Indian understanding on aesthetics

1. Indian Aesthetics
By
Vishnu Achutha Menon
Department of Media and Communication
Central University of Tamil Nadu

2. Aesthetics as Saundarya Sastra
● Aesthetics - Philosophical and unphilosophical in
classical Indian Literature.
● Aesthetics can be defined as perception.
● Aesthetics can be seen on the manmade artefacts and
objects in nature.
● In indian context, the word Saundarya is beauty.

3. ● Saundarya Sastra means that is related to beauty
alone and create misunderstanding as a whole.
● Indian art evolved an emphasis on inducing special
spiritual or philosophical states in audience.
● The concept of rasa is many forms in indian art
including dance, music, cinema.
Continued...

4. Indian Aesthetics and Art
● One of the main theories, if not the most important theory,
of Sanskrit aesthetics is the theory of rasa.
● Propounded by Bharata in his work Natyashastra, rasa is
the ultimate emotional pleasure that can be derived from a
work of art.
● Bharata gives a formula for the arousal of rasa –
vibhavanubhava vyabhichari samyogad rasa nispatti –
which means that the combination of vibhava, anubhava
and vyabhichari bhava gives rise to rasa.

5. ● Vibhavas are the stimulants of emotions, anubhavas the
physical responses that go with these emotional responses
and vyabhichari bhavas are transitory emotions.
● The basic emotions (bhavas) of the reader or spectator,
who reads / watches a literary text or performance, are
aroused by the vibhavas. The emotional response is
indicated by the anubhavas and vyabhichari bhavas.Rasa
is this heightened emotional response to the text.

6. Rasa as a principle in Art and Aesthetics
● “Mangala sheele rasa vistruthikkangam muyuvan
thunakku veenda”
● Rasa is a Sanskrit word which means juice or essence
● The concept of rasa is fundamental to many forms of
Indian art including dance, cinema, literature etc.

7. Navarasas
Sringara Hasya Roudra
Karuna Bhevathsa Bhayanaka
Vira Adbhuda Shantha
Sringāra
Rasa Vira Bhevathsa Shantha

8. Shringara
● Shringara means love and beauty.
● color is green
● deity associated Lord vishnu

9. Hasya
● Hasya is basically Laughter, Mirth, Comedy.
● In hasya rasa the color associated is white
● presiding deity is lord ganesha.

10. Raudra
● Raudra is Fury
● color associated is red
● presiding deity is rudra

11. Karunya
● Compassion or tragedy
● Presiding deity is yama
● The color associated is dove color

12. Bhibhatsa
● Disgust or aversion
● Color associated is blue
● Presiding deity is shiva

13. Bhayanaka
● Horror or terror
● Presiding deity is kala
● Color associated black

14. Vira
● Horrific mood
● Presiding deity over this is lord indra
● Color associated is wheatish brown.
Vira expressed in
Kadhakali

15. Athbutha
● Wonder or amazement
● Presiding deity lord Bhrama
● Color associated is yellow.

16. Shantha
● Peace or tranquility
● Presiding deity is again Vishnu
● Color associated white.

17. Hindu Theory of Beauty
● Beauty in Indian literature is usually equated with
rasa. It is the essence of experience
● However used in a philosophical sense it must be
made to cover all aesthetic experience
● These features of subjective experience in a sense
constitute beauty.

18. ● Rasa for the Indian aesthetician includes both the
subjective and the objective features. It is true that
the subjective features are more pronounced that the
objective.
● Indian artists and aestheticians, though very good
appreciators of natural beauty as every page of
Valmiki and Kalidasa and others would show,
usually pay more regard to the creative activity of
the individuals, of man who seeks to realize nature
of God through creative imitation of nature.

