3. Rasa Theory
Rasa: Literally means
• Juice, essence or taste
• It also connotes an ancient concept in Indian
arts about the aesthetic flavor of any visual
• Literary and musical work that evokes an
emotion of feeling
8. VIBHAVA: The objective
condition producing an emotion.
AlAMBANA: Person or
persons with reference to whom
the emotion is manifested.
UDDIPANA: The circumstances
that have excited the emotion.
9. • Anubhava
Bodily expression by which the emotion is
expressed.
Like, The arch glances of lady, Smile, etc..
• Vyabhicari
A series of diverse emotions that feed
the dominant emotion.
10. • Rasa was started by Abhinavagupta in his
commentary on Bharata’s maxim on Rasa.
• Samyoga (Conjunction) and Rasa-nispatti
(manifestation of Rasa or completion of Rasa)
These emotions are running through all natures in a permanent manner (Sthayibhava)
Pathetic, heroic, fearful, Passionate, wondrous, etc..
Primary emotions
Subconscious Unconscious
Psychological view: Personality constituted
Motivation Intellection
14. • Mammata as a follower of Abhinavagupta,
repudiates Bhatta Lollata’s view that Rasa is
related to the Vibhavas in the relation of the
produced and producer, as a effect and cause.
• He says that if the Vibhavas are to be regarded
as cause they must be regarded as the cause of
agency Nimitta-Karana.
• Nimitta-Karana: Action may remain intact
even when the efficient agent is destroyed.
15. Bhatta Tauta : Kavya-kautuka
• Dramatic play is not a physical occurrence.
• In witnessing a play forget the actual
perceptual experience of the individuals on the
stage playing their different parts with their
local names.
• The man who is playing the part of Rama
doesn’t appear to us in his actual individual
character
• He can not be the Rama about whom Valmiki
wrote.
16. • “The past impressions, memories, associations,
and the like, which were lying deeply buried in
the mind, became connected with the present
experience and thereby the present experience
became affiliated and perceived in a new
manner resulting in a dimension of new
experience, revealing new types of pleasure
and pains, unlike the pleasures and pains
associated with our egoistic instincts and the
success or failures of their strivings.”
17. • This is technically called Rasavadana,
Camatkara, Carvana which literally means the
experiencing of a transcendent exhilaration
from the enjoyment of the roused emotions
inherent in your own personality.
18. The Universalization of Poetic Art
1) The aesthetic composition by nature
of its special suggestive force presents
before our minds an aesthetic
situations and an emotion
that is devoid of all its local character.
2) The expression of this artistic
enlightenment
has a universal character
and in its manifestation in
different minds
19. Bibliography
• Dasgupta, S N. "The Theory of Rasa." Seturaman, V
S. Indian Aesthetics. New Delhi: Macmillan India LTD,
2000. 191-196.
• "Rasa (aesthetics)." Wikipedia. 27 Jan 2017
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasa_(aesthetics)>.