Rasa

I have been reading about this viewer-response theory of art called rasa in Vidya Dehejia's Indian Art book and I find it so fascinating. According to Dehejia, the concept originated some 1,500 years ago and was written in Bharata's work titled Natya shastra (which means "Science of Dance"). Basically, when it comes to art, "aesthetic experience rests not with the work of art, nor with the artist who created it, but with the viewer." The responsive viewer is called rasika.

Dehejia goes on and says, "Literally, rasa means the juice or extract of a fruit or vegetable; it implies the best or finest part of a thing. In the aesthetic context, rasa refers to a state of heightened awareness evoked by the contemplation of a work of art, drama, poetry, music or dance. A performance is criticized as ni-rasa (without rasa) or praised as rasavat (imbued with rasa)."

Further on: "The erotic sentiment of shringara, described as king of rasas, has a high visibility in the fine arts. The other eight rasas are the comic or hasya, the pathetic or karuna, the furious or raudra, the heroic or vira, the terrible or bhayanaka, the odious or bibhatasa, the wondrous or adbhuta and the quiescent or shanta."

In the context of Indian history, Dehejia writes, "The cultivation of rasa seems to have been an intellectual and emotional experience that was completely available to only the sophisticated segment of the population."

It occurs to me that most people today have the opportunity to experience this heightened awareness just by reading a book or watching a play or staring at a piece of art and so many do not appear to take advantage of it. I wonder if so many of the people who appear to me to be very shallow and unquestioning, even sometimes unfeeling, could really be so. If fewer people than I think are really so shallow, unquestioning, and unfeeling, then too often people put on unbecoming charades.

I wish I knew more people who are forthright about their appreciation for thought-provoking art and who could shed some light on their own awareness of life and the world. Am I really so different a kind of creature that few others feel the way I do?

Sometimes I am tempted to say, like Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote in The Autobiography of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "I am not made like anyone I have seen; I dare believe I am not made like anyone existing. If I am not better, at least I am quite different. Whether Nature has done well or ill in breaking the mould she cast me in, can be determined only after having read me." Yet, I do not think I could say this with a conscience, because my sole proof for saying it would be, as it appears Rousseau's sole proof was, that I have not met anyone quite like myself. Just because there is no proof that something exists, whether it be another being like myself or something else, does not ergo mean that it does not exist.

Back to the subject of rasa, I find it intriguing to try applying the concept to life in general. The aesthetic experience of life really rests in the person taking action and living that life not the person watching this other life. Then, again, who is to say that the beauty of one life does not lie in another's perception of it? Hmm...