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The Power of Suggestion: Rasa, Dhvani, and the Ineffable

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Abstract

There is no denying the difficulty of expressing in words the meanings behind complex emotions. If they cannot be conveyed because they are personal and private, then how are they conveyed when they are neither entirely private nor personal, as in the case of generalized emotions, or the rasa experience? In Ānandavardhana’s Dhvanyāloka, we find a theory of suggestion (dhvani) which can be expanded beyond poetics to account for the evocative nature of emotion outside of all other modes of expression. The result of dhvani in art experiences is the manifestation of aestheticized emotions (rasadhvani). When language serves art, it neither negates nor dispenses with linguistic apprehension. Rather, it delivers more than language can: the ineffable essence of the subject who experiences love, compassion, grief, the comic, and more, including quietude. I argue the question of the sentient subject is conveyed all the better in aesthetic suggestion, precisely because whether or not an artistic construction makes use of linguistic devices, the arts, whether they be theater, dance, or poetry, defies the confines of language. The ineffable subject is made tangible, in ordinary as well as extraordinary ways.

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Notes

  1. In the book Strange Tools, Alva Noë makes a case for the reverse, that art-experiences lead directly to knowledge. However, his position is critiqued by the Kant scholar, Paul Guyer, on precisely this point. Noë 2016, and Paul Guyer, “Alva Noë, Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 94 (1):230–237 (2017)

  2. As Abhinavagupta reports in the Abhinavabhāratī. Muni and Abhinavagupta,1970, Pollock2010, and Pollock, 2018, 75

  3. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment. Kant and Pluhar2010

  4. Lawrence McCrea makes a powerful exposition of the underlying tension between the two divergent paths of philosophy of language in Sanskrit aesthetics. See “Two Cultures of Meaning” Handbook of Indian Aesthetics, Chakrabarti, ed. Chakrabarti 2016

  5. Ānandavardhana, Dhvanyāloka, Krishnamoorthy1955, with Abhinavagupta’s commentary, the Locanā, Ānandavardhana & Abhinavagupta, Ingalls, Masson and Patwardhan1989

  6. The Anirvacanīyavādins, 11.2.3, 12.3

  7. Here, sahṛdaya, taken as “elitist” is out of context. It makes clear the challenge as a philosophical one, though. For the original context of sahṛdaya (sensitive reader) see the Locana, 4.16, p 721 in Ingalls trans.

  8. Philosopher Thomas Nagel posed the question “What it is like to be a bat” as a challenge to our ability to generalize about radically different experiences, which naturally follow from differences in modes of perception. In human experiences, the more esoteric an experience is, the greater the difficulty there is in expressing it in language. Professor Timalsina comments on a similar problem in the context of the esoteric Tantric tradition and contemporary cognitive theory. He claims: “Even when metaphoric expression of something uncommon is considered possible, the description of mystical experience will be something similar to describing ‘sweet’ love to someone who is aware of only sweet mangos.” In “Metaphor, Rasa, and Dhvani: Suggested Meaning in Tantric Esotericism” by Sthaneshwar Timalsina Method and Theory in the Study of Religion (2007) 134–162

  9. Locana, 2.4. Ingalls trans. p. 226. See also Gnoli 1956 p. XXIV

  10. According to Ingalls, “Abhinava chose the title Locana for his commentary on the Sahrdayāloka (Dhvanyāloka) because he intended it to serve as an “eye” by which one could see the “light for connoisseurs” which Ananda had furnished.” 33

  11. In the Nāṭyaśāstra, the following rasas are clearly articulated with varying degrees of import in dramatic production and predominance in theatrical performance: karuṇa (compassion), śṛṅgāra (erotic), abhuta (wonder), bibhasta (odious), bhyānaka (terror), raudra (ferocious), vīrara (heroic), and hāsya (comic), and śāntarasa (tranquility or quietude), vigorously defended by Abhinavagupta in the Abhinavabhāratī VI, (c. 950–100) a commentary on Bharata’s Nāṭyaśāstra. It is where we find the specifics of and fragmentary references to the lost work of Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka, Sahṛdayadarpaṇa.

  12. The Rasa Sūtra is an aphorism that sums up their logic as follows: Rasa arises from the combination of three necessary conditions: (1) determining factors (vibhāvas), (2) consequents (anubhāvas), and (3) transient emotions (vyabhicāribhāvas). (Vibhāvānubhāvavyabhicārīsamyogād rasạ nispattiḥ / Nātỵaśāstra, 6.32.).

