varying degrees of selfishness according to the character of the
individual concerned. Moreover, even during the experience, the
impersonality achieved is in reference to a sphere which is not
actual but ideal, so that it is in a sense artificial. It is achieved in
an environment which is outside nature, as it were.
Art and morality, as commonly pursued, not only fail to achieve
their aim; they may also lead to the very opposite of it. Thus,,
in its anxiety to be unselfish, morality may adopt the ideal of
asceticism which at bottom is only a form of selfishness. The
ascetic may not, indeed, think of any advantage to himself, in the
common acceptation of that term, in pursuing it; but yet his atti-
tude amounts to one of selfishness in that he leaves the world to
itself and becomes preoccupied with himself alone. If it does sor
it becomes not moral life but its negation. Self-mortification
represents the right attitude to adopt towards oneself as little as
self-indulgence does. The Gita, for example, stigmatises self-
sacrifice which ends in tormenting the body as the worst of its kind
(xvii. 19). Asceticism is indeed necessary for all morality; and the
spirit of self-denial is the special characteristic of morality as
taught in most of the Indian schools. But it is positive asceticism
and not negative. We do not mean by this that negative asceticism
is necessarily indifferent to others' suffering, for even those that
follow it may be altruistic; but their altruism is external to their
asceticism, while the positive variety of it makes it an essential part
of it, the ascetic ideal there being reached in the very process of
carrying out altruistic activity. Likewise, art too has a tendency,
as it is commonly pursued, to degenerate into mere pleasure-
seeking—emphasising, as the hedonist does, the element
of joy in artistic experience to the neglect of that of impersonality*
It then becomes reduced to epicureanism and so far unsocial. If
morality becomes negative, art thus becomes self-centred. This
is probably the reason why so much of art, in actual practice, is
made to lean upon religion. But the nature of art is such that it
is not at all necessary for it to do so in order to avoid such degener-
ation. To transform art into a mode of true spiritual experience
1
It is possible to say that art means self-forgetful ness and not self-
realisation.
58 ART EXPERIENCE
through the subject-matter is to elevate it indirectly, while what is
wanted is to derive such experience from it directly. It can serve
that purpose by itself—by a direct idealisation of nature and life
and in isolation from any religious faith. Just as by becoming
purely ascetic, morality contradicts itself, art also by becoming
self-centred contradicts itself, since the artistic attitude, like the
moral, should be absolutely unselfish. Both the ascetic and the
epicure leave the world to itself in their concern for themselves.
The reason for straying away from the correct path, despite
the right instinct, is a lack of clarity in regard to the precise nature
of unselfishness. Now unselfishness does not mean the complete
repression of the self; it only means the conquest of the lower self
by the higher. It is the failure to realise the distinction between
them and its significance that accounts for the deflection of the
moral aim towards asceticism. We cannot enter here into an
explanation of the nature of these two selves. We shall only re-
mark that unselfishness is as much positive as negative; and that,
if asceticism is wrong it is because it overlooks the positive aspect
of it and becomes purely negative. It is a similar lack of clarity
about the true nature of the self that explains the vulgar view of art
that it is a mere means to pleasure. The self does not stand isolated,
but is through and through social. It is the failure to recognise
this fact that makes the pursuit of art unsocial and self-centred.
The urge to morality and to the contemplation of art is quite sound;
and it points, as such, to a true end. But that end, being implicit,
is only dimly felt and not clearly understood. Until it becomes
clarified, there remains the danger of art and morality missing
their true aim.
A knowledge of the distinction between the lower and the
higher selves is not, however, sufficient by itself to ensure complete
success either in art or morality. To take the latter first: It may
do, so far as what are called self-regarding virtues are concerned.
But morality means much more than these virtues. It signifies
in the main a reaction to an objective situation, which is essentially
social. Moral actions do not take place in the void. Since such
situations are necessarily relative, proper reaction to them requires
a knowledge of the whole of the social environment in which man
finds himself. That is, success in morality depends as much upon
a knowledge of the objective environment as a whole as upon a
knowledge of the true self. If it is the lack of clarity in regard to
 ART AND MORALITY 59
the latter that results in distorted views like asceticism, it is the
lack of clarity in respect of the former that explains why common
morality can never reach the goal. It regards each moral situation
more or less by itself—in any case, not in relation to the whole
which informs it; and the result is but a piecemeal or tentative
solution of the moral problem. It is, no doubt, true that what is
right reaction to a given situation is a matter for intuitive per-
ception and not reflection; but such intuitive perception is awaken-
ed and rendered vivid only by a knowledge of the whole reality.
It presupposes an understanding of the whole of which it is a phase.
We may, and do, often react rightly; but we are then in the region
of mere instinct or practical insight which may fail us at any time
and not in that of rational insight. Hence the need for complete
knowledge. Similarly, in the case of art also. If it is the
ignorance of the true character of the self that accounts for wrong
indulgence in art, it is inability to directly commune with
nature that requires an imaginative situation for losing oneself
in its contemplation. In both cases then, a clarification of the
ideal of unselfishness and a definite world-view are necessary.
They are possible only through right knowledge of the whole of
reality or, in any case, as in the Nyaya, of that part of it which
bears on the self and its environment. Such knowledge defines
the ideal towards which one ought to progress and also prevents
deflection from it. Here we see the need for art and morality
having a metaphysical foundation.
We shall now try to see how such knowledge, granting that it
has been properly assimilated, affects the pursuit of art and morality.
Moral action, as we have pointed out, is commonly determined by
the requirements of particular contexts in life. If, at times, a
wider view is taken, that is generally based on convention and is
mechanical. Hence moral conduct ordinarily oscillates between
conscious strife and unconscious convention. When the ultimate
nature of reality is properly known the particular situations become
illumined by it. Each situation, being seen in its proper per-
spective, acquires a new significance; and in reacting to it, the
attempt is made to realise the whole through it. As a consequence,
the reaction to it will be not only correct but also spontaneous.
This secures joy in moral action in the place of strife, which com-
monly characterises it. That is, moral activity becomes not only
unselfish but also spontaneously joyful as in the case of aesthetic
60 ART EXPERIENCE
experience. It is this influence of knowledge upon morality that
Socrates meant when he said "Virtue is knowledge". The Upanisads
also teach that that alone yields the best result which is done with
enlightenment. Now as regards the latter. Aesthetic experience
results from the contemplation of a fictitious situation. But it is a
situation which is regarded as self-complete. With enlightenment,
one sees the universe itself to be so, and can therefore derive the
same experience directly from nature or some one or other of its
numerous impressive aspects. Thus for the fictitious content of
art comes to be substituted the actual world, transforming art into
the mystical contemplation of nature. Whatever significance
art has, the knower sees it in life and the world as a whole. /Art
becomes the passive expression of a permanent attitude, as morality
is the active expression of the same. Further, the lapse from it
to which we referred will, as a result of enlightenment, be into the
right type of unselfish attitude, and not to routine life. The
artistic attitude is then replaced by a moral one. That is, the same
kind of attitude—joyful and impersonal—will continue after that
experience as during it. In fact, it is no lapse at all. The only
difference is that while the latter is a passive state, the former will
be an active one. The highest form of morality is that which is
joyful and spontaneous; and the highest form of art is that which
can transform nature itself into its theme. When these stages
are reached, the distinction between them disappears except in one
respect to which we have just referred. In these respects they
differ finally but in none other. The attitude towards the world
therefore remains the same whether it is contemplative or active.
