Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
I
Author(s): Edwin Gerow
Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 99, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1979), pp.
559-572
Published by: American Oriental Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/601446
Accessed: 08-06-2016 09:58 UTC
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The Sakuntala is generally taken to be the finest example of a rasa drama in Classical Sanskrit
literature. Here the relation of plot-structure to rasa is explored, and an attempt is made to show that the
Indian theory of plot, often overlooked or regarded as a mechanical formula, is a carefully crafted
complement to the rasa theory, of great help in the interpretation of dramatic works.
achievement.
(its "rasa")!
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formal clause.
un attainable.
a "plot."
drama.
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Pandavas.)20
as a plot.
(3) How does this theory of action become
in our effort.
of rasa?
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generally.
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success.
to the play, we may be demonstrating the Sakuntala.tvam of Sakuntala. So many thorny chronological
issues are irresolvably posed that the best we can do
is resolutely put them aside; not to do so condemns
us to interminable fact-bargaining that not only
makes it impossible to rise to the level of aesthetic
concerns, but seems to deny even the importance of
exposited?
[scil., Durvasas, the King's abjuration, his lonelinessj-for these appear quite clearly secondary,
functions of chance or error, and ultimately are
erased in the final reintegration). From the point of
view of content, the play's real drama, its dramatic
moments, seem genuinely less important, less real,
than its happy optimism-and I am sure this has
much to do with the difficulty we have in taking it
seriously (for in our view of "serious" existence, it is
happiness that is fleeting and suffering that is real).
But if we take our standpoint on the play's form,
another view of the world emerges, one more solemn
for us, and more diagnostic of his condition for the
Indian. The Indian dramatic tradition persists in not
discussing "content" as such. Content, as we have
seen is already determined by its emotional tone-a
tatrApi ca caturtho'nkal
tatra sMokacatustayam
yAsyatyadyeti tatrApi
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test of his valor, the bee (in the first), and the serpent
demonstrated.
wife.
between the first and last acts: in both the King, virile
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it appears).
abandonment of duty.
has also lost all touch with his own self; his courage,
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moral character.
the King that this theme is for the most part stated
that in any serious art form one and only one rasa is
social order.
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mode of affection for all life (even trees and deer) not
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its opposite.
entwined.
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(in the logic of the emotions) that love and duty have
"prakart incident.)
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being) and not in the work at all. Thus the Indian plot
condition.
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18 Laghutfkq ad DR 1.17.
19 In the sense that it has no independent charcter, as
does the pataka, and thus must relate to the main plot.
pp. 298ff.
interest as such.
29 Levi, p. 53.
publication).
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