  13. Dhvanyāloka 3.10

  14. Ekman 2005, 45–60.

  15. Prinz 2004, 69–88.

  16. Aesthetic Rapture is the name of J.L. Masson and M.V. Patwardhan’s translation of the Rasādhāya of the Nāṭyaśāstra

  17. K. C. Bhattacharyya, “The Concept of Rasa” offers a radically precise conception of first personal emotions, second personal emotions, and rasa, in contrast to more recent conceptions of aesthetic emotion. See Bhattacharyya 2011

  18. Krishnamoorthy, 196–7

  19. Dhvanyāloka, Uddyota III, 32.7

  20. Rastogi: Perspectives on Abhinava

  21. V. Raghavan 1973, Studies on Some Concepts of the Alaṃkāra Śāstra. p. 293–6

  22. See Rastogi n.d, p. 430

  23. Bharata claims: “just as a tree grows from a seed, and flowers and fruits from the tree, so the relationship holds between the bhāvas and rasas” (Nātỵaśāstra, 6 .38)

  24. Amaldass, Anand. 1984Philosophical Implications of Dhvani, 26

  25. Amaladass, Anand. 1984 (99) Philosophical Implications of Dhvani, remarks on pratyabhijñāta in Dhvanyāloka

  26. 1.8 Ingalls trans. P.125

  27. tena jñātasyāpi viśeṣato nirūpaṇamanusandhānātmakamatra pratyabhijñaṃ, na tu tadevedamityetāvanmātram / Locana 1.8

  28. See: P. G. Winch (1953): “The Notion of ‘Suggestion” In Thomas Reid’s Theory of Perception” pp. 327–341

  29. Reid 2015Inquiry, II, 7

  30. Reid, Thomas 2015Inquiry, Ch. VI, Sect. 20.

  31. Ibid II, Sect. 7

  32. Inquiry, II, 8

  33. Inquiry, Ch. II, Sect.

  34. Reid claims “sensation naturally suggests basic notions of present existence; memory suggests past existence; and our sensations and thoughts also suggest the notion of a mind, and the belief that it exists and relates in a certain way to our thoughts.” (Inquiry, II.7).

  35. The “mystics” in question include Coleridge and Wordsworth. See Della Volpe, Critique of Taste. p. 15–16

  36. Ibid, 18; Francesco Petrarca, Canzoniere CCXXXVII

  37. Aucityavicāracarcā

  38. Deutsch 1975, in Studies in Comparative Aesthetics, p. 19

  39. Seneca, (On Anger) De Ira, Book II.

  40. Abhinavabhāratī VI.

  41. The experience of the marvelous (adbhutabhoga) has an inherent relation to wonder through the surprise that accompanies a flash of insight (pratibhā). Thus, in seeking epistemic value, the value of “Wonder,” ought to be first in the rasas we examine. It perhaps has a relation to every rasa experience. Pandey et al. 2013

  42. Chakrabarti, Arindam 2005, “Heart of Repose, The Repose of the Heart: A Phenomenological Analysis of the Concept of Viśrānti”

  43. It is claimed: “This someone observes as a wonder; similarly another speaks of This as a wonder; another hears This as wonder; but even after hearing, not even one understands the true nature of This [ātman].” For an alternate translation, see Boris Marjanovic, Abhinavagupta's Commentary on the Bhagavad Gītā: Gītārtha-Saṁgraha. Rudra Press, 2006.

  44. NS 1.108–116, Muni Ghosh 1956

  45. Nāṭyaśāstra, 7.1. In the analysis, Bharata claims it is synonymous with bhāvitaḥ, kṛta, and vāsita.

    See also Arindam Chakrabarti, Bloomsbury, Introduction

  46. Chakrabarti 2016, Bloomsbury Intro., p. 5

  47. Ibid. Chakrabarti p.3

  48. [The arts are] a refinement of the self (ātma-saṃskṛti). Aitareya Brahmana, 6:27, ca. 1000 BCE

  49. Ingalls trans. 1278/253

  50. S. Timalsina, p. 153

  51. Deutsch 1975, in Studies in Comparative Esthetics

  52. Locana 2.4

  53. Picturing emotions as cognitive judgments has become a paradigm of neo-Stoicism. See Nussbaum, Martha C. 2008. Upheavals of thought: the intelligence of emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. and Boruah, Bijoy H. Fiction and Emotion: A study in esthetics and the philosophy of mind. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002. See also, De Sousa 1990.

  54. S. Timalsina Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 19 (2007) 134–162, p. 152

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2580 Dole St, Honolulu, HI, 96822, USA

    Lisa Widdison

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Widdison, L. The Power of Suggestion: Rasa, Dhvani, and the Ineffable. DHARM 2, 1–14 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42240-019-00032-3

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