Abhinavagupta's aesthetics as a speculative paradigm.

• Author: Gerow, Edwin

SINCE THE PUBLICATION OF K. C. Pandey's pioneering Indian Aesthetics, one of the leitmotifs of scholarship on Abhinavagupta's remarkable aesthetic theory has been commentary on its "philosophical" basis.(1) The main thrust of this inquiry has borne on Abhinava's own expositions of the Kasmiri Saiva tradition, which provide the necessary background for an assessment of his aesthetics.(2) While not wishing in any way to contest the usefulness of this approach, I have wondered for some time whether it would be equally illuminating to examine the main theses of Abhinava's metaphysics in the light of his aesthetics.(3) In an equally important study, Santarasa and Abhinavagupta's Philosophy of Aesthetics, J. L. Masson and M. V. Patwardhan indirectly acknowledge this approach, when they describe Abhinava's famous tantrika image in terms of its evidently aesthetic (rasika) framework. But in general, they, like Pandey, are more concerned with aesthetics as the dependent term of the relation--the term that profits most from being explained through the other.(4) Interestingly enough, this very choice of a problem creates for Masson and Patwardhan something of a non-problem: they feel they have to ask why an essentially "religious man" such as Abhinava would expend such energy to buttress philosophically his aesthetics. Their answer, that he felt obliged to justify a secular literature in which he felt a "deep interest,"(5) rings false; Abhinava's literary musings do not strike one as apologetic. I think, rather, we may better appreciate Abhinava's problem by asking how a sovereign aesthetics might help a Saiva mystic develop a philosophically accountable notion of the Lord, who is, after all, at play.

The problem we propose accords as well most straightforwardly with the chronology of Abhinava's works accepted by Pandey.(6) On his view, Abhinava's mature period is defined by his two Vimarsinis, which present a fully developed theory of recognition [pratyabhijna]--that the world in its active multiplicity is a real manifestation (spanda) of a single conscious essence.(7) Our task here will be to ask how these works may profitably be read in the light of Abhinava's novel and remarkable aesthetic speculations.(8)

I believe, as do Masson and Patwardhan, that Abhinava's notion of santa rasa ('tranquillity') provides the nexus through which the relation between philosophy and aesthetics is characteristically developed. Santa rasa, indeed, occurs at the cutting edge of the issue we are both concerned with. But while they seem content to view this unprecedented ninth rasa as the philosophical "buttress" that the aesthetic theory needs, I will again(9) concentrate on the paradox that it implies, both for Abhinava's aesthetics and his metaphysics. The ninth rasa is a rasa in a different sense than the other eight of the tradition. To assert it as a rasa involves an aesthetic paradox, for while the eight rasas are clearly understood as modifications(10) of the basic emotional constituents [bhava] of our mundane personality, the new rasa implies rather a suppression of those very constituents: it is a state untroubled by emotion of any sort. That is why, of course, the discussion of santa rasa, in the Indian texts, is chiefly an inquiry into its sthayin, that is, is an effort to discover the bhava that may without contradiction be assigned to it, and of which it is a "modification." If it should appear that santa rasa has, in fact, no corresponding bhava, then its status as a rasa would not only be paradoxical in explanation, but impossible of manifestation--something like a "hare's horn."(11) I will discuss Abhinava's solution to this paradox below, as well as Masson's and Patwardhan's account of his solution, but first, I want to point out that santa rasa poses also a paradox, in an even greater sense, for Abhinavagupta's philosophical thesis.

Santa rasa, all agree, derives its pretext from the fourth purusartha ('life goal'): moksa, 'liberation.' But santa rasa, if indeed it functions as claimed by Abhinava, and is accomplished in the terms he proposes, would appear to possess the attributes of moksa, the supreme goal of life, and thus becomes either a synonym of moksa, or renders the latter notion superfluous. In either case, the boundary between "art" and "reality" (which is as important to Abhinava as it is to Aristotle) would disappear, and metaphysics would in effect have been reduced to aesthetics. There are several ways of stating the implications of this unpalatable reduction, but one of them is that the view thus sketched appears too close to that of the Bengali Vaisnavas: aesthetics has become, not a theory of beauty, but a formula for action--a practical ethic that does in fact not only improve us but fundamentally alters our condition. To see such a view already implied in Abhinava is not only anachronistic, but conflicts with several positions Abhinava clearly adopts, and which seem central both to his poetics and his metaphysics: for instance, that pleasure [ananda] is the predominant mode of aesthetic experience, not instruction [sasana, vidhi];(12) that the locus of the aesthetic experience in its primary form is the contemplative spectator, not the working actor (to say nothing of the author);(13) and most importantly, that rasasvada and brahmasvada are analogically related, but differentiable, experiences.(14)