It is this impersonal and joyful experience, which is constant,
that is the ideal at which art and morality really aim. They both
are synthesised in it. In the words of the poet, Beauty becomes
Goodness and Goodness, Beauty. An ideal man, like Valmlki,
leads a life of which these are the two alternative phases. He is in
contemplation; and in the intervals of contemplative trance he will
be employed in philanthropic activity. But in both alike, he is
spontaneously and joyously unselfish. Thus the aesthetic and
the moral attitudes, as we commonly understand them, are
more closely allied to each other than we imagine, and are
only partial and provisional manifestations of the ultimate spiritual
experience. Art and morality thus mean more than they are
ordinarily conceived to be; and each, as it is commonly pursued,
 ART AND MORALITY 61
therefore achieves only half its purpose. But they indicate the
essential character of the ultimate goal of human existence.
In that goal, each attains a higher grade of excellence. Art
and morality become metamorphosed in it and are also ex-
plained by it, though we deduce its nature through them.1 The
ideal of life for man is to remain in one of these two attitudes
But the two attitudes are essentially the same. It is impersonal,
spontaneous joy in action and in contemplation; and that aspect
will maintain its identity throughout the two phases. The
Hindu scriptures, like the Gita, sometimes dwell on the one
and sometimes on the other of these two phases. The varying
emphasis on them is explained as due to a difference in the concep-
tion of the ideal among thinkers—one attaching greater importance
to one of them and the other to the other; but the best inter-
pretation of it seems to be to take it as commending both as
alternating phases of the same ideal.

1
The spiritually pure includes the morally good and the artistically
beautiful.
 THE NUMBER OF RASAS
I gladly respond to the desire of Dr. Raghavan that I should
contribute a Foreword to this book.1 He has been carrying on
researches in the field of Sanskrit literary criticism for several years
past, and the material which he has brought together here shows
how extensive is his acquaintance with the literature on the subject.
He draws his data, it will be seen, from unpublished manuscripts
as readily as he does from published works. The opinion formed
on any aspect of the subject by one, who has devoted so much time
to its study and whose knowledge of it is so wide, is of special
value and deserves the careful attention of all scholars.
The particular problem considered here is that of the number
of rasas, and its consideration necessarily involves the discussion
of many important points relating to their nature and scope.
As in the case of other problems investigated by the ancient
Indians, we find here also an astounding variety of solutions.
While some thinkers have held that there is but one rasa, others
have maintained that the rasas are many, there being a wide
divergence of opinion respecting their exact number. The usual
view, however, is that there are eight rasas or nine, with the
addition of what is termed santa:
srngarahasyakaruna raudravirabhayanakah I
bibhatsadbhutasantas ca rasah purvair udahrtah II
Although Dr. Raghavan considers all these views more or less
in detail, the main part of his discussion is concerned with the
admissibility of santa as the ninth rasa. His treatment of the
question is quite comprehensive, and he examines it both from
tie historical and the aesthetic sides. A brief reference to each
of them may not be out of place.
Owing to the uncertainty of our knowledge of the early
phases of Indian classical literature, it is not possible to say
when poets began to portray this rasa. The ascetic and mystic
elements, however, which form its distinctive basis, are very-
old features of Indian life; and they were highly valued by those
who followed the teaching of the Veda as well as by those who
did not. (So we may assume that the santa attitude found
1
The Number of Rasas by V. Raghavan, M.A., Ph.D. The Adyar
Library, Madras, 1940.
 THE NUMBER OF RASAS 63
expression in literature quite early; and this is corroborated by
the works of Agvaghosa even if, on account of its chronological
indefiniteness, we leave out of consideration the Mahdbhdrata,
the usual example given of the santa rasa. As regards writers
on poetics, the earliest to recognise it definitely, so far as our
knowledge at present goes, was Udbhata.) Possibly its recogni-
tion by them was even earlier. Bharata^s view in the matter is
somewhat doubtful, by reason of the unsatisfactory character of the
Ndtyatastra as it has come down to us. Some manuscripts of it
mention only eight rasas, but others nine. The weight of evidence
bearing on the point seems, on the whole, to be on the former
side; and Dr. Raghavan adduces several convincing arguments to
show that the references to this rasa in Bharata are all spurious.
But it should be added that the Natyasastra contains nearly all
the essential points necessary for a theoretical formulation of it.
Before we pass on to the aesthetic aspect of the question, it
is desirable to distinguish the emotive content or theme of a
literary work from the aesthetic sentiment which, according to
the prevalent Indian view, its idealised representation evokes in
the reader or the spectator. Thus in the case of the Sakuntala,
Dusyanta's love for Sakuntala forms the chief theme while the
emotion, which it awakens in us as we witness the drama enacted,
is srngara. When we ask whether santa can be a rasa, we mean
whether situations in life involving the quietistic sentiment lend
themselves to be similarly dealt with in literature. If they do,
then santa is a rasa; otherwise, it is not. The practice of great
poets like Kalidasa, which is after all the true touchstone in such
matters, shows that santa situations can certainly be thus deline-
ated in literary works. In the last act of his play, just alluded
to, Kalidasa describes the tranquillity and holiness of Marica'a
hermitage in a manner which affects us most profoundly. But,
however splendidly depicted, the santa rasa occupies only a
subordinate place there; and a doubt may therefore arise
whether it can be the leading sentiment in a work, i.e., whether it
can be portrayed in such a manner that it will impress us at the
end as the predominant element in -the unity of rasas which,
according to the Indian view, every work of art is expected to
achieve. Some of the works of Asvaghosa, to whom I have
already referred, show that it can be so represented. The
Mahabharata also, at any rate in its present form, illustrates the
 64 ART EXPERIENCE
same truth, as set forth by Anandavardhana in his masterly
way in the last section of the Dhvanyaloka.
