The concept of Rasa

1. What makes the concept of ‘rasa’ critical to understanding Sanskrit drama?  Compare and contrast this notion of stimulation of select emotional states by performance to the Western notion of catharsis.

"Rasa" describes the emotional theme surrounding a performance or the emotional state that the performers strive to instill in the audience. Rasa is the "soul of poetry" (Sunil, p 6), and is essential to Sanskrit drama as a spiritual experience for both the performers and the audience.
Rasa is a complex concept that can be imagined as the emotional experience that the creator of the art, or performance, passes to the audience. The creator or the performer becomes overwhelmed by an emotion, and if the performer is skillful in his presentation the audience will feel the same emotional state. This emotional experience can be associated with the pleasure, delight, or experience of art.
According to Bharata, the emotional experience or "essence" of art can be divided into 49 different emotional aspects (including general emotional states, "accessories", and involuntary physical reflexes), which together form Rasa (Sunil, p. 2). Thus, we can see that Rasa is very complex, combining multiple emotional experiences to form a generalized state of emotion in the performers, the characters, and the audience members. Through the shared Rasa of a performance, the audience feels connected with the performance, causing it to come to life.
The stimulus by which emotions are activated is referred to as Vibhava. These stimuli invoke emotions and result in external manifestations of emotion in the audience members. Similar to the Western concept of catharsis in theater, this occurs when the audience feels so connected to the emotional mood of the performance that members experience emotions similar to the characters', which are manifest through laughter, crying, etc. Catharsis, which refers to a sort of "emotional cleansing", also occurs when audience members feel connected to the emotion of a performance and experience an emotional response. The idea of catharsis indicates a change in the emotional state of the audience, which can lead to a release of emotions caused by the emotional events of the performance rather than an emotional stimulus in audience members' own lives.
I believe catharsis to be an important aspect of performance, and art in a more general sense as well. Often, the emotional experience of art forms the basis for its appeal. Through art we can experience something unique and special, leaving us changed in some way or another. Similarly, the concept of Rasa creates an experience for the audience members through the performers' portrayal of emotion that lasts beyond the time frame of the performance.


Jenna Barclay