SCIENCE AND LIBRAL ARTS

 SLA-1 COMPARATIVE AESTHETICS

Nov. 15-19, 2021

 

Name: Himanshu Rai                                     Discipline: Transportation and Automobile Design

Design Semester: 1^st Semester                       Batch: 2021

 Grade:

Discuss the purpose of aesthetic in the light of Rasa and Bhava and the idea of sublimity. (Word limit 1000)

RASA: Actors and dancers were taught the facial characteristics of the nine emotions to be able to create an exaggerated face and therefore invoke emotion in the audience that correlated to the drama. The lists of rasas are love/attraction, laughter, anger, compassion/sorrow, disgust, fear/terror, courage/valor, wonder/surprise, and the ninth is peacefulness. Western science has found that there are nine root affects (though some scientists use only six). The nine affects are interest-excitement, enjoyment-joy, surprise-startle, fear-terror, distress-anguish, anger-rage, dis-smell, disgust, and shame-humiliation. These affects show up in the facial expression of infants and are cross-culturally common to all humans. When talking about rasas in Indian context we have:  (1) Shringar rasa which has been given the highest honor ever since the beginning of poetics. In the words of Bharata whatever Is sacred placid, pure, and worth & seeing can be compared to Sringar rasa and 'No other rasa is capable of producing the bliss of pleasure which the shringar rasa does. (2) Karuna Rasa: Karuna (pathos) is much more pleasurable because of its unusual power to meet the human heart and only a competent poet with a profound understanding of the human heart and of the mysterious realm of words can make his theme come to life and evoke the sentiment of pathos Karuna rasa- The loss of the desired and obtainment of underired are the cause of Karuna rasa. Grief (soka) is its sthayibhava (3) Hasya rasa : the comic (hasya) sentiment has as it basis the dominant emotion of laughter. This is created by the vibhavas such as showing unseemly dress or ornaments, impudence, greediness, quarrel, defective limbs, etc. throbbing of the lips, the nose and the cheek, perspration, colour of face etc. are anubhavas. (4) Raudra rasa: The sthayibhava of raudra rasa is anger Krodha. The alambana vibhava are anger, rape, abuse, insult, threatening, jealousy, etc. beating, breaking crushing, cutting, etc. are unddipana vibhavas. The Red eyes, knitting of eyebrows, bitting of lips, pressing one hand with other are the anubhavas (5) Vira rasa: the sthavibhava or vira rasa is zeal (utsaha). Perseverance, diplomacy, discipline, military strength, etc. are vibhavas. Firmness, patience, heroism, are anubhavas. Contentment, judgment, pride agitation, energy ferocity, etc. are vyabhicaribhavas. (6) Bhayanaka rasa: Fear is the sthayibhava of this sentiment. Hideous noise, the sight of ghosts, panic and anxiety, the sight of death, etc. are vibhavas. Anubhavas are trembling of hands and feet, change of colour and loss of voice (7) Bibhastsa rasa: Its sthayibhava is disgust. The vibhavas are hearing of unpleasant, offensive, Impure and harmful things. Anubhavas are stopping the movement of all the limbs. Narrowing down of the mouth vomitting, pitting, etc (8) Adbhuta rasa· Astonishment is the sthayibhava, sight of heavenly beings or events, attainment of desired objects, seeing a magical act are the vibhavas. Wide opening of eyes, tears of joy, littering words of appribation, etc. are anubhavas. (9) Santa Rasa: Nirveda is its sthayibhava. Reason showing this world is false and full of illusions are vibhavas. The struggles of saintly and meditative individuals are anubhavas. Anxiety, delight, etc. are the vyabicaribhava.

BHAVA: There is a trigger, or a condition which excites the affect, which is called a vibhāva. This vibhāva is the cause (kāraṇa) of the affect (bhāva). It is composed of the excitant (uddīpana– that which inflames) and the supportive perception (ālambana). For example, the trigger (vibhāva) for shame might be having a cheap and old outfit at a gathering of people in expensive attire. The perception that one needs to have expensive attire is required to generate the sense of shame associated with the cheap attire. The cheap attire would be the excitant (uddīpana) while the perception that expensive attire is needed is the supportive perception (ālambana). Most forms of western psychology put a large emphasis on the affect and emotions. Āyurvedic psychology places more emphasis on the supportive perception (ālambana). Eight variations were described and considered to be indicative of an affect (bhāva). These were described as rigidity/paralysis (stambha), perspiration (sveda), hair follicle change (romāñca), deviation of voice (svara-vikāra), trembling (vepathu), and change in skin tone (varṇavikāra), shedding tears (aśru), and loss of sense or consciousness (pralaya). Western science has taken these aspects of the body’s experience of affect to a very deep level and has also been studying micro-movements of the facial muscles. These physical traits and facial movements have indicated how the other emotions arise from these root nine emotions. Indian science has developed these affects in the realm of drama and poetry. A poem or story will take a long time elaborating the full experience of an affect-emotion.

SUBLIME: Scholars have debated the term ‘sublime’ in the field of aesthetics for centuries. Many more artists, writers, poets and musicians have sought to evoke or respond to it. But what is the sublime? Is it a thing, a feeling, an event or a state of mind? The word, of Latin origin, means something that is ‘set or raised aloft, high up’. The sublime is further defined as having the quality of such greatness, magnitude or intensity, whether physical, metaphysical, moral, aesthetic or spiritual, that our ability to perceive or comprehend it is temporarily overwhelmed. The sublime focuses on such terms as darkness, obscurity, privation, vastness, magnificence, loudness and suddenness, and that our reaction is defined by a kind of pleasurable terror. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the sublime was associated in particular with the immensity or turbulence of Nature and human responses to it. Consequently, in Western art, ‘sublime’ landscapes and seascapes, especially those from the Romantic period, often represent towering mountain ranges, deep chasms, violent storms and seas, volcanic eruptions or avalanches which, if actually experienced, would be life threatening. Other themes relate to the epic and the supernatural as described in drama, poetry and fiction, for example, by Homer, Dante, Milton, Shakespeare, as well as more contemporary authors, such as Byron and Mary Shelley. Arguably the greatest source of the sublime for European art is the Bible, which begins with the creation of the world and ends with apocalypse and the Last Judgment and Indian context is Ramayana and Mahabharata.