Yet there were theorists who denied that the idnta could be
an art emotion. It is hardly necessary to examine their arguments
when we have the practice of great poets and the opinion of great
art critics to the contrary. But a reference should be made to one
of them which appears, at first sight, to possess some force. This
argument is that the attitude of mind for which santa stands is
altogether a rare one, and that its representation in art cannot
therefore appeal to more than a very few. The objection, it is
obvious, is based on the supposition that the test of true art is
in the wideness of its appeal. The advocates of idnta brush
this argument aside usually by saying that such questions are
not to be decided by a plebiscite; but, by thus admitting the narrow-
ness of its appeal, they seem to give up their position. Their
conclusion that santa is a rasa is irresistible. Indeed, it would
have been a strange irony of circumstance if Indians, of all,
had excluded it from the sphere of art. The way in which this
particular objection is met, however, is not satisfactory. May it
be that the contention that the appeal of santa is only to a very few
is wrong? No unwonted occasion in life—whether it be one
of joy or one of sorrow—passes without bringing home to man
the supreme desirability of spiritual peace. It means that the
need for such peace is fundamental to the human heart; and
this conclusion is confirmed by the pure satisfaction which the
contemplation, for example, of the images of Buddha in meditative
repose brings to so many. If so, the idnta mood is by no means
uncommon; and the santa rasa need not be an exception to the
rule that the appeal of art is general. What is uncommon is
the capacity in man to capture that mood and cultivate it, so that
it may come to prevail over all other moods; but this deficiency
does not matter so far as art is concerned for it has the power,
of itself to enable him to attain, albeit only for a while, the peace
of spirit which, as an old Indian critic has observed, even a yogin
has to strain himself long to win.
Dr. Raghavan makes a valuable contribution to the study not
merely of Sanskrit literary criticism but of Indian aesthetics as
a whole, for the conception of rasa, though it is here dealt with
chiefly in its relation to poetry, is general and furnishes the criterion
by which the worth of all forms of fine art may be judged. I have
no doubt that the book will be read and appreciated very widely.
 THE PROBLEM OF THE
RASAVADALAMKARA1
The Rasavadalamkara is one of a small group of .alamkaras,
generally recognised by the older writers on Sanskrit poetics.
Some of these alamkaras are differently explained sometimes,8
but they all relate to emotional states. It is with this, their
common feature, that we shall be concerned here, and not with
any of their internal differences. Our choice of the Rasavadalarii-
kara for specific consideration here is as a type representing the
whole group, and what we say of it will apply mutatis mutandis
to the other members of it also. We shall not accordingly refer
to any of the latter, except when they illustrate some point that
is of importance to our topic.
I
The significance of describing this as an alamkarcP is that it
is an attribute of poetry—essential according to some, but only
desirable according to others. As, however, poetry is defined
as sabdarthau sahitau4 an alamkara may embellish either its
form or its content. The Rasavadalamkara, being an arthdlam-
kdra, contributes to the beauty of poetry, not on its formal but
on its content side. Our present purpose is to find out whether
such a view is tenable.
We have stated that the Rasavadalaihkara embellishes the
content side of poetry. Since this content is acknowledged
here to be vdcya? the Alamkara may be described as vacyopas-
1
I am grateful to Dr. V. Raghavan of Madras for his kindness in reading
the draft of this paper and making suggestions which were of much use to me
in revising it.
1
Contrast, e.g., Dandin's view of urjasvi (ii. 293-4) with that of Udbhata
<iv. 5).
8
These old writers sometimes appear to grant the pre-eminent position
of rasa in poetry, commonly recognised by later writers. Cf. BhSmaha, i. 21,
v. 3. But it is not a well-articulated view, and seems only to be a formal echo
of what is found in Bharata (Cf. Na hi rasad rte kascid arthah pravartate) and
is sometimes expressed by poets themselves.
4
Bhamaha, i. 16.
5
We are overlooking the distinction between vacya and laksya, as it i*
not of importance to our purpose here.
66 ART EXPERIENCE
kdraka or subserving the meaning directly expressed in poetry.
But a question now arises as to whether this Alariikara itself is
vdcya or not. Two views seem theoretically possible in this
regard: It should be vacya, if we may judge, for instance, from
Dandin's definition of preyolamkara1 which is one of the group;
and Udbhata's statement that one of the means of communicating
an emotion to the reader is to name it, for example, as rati
or srngara lends support to the same conclusion. But, at the same
time, the use of expressions like sucana in this connection3 by
the latter, and gamayati and gamaka by his commentators suggests
that the Alariikara may not be vacya. Since, however, no vyang-
ydrtha is admitted by the older writers, it should, in that case,
be indirectly known—through some form of inference, say,
arthapatti. As it is not easy to decide between these alternatives,
viz., whether the Rasavadalamkara is vacya or not, we shall refer
to both the possibilities in the consideration of our subject.
(i) Let us first select the view that the Rasavadalamkara
is vacya or directly expressed; and for this purpose, let us examine
briefly the instance which Udbhata gives of it:
iti bhavayatas tasya samastan parvatigunan |
sambhrtan alpasamkalpah kandarpah prabalo 'bhavat II
svidyatapi sa gatrena babhara pulakotkaram |
kadambakalikakosakesaraprakaropamam II
ksanam autsukyagarbhinya cintaniscalaya ksanam |
ksanam pramodalasaya drsasyasyam abhusyata II
These stanzas, which are Udbhata's own, speak of Siva's love
for Parvatl. They first state that, as Siva pondered over all her
surpassing beauty, love for her planted itself firmly in his heart;
and then they refer to certain striking manifestations of it, such as
a bristling of the hairs on the body, perspiration and the like.
Here it is obvious that Udbhata describes not the emotion of
love but only its causes, consequences and accessories; and since,
by hypothesis, the Rasavadalarhkara is vdcya, it is these that we
must take as standing for the emotion in his view. But they
cannot do so, unless a materialistic view (which was repugnant to
old Indian thinkers generally) is held of emotion, and it is identified
1
Preyab priyatardkhyanam (ii. 275). *
t Sva-sabda-sthayi-samcari-vibhavabhinayaspadam (iv. 3).
« Cf. iv. 2.
 THE PROBLEM OF THE RASAVADALAMKARA 67
with its objective accompaniments. So we must conclude that
the emotion, in its essence, here remains uncommunicated.
(2) If, to avoid this difficulty, we suppose the Rasavadalamkara
to be not vacya but arthdpatti-gamya, that is, deduced in one
way or another from the vibhdvas and the like, an idea of the emot-
ion in question will certainly be conveyed; but it will be conceptual,
and cannot therefore represent rasa which always means a felt
emotion. For inference, as is well known, gives rise to conclusions
of a generalised or abstract character, while poetry is expected
to speak to us in concrete terms. The consequence is that the
emotion portrayed comes to be known as only of a certain
type, instead of as a fully particularised instance of it. In the
hunting scene at the beginning of the Sdkuntala, for example,
Kalidasa does not tell us merely that the deer fled in fear, but depicts
the precise manner in which the fear manifested itself then and
there. He makes it known to us, of course, that the animal
was frightened, but he does so essentially through concrete
forms.
Hence we may conclude that, in neither case, can rasa be
classed under alamkara. If the Rasavadalamkara is held to be
vacya, it will not yield the intended experience but only present its
objective accompaniments; if, on the other hand, it is taken to
be arthdpatti-gamya, the experience to which it leads will be
very far from what is meant by rasa.
