19th October, 2012

Nātya and an Account of Rasa from Bharatamuni’s Nātyashastra

-Utkarsha Kotian

1. What is Nātya?

According to Manmohan Ghosh’s translation of the Nātyashastra (for the Royal Asiatic Society, 1959), western understanding of the word Nātya is usually thought to be Drama. The similarity to the Greek theatre and it’s comparison to Nātyashastra lead to this translation. However, Ghosh mentions in his introduction to the translation that as early as 1890 the western world realised that Indian Nātya is different from the Greek drama. In the reading of Ghosh’s translation of the Nātyashastra; the explanation by Brahma (progenitor of all beings in Vedic mythology) leads us to understand that nātya means performance.

Brahma gives the Daityas an explanation of what nātya is, when they instigated by the Vighnas, attack the first nātya by Bharatamuni’s sons. He says that nātya is simply a depiction of the three worlds (Devlok – world of the benevolent divine beings, Asurlok – world of the evil divine beings and Manushyalok – world of the humans); and its activities. Hence it is not an “exclusive representation”. It is an imitation of all that the beings do and their behaviour. In this sense, Bharatamuni’s narration of the Nātyashastra is similar to the Greek for of theatre which is “mimetic” in nature.

In his description to the Daityas, Brahma tells them the characteristics and the purpose of nātya as well. Nātya, he lists, is a combination of devoutness, wealth, love, violence etc. He says that nātya gives various attributes to support positive behaviour and discourage negative ones.

For example: nātya gives

“the pious behaviour of those who practise religion, the passion of those who indulge in sexual pleasure, the repression of those who go by a wicked path, the act of self restraint of those who are discipline…”

Further, Brahma describes the purpose of nātya to be subjective, depending on the actions (good, bad, indifferent) of the consumer. Hence, what one may derive from the nātya could vary from courage, to restfulness and entertainment to instruction on the conduct to life.

He further states that nātya is not just a performative art but encompasses every aspect of life since every activity is connected to and will be seen in “art, lore and emotions”

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19th October, 2012

Hence, the replication of the behaviour of all, when represented or recreated in a physical form for various purposes, is nātya.

2. Account of Rasa from the reading of the text.

Rasa or the sentiment is one of the main components of nātya. While a literal translation would be “flavour”, Ghosh prefers to call it the sentiment of the nātya. Rasa could also mean to relish, since rasa refers to the pleasure derived out of an act that could be called its theme (sentiment).

There are 8 rasas that Bharatamuni mentions to the sages who ask him “(to) explain how the Sentiments enumerated by experts in dramatic art attain their special qualities”

He lists them as: Erotic (sringara), Comic (hasya), Pathetic (karuna), Furious (raudra), Heroic (vira), Terrible (bhayanaka), Odious (bhibhatsa) and Marvellous (adbhuta). It is out of these rasas or sentiments that the bhava or the emotional states arise.

According to Bharatamuni, without the rasa, all speech is meaningless, since it is the sentiment that adds meaning to any work. A combination of stimulants (vibhava), physical experiences (anubhava) and emotional state (vyabhicari bhava) gives rise to the sentiment.

This he compares to the experience of “relishing” food or deriving the rasa out of food. By a proper combination of spices, vegetables and other food articles, the right taste is acquired and similar in the case of the sentiment.

Hence, just like a connoisseur of food derives pleasure and satisfaction from various combinations of the spices, vegetables etc. that make different dishes; an ideal spectator of nātya derives the rasa out of a performance that has the various combinations of the vibhava, anubhava and vyabhicari bhava.

Later, Bharatamuni explains the co-dependence of the bhava (emotions) with the rasa (sentiments). The rasa he says are derived from the bhava even though popular belief may say they’re born out of mutual contact. He proves this by saying that the sentiment or the theme cannot exist unless the emotion already exists, since the purpose of nātya is to make the spectator feel the bhava (bhavayanti) through the rasa. However, no emotion exists that did not arise from a sentimental experience. Hence, one feels (bhava) astonished because of the underlying sentiment (rasa) of marvellousness.

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19th October, 2012

In further descriptions of the rasa, Bharatamuni elaborates and explains their origins. He says that the main sentiments (rasas) are Erotic, Furious, Heroic and Odious. From these the other four sentiments are derived. So, the Comic comes from Erotic, the Pathetic comes from the Furious, the Marvellous from the Heroic and the Terrible from the Odious.

All the sentiments have their colours that help an actor better portray the rasa. For example, Erotic is light green, Comic is white, Pathetic is grey and so on. Each rasa has a presiding deity, such as Vishnu for the Erotic, Pramatha for Comic, and Yama for Pathetic etc.

To arouse these rasas, Bharatamuni comments on the combination of the stimulants (vibhava) and the physical experience (anubhava). However, though there are forty-nine emotions (bhavas) that contribute to the sentiment (rasa) only the original eight are the rasas. He explains this by a metaphor of how some human beings are better than the others though they all have the same physical attributes. Here he hints at rasa being of higher value of that which is suggested to be an acquired taste.

Hence, if the emotions (bhava) are properly depicted by the actor, the sentiment or rasa of the play is acquired by the spectator giving him the pleasures and the meaning of the nātya.

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