19. ● Emotions are classified into nine kinds in Indian
Aesthetics.
● The nine rasas according to Alankara are rati (love),
hasa (humour), soka (pathos), krodha ( anger) ,
utsaha (eagerness), bhaya (fear), jugupsa (disgust),
vismaya ( wonder) and santi (tranquility).
● In painting and in sculpture, in dance and in
Kathakali, we have the importance of expression
clearly and cleverly revealed and utilized.

20. ● The artist, it is said, transfers the rasa that he
experiences and fructifies in his soul to the audience.
He shares it with them. He lives the process.

21. Indian Aesthetics Past and Present
● During mid 1950s, When the newly
independent nations like India were
expected to turn to their past to
reinterpret it a break for conversation
between Indian and western aesthetics
had opened up.
The trident (triśūlābija
maṇḍalam), symbol and
yantra of Parama Shiva,
representing the triadic
energies

22. 1. Abhinavagupta: one of the most
powerfully insightful, deeply
profound and logically-clear
philosophers.
1. M F Husain:He is known for his
emphatic understanding of the human
situation and his speedy evocation of
it in paint.
Some Indian Aestheticians and Aesthetics
Maidens Flight
Oil on Canvas

23. 3. Taj Mahal: The composition of the
forms and lines of the Taj Mahal is
perfectly symmetrical.
4. Akbar Padamsee: His experiments with
the Chinese method of 'ku fu' have lent his
figures a responsive grace.

24. Criticisms
● To begin with, the emotive theory of literary
and artistic meaning, more broadly, that we are
offered is too narrow, at least for us today.
● Not all literature and art is emotive or
expressive of (or portrays) emotions and other
mental states, and some is in fact purely
formalist; nor is expression of mental states the
sole aim of literature and art.

25. ● Pleasure is represented in Indian aesthetics as the
sole aim of art. But such a view of art is clearly too
narrow, for art may also have other aims such as
educational or socio-political ones.

26. ● The Indian context itself provides examples: the
ancient Indian epic poems The Ramayana andThe
Mahabharata not only afford pleasure but also often
give insights into moral issues and human character
and emotions.

27. ● The NatyaSastra specifies many elaborate rules
about drama, pertaining to such things as hand
gestures, bodily movements, gaits, rules of prosody
and different kinds of language, metrical patterns,
diction, modes of address and intonation, kinds of
plays, costumes, make-up, styles, and so on.

28. ● These are often accompanied by many neat
classifications and sub-classifications, reflecting the
ancient Indian excellence.
● One might worry though if such rules might be too
rigid, stifling genuine and revolutionary creativity.

29. ● The Natyasastra makes associations between rasas and
colors. For example, erotic love is said to be light green,
comic laughter white, and so on. For the most part, though,
such connections seem without sufficient justification;
leaving aside such exceptions as fury being red, presumably
the basis of the association here being the color of blood
and also often of raging faces.

30. Learning
● The idea that the success of a performance of a play
is determined by the extent to which cultured
audiences relish its dominant and subordinate rasas.
● Mental states such as moods need not be evoked or
produced in readers (or spectators), per the rasa
theory, but rather the purpose of literary (and artistic)
works is to present emotional situations.

31. ● So that the situation is called up in the reader’s or
spectator’s mind in its fully imagined detail and
is recognized as the situation of a particular
emotion.
● Rasas are thus made available to perception
regardless of whether the corresponding
emotions are actually aroused in the reader
or spectator.

32. ● Also worth noting is the idea that to appreciate a play
or an artwork appropriately, its experience must be
enjoyed, the way suitably disposed diners enjoy food.
Mere cold, cognitive appreciation of a play or an
artwork will not suffice.

33. ● Aesthetic enjoyment is the highest experience of
life and is a kind of contemplative feeling that is
higher than ordinary feelings such as sympathy,
for it is a universalized feeling not tied down to
the particularities it transcends.

34. ● Even though poetry and the arts in general are
emotive discourse according to the rasa theory, a lot
of thinking or intellection is involved in emotional
expression; the alleged opposition between thought
and emotion is a misconception.

35. Thank You