We may now draw an important corollary from the above.
But, before we can do so, we should make a passing reference to a
point which does not strictly fall within the scope of this paper.
It is that some alamkarikas, like Vamana, regard rasa not as an
alamkara, but as gunna1 of poetry. Since, however, gunas too, like
alarhkdras, are conceived as attributive to poetry, that view also
may be shown to be untenable on the reasoning adopted above.
When we take this fact along with another, viz., that gunas and
alamkaras are the only positive attributes of poetry, we may
conclude that rasa should be an alamkarya (or gunin) and not an
alamkdra? The only point to be granted for this conclusion to
be necessary is that rasa is an element of poetic value—a point
1
Kavyalamkara-sutra, III. ii. 14.
8
Dhvanyaloka (com.), P- 78: Alamkarya-vyatiriktas ca alamkrah
abhyupagantavyah, lake tatha siddhatvat. This work will hereafter be referred
to at DA.
68 ART EXPERIENCE
which is not disputed by any alamkarikas, old or new. In other
words, it stands for the 'soul' (atman) or essence of poetry—not
for what embellishes, but for what is embellished. That is,
indeed, the view on the basis of which the later (navina) school
criticised the above conception of the Rasavadalamkara; and, in
taking their stand on it, they judged aright the place of rasa
in poetry.
But misconceiving the status of rasa in poetry was not the
only fault of the older (pracina) school. They also failed to explain
how rasa experience comes to be evoked at all. For, in trying
to explain it, they landed themselves, as we have seen, in a dilemma,
viz., that either it remains unevoked in its essence or only an idea
of the corresponding emotion is conveyed in purely conceptual
terms. The later school has successfully avoided this dilemma
by enunciating what is known as vyanjand-vydpdra, whose import-
ance in elucidating the nature of poetry cannot be exaggerated.
It means "a process of suggestion", as it is commonly interpreted;
but it also signifies more—that the reader should ideally re-
produce in himself, with the aid of the suggestive elements and
with that of his own feeling equipment, a mode of experience
similar to the one, under the spell of which the poet has expressed
himself in the form of the poem in question.1 These suggestive
elements are the vibhavas and the like which he has portrayed;
but, being only its outward accompaniments, they have to be
imaginatively synthesised by the reader before they can give
rise to the integral aesthetic experience (akhanda-carvana) for
which the term rasa stands.2 According to this explanation,
then, emotions are not communicated at all by the poet; he only
suggests them and thereby helps their waking to life in the mind
of a competent person, when they will necessarily be inwardly
experienced by him. Here the later school has, unlike the earlier,
rightly taken into account the important psychological fact that
no emotions, other than one's own, can be directly experienced.
But, when we speak of an emotion as 'waking up' in the mind of
the reader, it should not be regarded as a revival of his private
experience: that would, by no means, constitute rasa. For,
though the process may eventually go back to impressions latent
in his mind (vasana), the emotional experience itself, in virtue
1
Cf. Nayakasya kaveh s r o t u h samanonubhavah: DA., p. 29. (com.).
1
Na hi vibhdvdnubhava-vyabhicdrina eva rasdh: DA., p. 183.
 THE PROBLEM OF THE RASAVADALAMKARA 69
1
of the idealised character of the vibhdvas and the like or, to
state the same otherwise, owing to the imaginative level at which the
waking takes place, becomes impersonal (sadharani-krta)2
and quite unique (alaukika)3 This is the solution by the later
school of the riddle of rasa experience.

II
The logical consequence of such a view is to exclude the
Rasavadalamkara from the sphere of poetics altogether, for it
is a self-discrepant conception representing an alamkarya as
an alamkdra. And that is what the later school has, in effect,
done. But Indian thinkers do not ordinarily discard an old con-
cept, even when they come to see that it is not strictly legitimate,
if they can profitably utilise it in any other way. Now an alath-
kdra, by its very nature, forms a subsidiary category. It is what
contributes to, or enhances, the beauty of something else. And
it so happens that, even though rasa is intrinsically primal in
character, it is sometimes found to subserve other suggested
poetic elements—another rasadi or vastumatra, (more correctly,
only rasddi);' and then it may be secondarily described as an
alamkdra. It is thus, not in its original sense that the name
'Rasavadalamkara' survives in the later view, but only in an
upacarita or figurative sense:
pradhane 'nyatra vakyarthe yatrangam tu rasadayah |
kavye tasminn alamkaro rasadir iti me matih ||5
This is well illustrated in the following stanza where karuna-
rasa serves to enhance the glory of a conquering prince, which
forms the chief point of the poem:
kim hasyena na me prayasyasi punah praptas cirad darsanam
keyam niskaruna pravasarucita kenasi durikrtah |
svapnantesv iti te vadan priyatamavyasaktakanthagrahgraho
buddhva roditi riktabahuvalayas tararh ripustrijanah II 6
1
The very words vibhava, anubhava etc., imply idealisation; and they
dre not mere karana, karya etc., as the older writers persist in describing
them. See e.g., com. on Udbhata's work, iv. 2, and cf. Kavya-prakasa, iv.
27-8.
2
Deta-kdla-pramdtr-bheddniyantrito rasah: Abhinava-bharatl, I, p. 292.
« Cf. DA*, pp. 56-7 (com.). * See DA., pp. 71 and 74 (com.).
6
* DA., ii. 5. DA., p. 72.
70 ART EXPERIENCE
It should be added that this fact that a rasa may subserve
another suggested element of poetry was not a new discovery
by Anandavardhana or by any other later thinker. For Udbhata
(if not some other early writers also) admits what he calls udat-
talamkara, one of whose two varieties is based upon a recognition
of that very fact. The rasa element is present in it; and yet it
is distinguished by him from the Rasavadalamkara, because
that element is not of first importance there. The following is
his illustration of it:
tasyadikrodapinamsanigharse 'pi punah punah |
niskampasya sthitavato himadrer bhavati suta II
The stanza speaks of the prowess of Visnu as adi-varaha, butting
repeatedly against the Himavan, and the mountain successfully
resisting it. Here there is a clear portrayal of vira-rasa. But
it is not portrayed for its own sake; rather, it serves to indicate
the sublime constancy and steadfastness of the mountain lord.1
Hence it is an instance of the udattalamkara, and not of the Rasava-
da'amkara. It will be seen that, in this respect, it is exactly similar
to the illustrative example of the Rasavadalamkara cited above
from Anandavardhana. In this distinciton which Udbhata makes
between the Rasavadalamkara and the udattdlarnkara, we may
say, lies implicit an important aspect of the theory of rasa, as
propounded later, viz., that where the rasa element is predom-
inant, we have the variety of kavya designated dhvani; and
where it is subordinate, we have the Rasavadalamkara.2 But
he had not the necessary aesthetic outlook for rightly interpreting
it, and therefore spoke of them both as alamkaras.
