Rasa Theory of Aesthetics

According to the Wisdom of the Mystics in India, Shiva is the Nataraja, the Lord of the World-Play, and the Story of Krishna is a Raas-Lila, the Play of Opposites producing the Rasas/the Pleasure Principles that nurture life. The Wisdom of the Mystics in India clearly looks at the metaphysics of Existence through the prism of aesthetics. It is averred that the Absolute One enacts the eternal phenomenological drama of the infinite pairs of opposites, born or projected out of It.

Not surprisingly, in the Indian critical tradition, unlike in the Greek and the Western, it is the Seer/the Mystic who is not only the creator of great literary works such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, but also the propounder of literary/critical theory. So, we have a whole line of Seer-Critics, beginning with Bharat Muni in the 4th Century AD and Abhinavagupta in the 10th Century AD.

The Rasa theory holds that 'all genuine aesthetic experience is essentially transcendental in nature, stemming from the one and only source of ananda, the divine. For the artiste, it lies in the act of creation and for the spectator it is inherent in the act of observance. And depending on the extent to which a work is imbued with this divine expression, it is deemed to be rich or poor in its degree of aesthetic fulfillment” (The Week, 2009:46).

The imaging of Shiva as the Nataraja is significant in so far as it attributes the birth of all creative/performing arts to the Transcendental Source of Existence. Not surprisingly does the Haloed Bard of India, Kalidasa, say, 'Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram'.

The Rasa theory of Aesthetics is also based on the premise that this Existence was born out of the Executrix Will of the Transcendental Truth Consciousness to derive Bliss out of the interplay of the projected infinite multiple forms. The Artist-Creator imitates this creative process to derive the Bliss of artistic creation in whatsoever medium (s)he wants to express his/her imagination.

Accordingly, the Rasa theory opines that not only does the rasa reside in the artistic depiction, but it is equally experienced by both the artist-creator and the reader-audience. In this respect, the Rasa theory of Bharata Muni is far more advanced and holistic than the theory of catharsis presented in Aristotle's Poetics.