Sahitya-kaumudi by Baladeva Vidyabhushana
by Gaurapada Dāsa | 2015 | 234,703 words
Baladeva Vidyabhusana’s Sahitya-kaumudi covers all aspects of poetical theory except the topic of dramaturgy. All the definitions of poetical concepts are taken from Mammata’s Kavya-prakasha, the most authoritative work on Sanskrit poetical rhetoric. Baladeva Vidyabhushana added the eleventh chapter, where he expounds additional ornaments from Visv...
Text 4.42
यथा,
yathā,
This is an example of śānta-rasa (peacefulness):
vayo jīrṇaṃ hā dhik tad api na hi jīrṇo mada-bharaḥ ślathaṃ carmāṅgebhyas tad api na rāgaḥ ślatha iva |
radāḥ śīrṇās tad api na hi mohaḥ katham ayam janaḥ kaṃsārāteś caraṇa-kamalāya spṛhayatu ||
vayaḥ—age; jīrṇam—is old; hā—alas; dhik—fie; tad api—nevertheless; na hi—not indeed; jīrṇaḥ—worn out; mada-bharaḥ—the burden of overweening pride; ślatham—loose; carma—the skin; aṅgebhyaḥ—from the limbs; tad api—nevertheless; na—not; rāgaḥ—material attachment; ślathaḥ iva—as if slackened; radāḥ—the teeth; śīrṇāḥ—broken; tad api—nonetheless; na hi—not indeed; mohaḥ—bewilderment; katham—why?; ayam janaḥ—this person; kaṃsa-ārāteḥ—of Kṛṣṇa (“Kaṃsa’s enemy”); caraṇa-kamalāya—for the lotus feet; spṛhayatu—should long.
Ha! The life span has become worn-out, not so the burden of overweening pride. Gosh, the skin from the limbs has slackened, not so the material attachments. And the teeth are broken, but not the illusions! Why? This person should long for Kṛṣṇa’s lotus feet. (Alaṅkāra-kaustubha 5.25)
atra nirvedaḥ sthāyī. saṃsāra-duḥkham ālambanam. puṇya-tīrthādy uddīpanam. bhogānāsaktir anubhāvaḥ. maty-ādiḥ sañcārī. nanu dāsya-sakhya-vātsalyākhyās trayo rasāḥ pare santy anubhūyante ca taj-jñais tataḥ katham atra navaiveti cet, satyam, tathāpi nātra te nirūpyante, “navaiva rasāḥ, pare tu bhāvāḥ” iti svatantrecchena muninā paribhāṣaṇāt.
Here nirveda (being disgusted with material life) is the sthāyi-bhāva (the foundational mood). The misery of material life is the ālambana (the viṣaya, the object of the sthāyī). A virtuous tīrtha (a holy place or a holy person) and so on are the uddīpanas (stimulus). Nonattachment to material enjoyment is the anubhāva (reaction). The vyabhicāri-bhāvas are mati (ascertaining a meaning based on the scriptures) and so on.
Someone might wonder: “Three other rasas, namely dāsya (being a servant), sakhya (being a friend), and vātsalya (being an affectionate superior), exist, and they are experienced by those who know them, so why are only nine stated here?” It’s true, those rasas are experienced, nonetheless they are not described here on account of this dictum by Bharata Muni, who had an independent will: “There are only nine rasas. The others are bhāvas.”
Commentary:
Those three—dāsya, sakhya, and vātsalya—are included in Mammaṭa’s rati (4.47). At the beginning[1] and at the end[2] of his chapter on rasa, Bharata Muni only states eight rasas. There are two recensions of Nāṭya-śāstra. In the interpolated passages between 6.82 and 6.83 of the thirty-seven chapter recension, śānta is said to be the ninth rasa.[3] In the thirty-six chapter recension, however, there is no interpolation.
Besides, in that interpolation, nirveda is only mentioned as a vyabhicāri-bhāva of śānta-rasa, and the sthāyī of śānta is said to be śama.[4] Dhanañjaya only listed eight sthāyi-bhāvas and added that śama is not relevant in dramaturgy.[5]
Rūpa Gosvāmī agrees with Bharata Muni and Viśvanātha Kavirāja[6] by stating that śama is the sthāyi-bhāva of śānta. Rūpa Gosvāmī echoes Viśvanātha Kavirāja’s interpretation of śama.[7] Kṛṣṇa defines śama in this way: śamo man-niṣṭhatā buddheḥ, “When the intelligence is focused on Me, that is śama” (Bhāgavatam 11.19.36).