1
Na hy atra mahatma-caritam angitaya sthitam api tu angatam gatam:
Vivrti).
* See DA., ii. 4-5-
 RASA AND DHVANI
This1 is a thesis for the Doctorate of Philosophy in the Univer-
sity of Madras; and it was, if we remember rightly, the first of its
kind to be approved by that academic body. It deals with Sans-
krit Poetics or AlamkaraSastra as it is called—a subject in which
the Indian mind has achieved particular excellence. Its literature
is vast; and, though the works that have been already published
are numerous, there are many still awaiting publication. The
theories propounded in them are diverse—as many as eight of
them being of distinctive importance according to our author.
The most important of these theories is that contained in the
Dhvanyaloka of Anandavardhana, a work of the 9th century A.D.
It is known as the theory of dhvani or 'suggestiveness* which is
based upon the view that what we may call the poetic ultimate is
essentially incommunicable and can at best be only suggested.
The present thesis treats of its subject with special reference to this
work. The Dhvanyaloka is not to be regarded as merely a treatise
on empirical aesthetics as several others are; for it develops its views
in close connection with philosophical theories, raising now and
again questions like the logical status of verbal testimony and the
psychological basis of idnta-rasa. Another feature in which it
differs from the common run ofAlamkara works is that the theory
which it enunciates, though in the first instance intended to explain
the method and aim of poetry, is equally applicable to all forms of
fine art. This is indicated by Anandavardhana's own references
to other arts like music for purposes of illustration. It is also clear
from the nature of dhvani itself; for the means of suggestion need
not be confined to linguistic forms, but may extend beyond to the
media employed in arts other than poetry. Features such as these
show that the Dhvanyaloka is a difficult work to comprehend; and
the difficulty is considerably increased by the imperfect character
of the only edition of it published so far.2 But our author brings
to its study a mind adequately equipped both in literature and
philosophy. He also possesses the care and patience necessary for
1
Some Aspects of Literary Criticism in Sanskrit or the Theories of Rasa and
Dhvani by A. Sankaran, M.A., Ph.D., University of Madras, 1929.
1
[Other editions, some of them of single chapters of the work, have since
appeared in Benares, Calcutta and Madras.—Ed.]
72 ART EXPERIENCE
the examination of manuscript material incidental to such inquiries.
The result is an essay which contains many well-tested facts and
inferences, all set forth in a lucid manner. It is not merely on the
expository side that its excellence lies but also on the historical
and critical sides. In all these respects the thesis, though com-
paratively brief, goes deeper than any modern work we know on the
subject Of the several questions of interest considered here, we
may mention one in particular, viz., the relation between the
principles of rasa and dhvani. The point is discussed at consider-
able length and its elucidation is a valuable contribution to the
study of the subject. The thesis which represents apparently the
first effort of its author, gives promise of much valuable work
by him in the field of Sanskrit Research.
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF AESTHETIC
PLEASURE
This volume1 contains the thesis presented by the author for
the M.O.L. Degree of the University of Madras. Its theme is
Indian Aesthetics—a subject in which, as in so many others
investigated by them, the ancient Indians have advanced numerous
theories. Many of these theories are briefly referred to here;
but the volume is chiefly concerned with the elucidation of the
most prominent among them, which is known as the theory of
rasa. The book is divided into ten chapters. The first three of
them deal with the subject in a general way, and point out the
importance as well as the antiquity of the rasa-theory. It is
mentioned already in the Natya-sastra of Bharata, the earliest work
on Sanskrit literary criticism that has come down to us. The
next four chapters treat of the chief interpretations of Bharata's
view of rasa and show how the latest of them, which we owe to
Anandavardhana and Abhinavagupta of the 9th and 10th centuries
respectively, is the best. This view superseded all the rest, and has
virtually dominated Indian literary criticism ever since. The
next two chapters are taken up with the discussion of the exact
significance of this theory, the extent of its influence and the
modifications, all more or less slight, which it underwent in later
times. The last chapter deals with the number of rasas, and consid-
ers in particular the question whether the santa can be the pre-
dominant rasa in poetry and in the drama. The view maintained
here, on the strength of the opinions of great critics and the
practice of artists of the first rank like Vyasa and Asvaghosa, is
that it can well be so.
The literature relating to this subject in Sanskrit is vast, and
the author shows a close acquaintance with it. His exposition
of the main theme, 'the suggestion theory' of rasa as he terms it, is
very good. But there are large portions of the book which dwell
at unnecessary length on matters that are well known to students of
Sanskrit criticism. We have also come across a few doubtful or
misleading statements. In dealing with Bhatta Lollata's view, for
1
The Philosophy of Aesthetic Pleasure by P. Pancapagesa Sastri, with a
Foreword by Mahamahopadhyaya Prof. S. Kuppuswami Sastrigal. Annamalai
University, 1940. pp. xxiv -f 324.
74 ART EXPERIENCE
instance, it is stated (pp. 64 ff.) that the anubhavas or expressions of
the emotions help the spectator in inferring the mental attitude
of the hero and the heroine. But the spectator's conclusions in
this respect have nothing whatever to do with the 'generation of
rasa9 in the actors or the characters represented by them. The
anubhavas seem rather to serve as aids to the hero and the heroine
themselves to discover each other's frame of mind. But speaking
as a whole, the book brings together a good deal of information
touching the theory of rasas, which now lies scattered in many
books; and its publication will accordingly be welcomed by all
students of Sanskrit literature. The various indexes included in
the volume, and the analytical table of contents will greatly facilitate
the work of referring to it.
 SOME CONCEPTS OF ALAMKARA
LITERATURE
There are nine sections in this book1, and each section treats
of some leading concept of Sanskrit Poetics. The concepts selected
for consideration here, like so much else relating to this branch of
Sanskrit study, go back to the Natya-sastra of Bharata, which is
the foundation of most, if not all, of the Indian theories of poetry.
Some of these concepts, like laksana and bhavika, are less familiar
now than others; but all of them are more or less vague. Hence
the need for explaining them. Their antiquity is part-cause of
their vagueness, and the fact that they have frequently shifted
their meaning in the course of history has contributed not a little
to it. A satisfactory explanation of their present significance there-
fore makes it necessary to trace the course of these shiftings as
fully as possible. The author brings to bear upon this aspect of
the study his extensive knowledge of Alamkara literature, including
not only the portion of it which has found its way into print, but
also that which is still in the manuscript stage. The discussions
are throughout instructive, and they clarify many doubtful points
in old Alamkara works.2 They also contain some interesting
speculations as, for example, that concerning the origin of the
earlier name of jati for svabhavokti or a realistic description of things
(p. 94). In arriving at his conclusions, the author guides himself,
rightly as many will think, by the views of Anandavardhana and
Abhinavagupta. They were great, both as poets and as critics;
and in the theory of rasa, as finally formulated by them, Sanskrit
literary criticism reached its high-water mark. We may refer to
one small point in this connection. It is stated on p. 201 that the
word anitya, in the sense of 'relative', came into use only after
Anandavardhana. But it seems to have that meaning already in
Jaimini-sutra (I, ii. i), for it is explained there as equivalent to
aniyata or sapeksa, i.e., 'not invariable* or 'dependent*.
