A Rasa Reader: Classical Indian Aesthetics.

AuthorGerow, Edwin
PositionBook review

A Rasa Reader: Classical Indian Aesthetics. By SHELDON POLLOCK. New York: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2016. Pp. xxiv + 442. S80.

Let it be said at the outset that this is a work of immense erudition, bringing together and translating excerpts from some thirty texts of various periods, along with indigenous commentaries, many of them obscure, treating in some way of what has come to be thought of as the central concept of Indian "aesthetics," rasa--a term that the author wisely does not attempt to translate. The result is a comprehensive historical survey of the term as its significance evolves over time. The work, however, does not enter into any proto-historical speculations that may have formed the Indian aesthetic consciousness in the pre-Classical period, nor does it venture into the post-medieval, or for want of a better word, modern understandings of rasa, such as they may be. This is strictly a compendium based on the elevated Sanskrit of the Classical period and on the writings of those refined spirits (Brahmins all, one must presume) who cultivated the "language of the Gods."

The work is prefaced by a forty-five page introduction, entitled "An Intellectual History of Rasa," and the various translations are themselves prefaced by introductory remarks that focus on the specific contribution made by the following translation to the general subject or on the point of view of its author as it reflects facets of the subject. A six-page glossary of Pollock's preferred translations of Sanskrit technical terminology is followed by eighty-seven pages of notes, which, to preserve some semblance of brevity, are renumbered for each chapter. A ten-page bibliography (1) and a rather selective index of twelve pages complete the work. The immense labor and acumen that have gone into this book need no further comment.

In a work of such extensive scope it is pointless to enter into specific quibbles as to how this or that translation should be judged or this or that matter better treated. Some general remarks are however possible that focus on the plan of the work, its intended audience, and the presuppositions that underlie a selective survey of this sort.

First, it is apparent that in choosing to avoid diacritics for the many Sanskrit names occurring in the bulk of the work, and to respell them as suits the impoverished English alphabet, and to "translate" the many orotund titles of the Sanskrit works at issue, Pollock is aiming his work chiefly at a non-specialist audience, unused to or impatient of foreign exotica. This is sometime humorous, as "Necklace for the Goddess of Language" (Sarasvatikanthabharana), sometimes confusing, as "Light on Implicature" (Dhvanyaloka), but always irritating to the Sanskritist who may be perusing these pages for whatever reason. Titles that appear in other titles, however, are...

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