Udbhaṭa (c. 800 CE) was the first poetical rhetorician to list śānta as a rasa (Kāvyālaṅkāra-sāra-saṅgraha 4.4). Rudraṭa was the first to mention a sthāyi-bhāva for it: samyag-jñāna (proper knowledge) (Kāvyālaṅkāra 15.15).[8] Later, Abhinavagupta clearly stated that nirveda is indicative of śānta-rasa.[9] He was the first to mention nirveda as its sthāyī.[10]
Dr. Sushil Kumar De writes:
It is extremely doubtful if śānta as rasa is at all accepted by Bharata, for the genuineness of the portion of the text of the Nāṭya-śāstra in which the mention of śānta as a rasa occurs is certainly not beyond question. In all the four editions of Bharata’s work (Grosset, Kāvya-mālā, Kāshī and Gaekwad), the enumeration of only eight Rasas, excluding the ninth, śānta, occurs at the outset of ch. 6; and an elaborate treatment of these eight Rasas, with their corresponding sthāyins, vibhāvas, etc., their color and deity, follows. It may be noted that Kālidāsa (Vikram. ii.8) credits Bharata with the mention of eight (not nine) Rasas. It is only in the Gaekwad edition that the text on śānta occurs, at the end of ch. 6, and speaks of śānta as the ninth rasa. The additional text on śānta is commented upon by Abhinavagupta and appears to have been known to Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka. Abhinava makes an elaborate attempt to meet the objections against śānta and establish it as a rasa.[11]
This is Mammaṭa’s illustration of śānta-rasa,
ahau vā hāre vā kusuma-śayane vā dṛṣadi vā maṇau vā loṣṭe vā balavati ripau vā sudṛdi vā |
tṛṇe vā straiṇe vā mama samadṛśo yānti divasāḥ kvacit puṇyāraṇye śiva śiva śiveti pralapataḥ ||“Having an equal eye toward a snake and a necklace, a flower bed and a slab of stone, a gem and a clump of earth, a powerful enemy and a friend, and grass and the grassy part of a woman, my days pass while I mutter “Śiva, Śiva, Śiva” somewhere in a sacred forest.” (Vairāgya-śataka 103) (Kāvya-prakāśa, verse 44)
Paṇḍita-rāja Jagannātha defines nirveda as dispassion toward sense gratification. He says nirveda originates from the discernment between real things and unreal things: Only this kind of nirveda is the sthāyi-bhāva of śānta-rasa, otherwise it is a vyabhicārī.[12] Jagannātha says śānta-rasa is prominent in Yoga-vāsiṣṭa.[13]
Moreover, in this context Bharata Muni also uses the term sama (evenness):
samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu sa śāntaḥ prathito rasaḥ,
“When one is equal to all beings, śānta-rasa is displayed” (Nāṭya-śāstra 6.82).
The definition is:
sarva-bhūta-stham ātmānaṃ sarva-bhūtāni cātmani |
īkṣate yoga-yuktātmā sarvatra sama-darśanaḥ ||“He whose mind is linked in yoga sees himself (his own mood) in all beings and all beings in himself (he sees their states of being in himself). Everywhere, he sees what is the same (Brahman).”
Alternatively:
“A person whose mind is linked in yoga sees the Soul (Paramātmā) in all beings and all beings in the Soul (Mahā-Viṣṇu). That person shows sama in all circumstances” (Bhagavad-gītā 6.29).
According to Viśvanātha Cakravartī, sama, one of the twenty-eight qualities of a devotee, means being even-minded both in happiness and in unhappiness, and both in being respected and in being disrespected: samaḥ sukha-duḥkhābhyāṃ mānāpamānābhyāṃ ca tulyaḥ (Sārārtha-darśinī 11.11.29).
This verse by Bhartṛhari is another illustration of śānta-rasa,
sphurat-sphāra-jyotsnā-dhavalita-tale kvāpi puline sukhāsīnāḥ śānta-dhvaniṣu rajanīṣu dyu-saritaḥ |
bhavābhogodvignāḥ śiva śiva śivety ucca-vacasaḥ kadā yāsyāmo’ntargata-bahula-bāṣpākula-daśām ||“On nights when the sounds are peaceful, when shall we who are afflicted by the snake of material life sit comfortably somewhere on a bank on the Ganges’ shore where the ground is made white by an intensely radiating moonlight and become overwhelmed by tears that penetrate the heart, while exclaiming “Śiva Śiva Śiva”?” (Vairāgya-śataka 85)
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
Nāṭya-śāstra 6.15. The verse is quoted in Sāhitya-kaumudī 4.11.
[2]:
evam ete rasā jñeyās tv aṣṭau lakṣaṇa-lakṣitāḥ |
ata ūrdhvaṃ pravakṣyāmi bhāvānām api lakṣaṇam || (Nāṭya-śāstra 6.83)
[3]:
[4]:
atha śānto nāma śama-sthāyi-bhāvātmako mokṣa-pravartakaḥ. sa tu tattva-jñāna-vairāgyāśaya-śuddhy-ādibhir vibhāvaiḥ samutpadyate. tasya yama-niyamādhyātma-dhyāna-dhāraṇopāsanasarva-bhūta-dayāliṅga-grahaṇādibhir anubhāvair abhinayaḥ prayoktavyaḥ. vyabhicāriṇaś cāsya nirveda-smṛti-dhṛti-sarvāśrama-śauca-stambha-romāñcādayaḥ (Nāṭya-śāstra 6.83).
[5]:
[6]:
ratir hāsaś ca śokaś ca krodhotsāhau bhayaṃ tathā, jugupsā vismayaś cettham aṣṭau proktāḥ śamo’pi ca (Sāhitya-darpaṇa 3.175); śamo nirīhāvasthāyāṃ svātma-viśrāmajaṃ sukham, “Śama is the joy that originates from the repose in oneself while being desireless”(Sāhitya-darpaṇa 3.180).
[7]:
[8]:
[10]:
virāgo jāyata ity anena tattva-jñānotthitaṃ nirvedaṃ śānta-rasa-sthāyinaṃ sūcayatā tasyaiva ca sarvetarāsāratva-pratipādanena prādhānyam uktam (Locana 4.5).
[12]:
[13]:
prabandhasya tu yoga-vāsiṣṭa-rāmāyaṇe śānta-karuṇayoḥ (Rasa-gaṅgādhara, KM p. 109).