Naturally details like these will have no attraction to students
* Studies en Some Concepts of the Alamkara-sastra by V. Raghavan, M.A.,
Ph.D. The Adyor Library, 1942. pp. xx + 312. (The Adyar Library Series.
No. 33).
1
E.g., pallava on p. 132, rasa-prayoga on p. 198 and kriydkalpa on pp.
264-7.
76 ART EXPERIENCE
of Sanskrit in general; but their value to the specialist—whether
he is studying advanced treatises on the subject or is engaged in
research work in it—is great. The book is, indeed, a veritable
storehouse of useful information for him. But it should not be
concluded from this that it is of no interest at all to others, for the
author in the course of his discussions now and then makes
comments, appreciative or critical, on Sanskrit poets and poetry;
and these comments, he always supports by apposite quotations.
We may mention as an excellent instance of this'practical criticism',
as it is termed, the Section on the 'use and abuse of Alathkdrai.
Occasionally, one also comes across bits of new and useful inform-
ation as in the note on Ramabhyudaya, a lost dramatic work of
Ya&warman, the royal patron of Bhavabhuti (p. 205). The book,
as a whole, is a notable addition to the slowly increasing number
of works in English on a relatively neglected branch of Sanskrit
learning. The author alludes in the footnotes to one or two
other works on allied topics as under preparation by him. We
hope that they will be published soon.
 SANSKRIT POETICS
This is the first publication1 of the Institute newly founded
in Madras in the name of the late Prof. Kuppuswami Sastriar; and
it greatly redounds to the credit of its authorities that they should
have issued it so very promptly. There is more than one Institute
of the kind in North India to direct and co-ordinate the work done
in the field of oriental research. The lack of a similar institution
in the South has long been felt; and now that it has been started,
we trust that it will receive not only from scholars, engaged in
oriental research, but also from the general public all the help and
encouragement which it requires for fulfilling its important
function.
The book under review treats of Sanskrit poetics. It was first
published several years ago in the Kavyamala Series at Bombay
with the classical commentary of Abhinavagupta, called Locana.
Owing, however, to the meagreness of the manuscript material
available then and its unsatisfactory character, the edition was far
from correct. But the imperfect form in which the work appeared
did not prevent scholars from discovering its great value, and
Prof. Kuppuswami Sastriar was one of the first to do so. He had
it included in the course of studies for the Honours Degree in
Sanskrit of the Madras University, and taught it several times. In
teaching it, he thoroughly corrected the printed edition with the
help of old MSS. of the work which had by that time been secured
for the Madras Oriental Library. It is in this corrected form that
the original work and the commentary of Abhinava appear here.
The present edition also includes a hitherto unpublished gloss on
the latter, called Kaumudt, by one Uttungodaya which affords real
help in understanding this difficult work. To these, Prof. Sastriar
has added his own annotations in Sanskrit, which he terms Upa-
locana. They are brief; but, as may be expected from his many-
sided scholarship and rare critical insight, they are invariably
illuminating. The usefulness of an edition, provided with such
aids to study, is obvious and does not need to be stressed.
1
Dhvanyaloka by Anandavardhana, edited by the late MM. Prof.
S. Kuppuswami Sastri, Sastra-ratnakara T. V. Ramachandra Dikshitar and
Dr. T. R. Chintamani. The Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute, Madras,
5944. PP- xx -f 304.
78 ART EXPERIENCE
The work belongs to the 9th century A.D. ; and its importance
is well indicated by the fact that the view of poetry which it form-
ulated has come to dominate Sanskrit literary criticism completely,
superseding all the earlier views. It would be out of place, in a
review like this, to enter into its details which are necessarily
somewhat technical. We may, however, draw attention to two
of its broad features. The first is the emphasis it places on what
is known as the rasa theory. This theory not only points to the
general importance of feeling in poetry, which is universally
admitted; it also signifies that primary emotions (bhava) like love,
fear and wonder form its subject-matter par excellence, provided
their treatment by the poet satisfies the well-known aesthetic
requirements such as lifting them above the purely personal level.
Other things than emotional states also have certainly a place in
poetry. In fact, there is no object, according to the present view,
which is not potentially aesthetic. But, speaking in the main,
their purpose is to subserve the portrayal of emotion. The impli-
cation of such a theory is that poetry, when it is at its best, approx-
imates to music. Both alike centre about emotion, and aim at
inducing a predominantly emotional attitude in the hearer. The
other feature concerns the method of poetry which, it is maintained,
is not so much expression as suggestion or dhvani —a term which,
it will be noticed, occurs in the title of the work. It is evidently
deduced from the fact that emotions are quite indescribable, and
that an idea of them can be conveyed only indirectly by depicting
the more prominent among their outward signs. But when once
thus deduced, the method came to be commended in the case of the
other types of poetry also as a means of heightening their charm,
although it may not be necessitated by the nature of their content.
The volume under notice contains only the first of the four
chapters comprising the work. We are sure that the two scholars,
associated with Prof. Sastriar in its publication, will not allow it to
remain a fragment, but will secure whatever MS. notes he may have
left behind and see that the rest of the work is published soon. We
may also express the hope that the Institute series will include the
other unpublished works of the late Professor, such as his lectures
on Indian epistemology delivered some years ago under the
auspices of the University of Madras.
 PROCESS AND PURPOSE IN ART
Many theories of the beautiful have been formulated in the past;
and, though several of them may contain elements of truth, none
is altogether satisfactory. This is the reason why the aesthetic
problem still remains an object of fresh research and study. There
has recently been published in America a notable book,1 which deals
with most of the fundamental questions relating to it. It shows
the author's wide knowledge of the literature on the subject, and
also his close acquaintance with masterpieces in more than one of
the fine arts. His approach to the problem is not merely aesthetical;
it is also philosophical. "For some years now", he writes in the
Preface, **I have hoped to understand art and beauty not merely in
a way which would be consonant with my own appreciations, but
also in a way which seemed to me philosophically satisfactory."
But the book is written in a much-condensed style, and a single
page of it will easily 'dilute' into half-a-dozen pages of an ordinary
book on the subject. It consequently makes tough reading; but
there is no question that a careful reader will derive from it much
valuable insight into the nature of the aesthetic process—whether
it be of creating beauty or of appreciating it. It is not possible in a
brief review, like the present one, to do justice to its many merits.
We shall therefore content ourselves with drawing attention to one
important point in it, viz., its view of aesthetic experience.
