Natyashastra artist expressing emotions on stage. Vaachikabhinaya is an important part of Yakshagana. Rasa theory blossoms beginning with the
Sanskrit text
Nātyashāstra (
nātya meaning "drama" and
shāstra meaning "science of"), a work attributed to
Bharata Muni where the Gods declare that drama is the 'Fifth Veda' because it is suitable for the
degenerate age as the best form of religious instruction. The Nātyashāstra presents the aesthetic concepts of rasas and their associated bhāvas in chapters six and seven, respectively, which appear to be independent of the work as a whole. Eight rasas and associated bhāvas are named, and their enjoyment is likened to savoring a meal: rasa is the enjoyment of flavors that arise from the proper preparation of ingredients and the quality of ingredients.
Kashmiri aestheticians The theory of the rasas develops significantly with the Kashmiri aesthetician
Ãnandavardhana's classic on poetics, the Dhvanyāloka which introduces the ninth rasa,
shānta-rasa as a specifically religious feeling of peace (
śānta) which arises from its bhāva, weariness of the pleasures of the world. The primary purpose of this text is to refine the literary concept
dhvani or poetic suggestion, by arguing for the existence of
rasa-dhvani, primarily in forms of Sanskrit including a word, sentence or whole work "suggests" a real-world emotional state or bhāva, but thanks to
aesthetic distance, the sensitive spectator relishes the rasa, the aesthetic flavor of tragedy, heroism or romance. The 9th - 10th century master of the religious system known as "the nondual Shaivism of Kashmir" (or
Kashmir Shaivism) and aesthetician,
Abhinavagupta brought rasa theory to its pinnacle in his separate commentaries on the Dhvanyāloka, the Dhvanyāloka-locana (translated by Ingalls, Masson and Patwardhan, 1992) and the Abhinavabharati, his commentary on the
Nātyashāstra, portions of which are translated by Gnoli and Masson and Patwardhan. Abhinavagupta offers for the first time a technical definition of rasa, which is the universal bliss of the Self or
Atman colored by the emotional tone of a drama.
Inclusion of bhakti In the literary compositions, the emotion of bhakti as a feeling of adoration towards God was long considered only a minor feeling fit only for stotras, but not capable of being developed into a separate rasa as the sole theme of a whole poem or drama. In the tenth century, it was still struggling, and
Abhinavagupta mentions bhakti in his commentary on the
Natya Shastra, as an important accessory sentiment of the shanta rasa, which he strove with great effort to establish. However, just as Shanta slowly attained a state of primacy that it was considered the rasa of sasas, bhakti also soon began to loom large and, despite the lukewarmness of the great run of alankarikas, had the service of some distinguished advocates, including
Tyagaraja. It is the
Bhagavata that gave the great impetus to the study of bhakti from an increasingly aesthetic point of view.
Attention to rasas Poets like
Kālidāsa were attentive to rasa, which blossomed into a fully developed aesthetic system. Even in contemporary India, the term
rasa denoting "flavor" or "essence," is used colloquially to describe the aesthetic experiences in films. ==The Navarasas==