For these reasons and others, santa rasa represents a challenge to Abhinava's philosophical position, as well as to his aesthetics. Because he cannot be equated with the activist Vaisnavas, he must be understood as somehow distinguishing santa and moksa. In this sense, his metaphysics does in fact depend on the solution to a problem that is "aesthetic"--the reality paradox of santa rasa (vis-a-vis moksa) depends on resolving satisfactorily the aesthetic paradox of santa (vis-a-vis the other rasas). Abhinava's solution, I would claim, is ingenious, for he turns these twin paradoxes to his advantage: the paradoxes themselves contribute to his philosophical argument.

Moksa, indeed, gives opportunity to santa rasa, and the ambiguity of the rasa vis-a-vis the other rasas is in part a function of the ambiguity of the purusartha vis-a-vis the other purusarthas. Recognizing this parallelism constitutes the first step in confronting the paradox. To the prima facie objection that santa does not belong to the realm of art at all, because the "absence of affection" is not worth representing and cannot be enjoyed, Abhinava replies that it would be unusual if one of the four purusarthas--and the most important, by all accounts--were so different from the others, in terms of its grounding in the human psyche, that it could not be seen as arising out of the human condition, and be incapable of appreciation in some sense. Just as the rasa srngara is grounded on the fact of "passion" [rati], and its appreciation involves a certain generalization and depersonalization of that common experience (which is evidently linked to the purusartha kama [desire]), so it seems likely that the phenomenon of moksa is competent to sustain our fascination, especially as it already involves, as its essence, a certain kind of depersonalization and generalization of experience.(15) But this likelihood is grounded on a very abstract notion of rasa and purusartha; if santa is to be defended as a rasa, it must be shown concretely in the same psychological nexus as the other rasas--which means, in fine, that it must be shown in proper and essential relationship to a concrete experience [bhava], of which it is a pleasurable modification. If we can answer the question: what is its bhava? then the ancillary questions: how is it represented? [what are its vibhavas] and what are its dramatic effects? [what are its anubhavas] will be readily answerable. But it seems that we have simply restated the aesthetic paradox.

Abhinava concludes, after a very intricate argument, that the bhava, or concrete experience, on which santa rasa depends is none other than the "Self" itself:(16) the atman, understood both as the permanent background(17) against which all transient experiences (including the other rasas) are projected, and as the object of that experience which consists of total clarity and perspicuity [tattvajnana]. But the atman is also both the mode (as tattvajnana) and the object of the tapasvin, the mumuksu. Is then the aesthetic experience that which the yogin realizes? Or, is it art that provides the via facilior which then obviates the arduous journey of the yogin?(18) If, like Plato, Abhinava has, at this point, collapsed the distinction,(19) it is at the cost of the problems already noted. He seems to suggest this by referring approvingly to Gautama's view that tattvajnana is a recognized stage in the achievement of moksa.(20) And as well, by pointing to the well-known yogic stages of yama and niyama as perhaps "helping" in the portrayal of santa rasa.(21) Yet this is an appearance only. Since Abhinava cannot be reasonably seen to have abandoned the distinction between "art" and "life," we are obliged to understand what he has in fact done by putting santa rasa in the deadly serious context of salvation; to wit: the metaphysical paradox.

All roads thus converge on Abhinava's notion of santa rasa. To resume: it is a rasa essentially different from the other rasas, pointing us toward philosophy; yet as having a psychic configuration similar to that of moksa, it risks, by its generality and ease, to make salvation "aesthetic." In aesthetic terms, it appears to lead us away from aesthetics; in philosophical terms, it appears to make philosophy unnecessary. If we can see that these conundra are versions of the same problem, perhaps we will get closer to Abhinava's meaning. By all accounts, not only does Abhinava's aesthetics infringe upon the matter of his philosophy, but his account of philosophical matters is distinctly "aesthetic."...