We shall indicate its main features best by contrasting it with
what may be called the naive view of aesthetic experience. The
latter starts with an analysis of the work of art into elements, which
it takes to be distinctive of its beauty, and describes aesthetic
experience as a form of delight resulting from their contemplation.
That is, aesthetic experience is assumed here to ensue the process of
contemplating beauty. According to the present view, on the
other hand, process and result together form a single whole, and
their separation is altogether unwarranted. The distinction
between the two views is vital. In the one case, aesthetic experience
is the end to which the apprehension of beauty is the means. There
is, no doubt, a causal connection between them; but, otherwise,
they stand apart as antecedent and consequent. In the other case,
1
The Aesthetic Process by Bertram Morris. Evanston, 1943. (Northwestern
University Studies in the Humanities, No. 8).
80 ART EXPERIENCE
that experience is conceived as a continuous process of which
means and end are but two phases. The only difference between
them is that while in the first the creation or appreciation of beauty
is in progress, in the second it is consummated. It is clear that,
as thus conceived, means and end do not form a mere sequence as
in the other view, but are integral. In fact, the means itself is
wrought up finally into the end, according to the present view. It
is this unified whole of experience that constitutes aesthetic value
here and not mere delight. But delight is not excluded, for that
experience, as aesthetic, necessarily involves a feeling of pleasure;
only it becomes an aspect of the value here instead of being
identified with it. That is, we seek art not merely for the pleasure
it affords, but for the unique experience it brings.
The process of contemplation again is looked upon as active
in this view, and not passive as in the other. That it is so is clear
from the fact that the aesthetic attitude is critical. A competent
spectator will instantly notice the least fault which may mar the
excellence of a work of art. Those who regard the process as
passive do so, because they start, as we stated earlier, with a ready-
made object of beauty and naturally assume that its distinctive
features, already there, have merely to be apprehended for
attaining the aesthetic end. Really, however, it can be gained
only through striving as much in the appreciation of art as in its
creation. It implies that all great art involves a problematic
situation, i.e. a situation whose meaning is problematic, and that
its true significance will be revealed to none who does not
insightfully follow the development of that situation until its latent
tensions and conflicts are fully and satisfyingly resolved. It is
to this consummatory stage that the author gives the name of
''beauty". He frequently speaks of art as process, and product
as beauty. He means thereby, if we have rightly understood
him, that, like other values, the aesthetic also becomes a value
only when it is realized in one's own experience.
Students of Sanskrit will recognise here a striking resemblance
to a theory that has dominated art criticism in India for over a
thousand years.2 It is not necessary to enter into its technicalities
to bring out the resemblance. It will suffice to refer to the signi-
ficance of the title of "rasa theory" given to it. The word rasa
primarily means "taste" or "savour" such as sweetness; and it has,
2
See Abhinavagupta's com. on Bharata's Natyasastra, vol. I, pp. 286-91.
 PROCESS AND PURPOSE IN ART 81
by a metaphorical extension, been applied to aesthetic experience.
The point of the metaphor is that both signify a process and that
the process is, in neither, sundered from the result. If we neglect
the almost infinitesimal time required to excite taste when a
savoury thing is placed on the tongue, the process of tasting and
the satisfaction that is its result are coincident. That is to say,
experience is fulfilment in the one case as in the other. The
metaphor has also a deeper implication. It points to the unity
of aesthetic experience, however complex it may be, as also to
its uniqueness for, when two or more tastes are properly blended,
it is pointed out, the result is one single taste which surpasses all
of them in its flavour. The appropriateness of selecting one
of the 'lower' senses, rather than the 'higher', to typify aesthetic
experience is in the importance of the element of feeling in art
for, as psychologists tell us, that element is at a maximum in
them.
But, as may be expected from the widely remote circumstances
in which the two theories have been developed, the resemblance is
only partial; and there are more or less important differences bet-
ween them. To refer briefly to only one of them: the rasa theory
not only points to the general importance of feeling in art, which
is universally admitted; it also signifies that primary emotions
(bhava) like love, fear and wonder form its subject-matter par
excellence, provided their treatment by the artist satisfies the well-
known aesthetic requirements such as lifting them above the per-
sonal level. Other things also have certainly a place in art, and
there is no object according to the Indian view which is not poten-
tially aesthetic. But, speaking in the main, their purpose is to
subserve the portrayal of emotions. In the best art of India, it is
this emotional theme that is depicted. In Kalidasa's Sakuntala,
for example, it is love (srngara); and the secret of appeal in so much
of Indian music lies in the fact that it embodies the longing for
God of passionately devout hearts. So far as we have been able
to gather, the author of the work under review does not give the
same paramount place to emotions as Indian aesthedcians do.
 EXPERIENCE: FIRST AND FINAL
The purpose of this book1 is to determine the relation bet-
ween two forms of experience—the aesthetic and the religious,
which are apt to be regarded as hostile to each other. But, as the
views commonly held about the nature of these experiences are
widely divergent, it is necessary to state in what way they are to
be understood here.
To take up aesthetic experience first. The author begins with
a brief sketch of the history of aesthetic theories from the earliest
times; but he sets nearly all of them aside as of little help to us in
rightly understanding the character of this experience. Its secret,
he thinks, was discovered only when it was investigated by the
Italian philosopher, Benedetto Croce, in the beginning of the pre-
sent century. There is no doubt that Croce's view of art is
unique and shows several novel and striking features. This has
been recognised by competent authorities ever since it was
put forward. But our author goes much farther and (though, as
we shall see, he finds it necessary to modify the view in some
respects) claims that Croce has said there the last word on what is
distinctive of aesthetic activity. However that may be, we should
know his view, before we can follow the argument of this book.
It cannot be made quite clear apart from his philosophy, but we
shall try to state it with as little reference as possible to his
general philosophical position.
Croce speaks of two forms of knowledge or the theoretical
activity of the mind, which he respectively terms 'intuition* and
'logical knowledge'. The former produces images; and the latter,
concepts or universals. Of these, logical knowledge invariably
involves intuition and is dependent upon it; intuitive knowledge,
on the other hand, is fundamental and independent. Similarly,
he divides the practical activity of the mind or will into the
economic and the ethical, which bear a relation to each other
analogous to that between intuition and logical knowledge.
Further, this practical activity, as a whole, presupposes the
theoretical and is dependent upon it; but the reverse does not
hold good. There are thus altogether four, and only four, grades
1
Aesthetic Experience in Religion by Geddes MacGregor. Macmillan
& Co., London, 1947. pp. 246.
 EXPERIENCE; FIRST AND FINAL 83
of experience of which intuition, being the lowest, is the ground
of all the rest; and the ethical, being the highest, is the most
dependent of them.
It is intuition, in this sense, that Croce identifies with aesthetic
experience. But what is its exact nature? Even an idle mood of
ours in which we relax our mind and allow free play to our imagina-
tion is not, according to him, free from reflective elements such
as judgments and suppositions, comparisons and contrasts. To
get to the true intuitive stage, we have to go mentally a step lower,
abstracting all such elements from it. It is this first mode of
consciousness, when the image-forming activity of the mind goes
on without any admixture of reflection, that is intuition. It is said
to present things in their immediacy and to give us a knowledge of
them in their concreteness and individuality, as distinguished from
their general features; but it is a knowledge which, being detached
from all logical considerations, is necessarily indifferent to the
' question of truth and falsity. Examples of intuition are 'this river',
'this raindrop', as contrasted with the concept of 'water1. Only
we should remember that the particulars meant here are simpler
and more fundamental than the corresponding percepts because
they do not, like the latter, involve the distinction of real and un-
real. From what has been stated, it will appear that this basic
form of experience cannot be for us more than a moment's
glimmer; but Croce holds that true artists and, with their aid,
those who appreciate their works have the power to capture that
momentary experience and, keeping it pure from reflective
intrusions, persist in it longer than others can.
Now as regards religious experience: Its varieties, according
to Dr. MacGregor, are almost inexhaustible; and he dismisses, as
altogether unconvincing, views like that of the late Dr. Otto which
maintain that all religions, without exception, contain a unique
element and are, so far, one. It being impossible to discuss the
problem of the present book with reference to this infinite variety
of religious views, some specific form of it has to be chosen for the
purpose; and the choice of Dr. MacGregor falls on Catholic mystic-
ism. Its essential features are expounded here in the course of a
learned and very interesting survey of mediaeval literautre, going
back to the Augustinian tradition; but we can refer only to a few
of them in this review. Before doing so, however, we may draw
attention to one of the changes which Dr. MacGregor, as already
84 ART EXPERIENCE
indicated, makes in the Crocean view. Religion, according to
Croce, does not stand for a separate form of experience. It is for
him a "hybrid activity of the mind, in part art and in part
philosophy." Here it is reckoned as distinct, and also as the
highest kind of activity in the development of man's spiritual life.
Some forms of theism take mystical experience to mean the
attainment of absolute unity with God. But here the unity is
such as preserves the distinction between God and the aspirant.
It is described as an 'I-thou' relation. That is, the individual does
not lose himself in God then, but only finds the fulfilment of his
life's purpose there. This experience is non-sensory and immed-
iate. It is also radically incommunicable. It cannot obviously
be reached without a long course of training. Broadly speaking,
the training consists in acquiring a knowledge of God and in
loving contemplation of him. To confine our attention to the
former: It is twofold—one, knowing, in faith, the truth about God;
and the other, of rational reflection upon it. Both these forms of
knowledge, owing to the ineffable nature of God, necessarily involve
analogies drawn from ordinary life, such as thinking of Him, say,
as our 'father*. It is this knowledge that should eventually grow
into mystic experience; but it cannot have any place in that ex-
perience which, by hypothesis, is immediate, until the analogical
images it involves, which externalise God, are rejected. Before
explaining what this rejection means, it is necessary to refer to two
other changes which Dr. MacGregor makes in the Crocean view.
First, Croce, as we have seen, holds intuition to be the ground
of all the higher grades of experience. Only, being mingled in
each with its characteristic determinations, it has to be isolated
from them before we can get at it. But he does not accept in it any
differences corresponding to those grades. All intuition for him
is alike perfect. But here such a gradation is postulated, with the
result that intuition comes to be viewed not only as basic to all
other forms of experience but also as growing richer and fuller
as those forms rise higher in the scale. Secondly, Croce denies
that we apprehend any external reality at any level of experience
since, according to him, mind is the sole reality and there is nothing
transcendent to it. But our author argues at great length to show
(without committing himself to any specific epistemological theory)
that such a reality must be accepted in the case of every mode of
experience. The significance of these changes to the present
 EXPERIENCE: FIRST AND FINAL 85
question is that our ideas of God are not without their own objective
reference and that we can therefore also have an intuitive knowledge
of Him which, as these ideas advance and become enriched,
reveals to us His nature more and more clearly.
With this significance in our mind, we shall be able to see
what the place of. aesthetic experience is in religion. We have
spoken of the need for rejecting the imagery of the earlier stages in
knowing God, before mystic experience can be attained. After an
examination of the statements of typical mystics in this respect,
Dr. MacGregor concludes that the rejection is at first only of the
analogical'pictures', and that the corresponding aesthetic intuitions
especially those that are based upon theological propostions and are
therefore particularly relevant to divine nature, continue till the
aspirant actually enters upon mystical union. They too are re-
nounced then, but only temporarily as indicated by the fact that,
when a mystic elects to describe his experience, he reverts to that
very imagery. This shows that aesthetic experience is essential
to the mystic state, viewed as a whole and distinguished from
the act of mystic union. But, we should add, it is not sufficient,
because there is also need, as already pointed out, for the activity
of love. If mystic experience is incommunicable, it is so only in
so far as it depends upon that element in the discipline, and not
upon aesthetic experience.
The reader of this book cannot help feeling that the solution
it offers is incomplete for, though the problem raised is general,
it is discussed only in reference to what, after all, is a particular
view of aesthetic experience and is a particular type of religion.
But there is no question that the book makes a substantial contrib-
ution towards a general and final solution of it. The treatment
of the subject is clear and methodical. The discussions are
throughout on a high level; and the exposition is full of suggestions,
which students of art as well as those of religion will greatly value.
The relation between art experience and religion is considered
by Indian thinkers also, and we may close this review by making a
brief reference to their conclusion. To those who are familiar
with Indian thought, it is clear from the account given above of the
approach to mystic experience, that there is a striking resemblance
between it and the three ascending steps of spiritual discipline
prescribed in Indian works—sravana, manana and dhyana, which
respectively stand for knowledge of God, by faith, reflection upon
86 ART EXPERIENCE
it and meditation with a view to transform it into direct experience.
Since rasa or aesthetic experience also, like this final one of jivan-
mukti, is characterised by complete detachment and is accompanied
by a unique form of delight, the two are described as similar.
But there is one vital difference between them. It is the lack in
the former of the knowledge of ultimate reality, which is essential
to the latter (a deficiency which is made good here by assuming
grades of aesthetic intuition that progressively reveal reality).
To this, they trace the lapse from art experience which takes place
sooner or later when, to speak generally, all the tensions of ordinary
life return. There is a reversion to common life from the experience
of jivanmukti also; but it can, by no means, be regarded as a 'lapse',
since the philosophic conviction endures then, with all its expected
influence upon life's conduct. In other words, there is according
to the Indian view, no direct connection between aesthetic and
absolute experience, as seems to be supposed here.. The discipline
of the fine arts, particularly of music, is not, however, excluded
from religion; but it is explained as only a useful aid to success in
meditation upon the Highest (cf. Yajnavalkya-smrti, iii. 115).

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