Review: [untitled]

Author(s): Eliot Deutsch

Reviewed work(s):
Santarasa and Abhinavagupta's Philosophy of Aesthetics. by J. L. Masson;M. V. Patwardhan
Source: The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Nov., 1970), pp. 215-216
Published by: Association for Asian Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2942779
Accessed: 11/04/2010 18:20
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=afas.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Association for Asian Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The
Journal of Asian Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

BOOK REVIEWS

215

gantarasaand Abhinavagupta'sPhilosophyof hdrati and from other related materials that

deal with s'antarasa. The third part, labeled
Aesthetics. BY J. L. MASSONAND M. V.
PATWARDHAN.
Poona: BhandakarOriental "Conclusion,"is concerned mainly with the
Research Institute, I969. XVii, 206 pp. Ap- similaritiesand differencesbetween religious
pendixes,Bibliography,Errata,Index. Rs. and aestheticexperienceas seen by Abhnivagupta.
25.00.
In studying the authors'introductionsand
In pointing out the need for English transexplications one is driven, unfortunately,to
lations of the major writings in Sanskritaes- raise the question:Are the authorsadequately
thetics, the authorsstate: "It is disturbingto equipped philosophicallyto carry out their
think that there are no English translationsat task? The
bookiackettells us that "the introall of many of the most importantworks . . ." duction is meant primarily for students of
(p. ii). We are gratefulto Messrs.Massonand comparativeliteratureand the generalreader;"
Patwardhanfor providingus with clear,read- but even taking this into account, one is
able translationsof many importantmaterials struck by the loosenessof thought that is exfrom Indian aestheticsand for their judicious hibitedand the snapjudgmentsand facilecomuse of an immenseSanskritlearning.The pres- parisons that are often made. The authors
ent work, we are told, grew out of a larger state,for example,that "Abhinava,by importwork that is being completed(a three volume ing literaryissues into philosophy,was able to
translationof Abhinavagupta'scommentaryon provide philosophicalthinking with a literary
Anandavardhana's
Dhvanyaloka) and we look quality it previouslylacked"(p. x). Whatever
forwardwith anticipationto the publicationof the importingof literaryissues has to do with
this largerwork.
providing literary quality is certainly an
Abhinavagupta,a tenth century Kashmiri, enigma (and any claim about their interrelawas a profound thinker. He is rightly taken tionship would surely amuse most readersof
to be the most creativeIndian philosopherin booksand articleson Westernaesthetics).
aesthetics; and also to be one of the most
The biggest whopper, however, is made
difficult. Raniero Gnoli's The Aesthetic Ex- when the authorsassertthat "Abhinava'sfinal
perience According to Abhinavagupta(pub- theory bears a remarkablesimilarityto what
lished in a revised second edition by the Aldous Huxley developed in his work 'The
ChowkhambaSanskrit Series in I968), and Doors of Perception'"(p. xv). But Abhinava
K. C. Pandey'sworks, ComparativeAesthetics bearsno such remarkablesimilarityto Huxley,
Vol. I Indian Aestheticsand Abhinavagupta: and one is left wonderingwhetherindeed the
An Historical and Philosophical Study, are authors have understoodmuch of what they
the main availableworks dealing with Abhin- have so expertlytranslated.Huxley, with his
ava'sphilosophy.The book underreviewnicely mescalin, saw the world as a variegated,
complementsthese works and succeeds quite multi-coloredpanoramaquivering with light
admirablyin clearingup in translationsome of and life. Quoting (curiously enough) from
the enormous difficultiesin Abhinava's the- H. Osborne'sdescriptionof Huxley's work,
ories.
we find that Huxley thought "'draperiesare
The book is divided into three parts. The living hieroglyphsthat stand in some pecufirst part discussesthe literary,philosophical, liarly expressive way for the unfathomable
religiousinfluenceson Abhinavaand includes mystery of pure being'" (ibid.). Abhinava
translationsfrom his Locanaon Dhvanyaloka. would have none of this nonsense.s'antarasa,
The authors proffersome interestingspecula- as the authorsacknowledgeand explicitlystate
tions about the influencethat Asvaghoasa,the throughout their book, has to do with the
Buddhistwriter,had on Abhinavaand they ac- purificationof desires and anxieties,the tranknowledge clearly the deep influence that scendenceof ego, the attaining to a "cosmic
Tantra ritual had on his thought. The second peace"through the aestheticcontemplationof
part deals with the primary theme of the the art work. s'antarasa, in short, has to do
book, the natureof santarasa,and offerstrans- with spiritualinsight and aestheticunderstandlations from those portionsof the Abhnivab- ing; it does not haveto do with seeingordinary

216
objects in their "intrinsic significance" as
opaque symbolsthat stand for everythingand
anything.
The lack of philosophicalsophisticationand
precision is evident in much of the authors'
explications. On page 48 we read: "The
sthdyibhdva[basicfeeling state] that Abhinava
speaksof is the same as vasand, an important
word in his philosophy.It means the same as
samskdra, latent impressions that we carry
with us from birth to birth. In a sense it corresponds to the Freudian unconscious. The
sthdyibhdvawould correspondto the conscious,
for the va7sandis aroused,awakened, and we
then call it a sthdyibhdva."One is convinced
that the effort required to unravel Abhinavaguptais philosophicallywell worth it. One is
also convincedthat the similar effort it often
takes to make sense out of a number of the
authors' explications of Abhinava is by no
meansworthit.
The most interestingphilosophicalproblem
raisedby Massonand Patwardhenconcernsthe
relationshipthat obtains between spiritualexperienceand aestheticexperience,as the latter
is set forth by Abhinava. The authors point
out, for example, that both experiencesare
that they both overalaukila,"extraordinary":
cometemporaland spatialdistinctions,and that
for both specialpreparationis required.In all,
thirteenpoints of similarityare noted. Differences between the two types of experienceare
also recognized,and in point three the authors
state: "The drama is not expected (at least
Abhinava never says anything about this) to
changeone'slife radically.To have a profound
aesthetic experience is simply satisfying and
does not imply that one will be in any sense
profoundlyaltered. One cannot say the same
for mystic experience"(p. I63). But the whole
import of Sdntarasa,it would seem, as conceived by Abhinava is preciselythe bringing
aboutof a profoundalterationof one'sordinary
time-bound,desire-riddenbeing. "The ego is
transcended,"Masson and Patwardhenwrite,
"and for the durationof the aestheticexperience, the normalwaking 'I' is suspended.Once
this actually happens, we suddenly find that
our responsesare not like anything we have
hithertoexperienced,for now that all normal
emotionsare gone . . . we find ourselvesin an
unprecedentedstate of mental and emotional

JOURNAL OF ASIAN STUDIES

calm" (p. vii). The transformingefficacyof a
work of art rests in its orderedconcentration
of conflicts, contrasts,and tensions, and depends upon the viewer's becoming entirely
open to it. The "I"is to be caught up with the
object, the art work, but rather than utterly
losing itself there (as in the case with mystical
experience)it is to find a new dimensionand
potentialityof itself. Herein it would seem lies
the main differencebetween the two: in mystical experiencethere is the utter loss of self;
in profound aesthetic experiencethere is the
transformationand integrationof self.
ELIOT DEUTSCH

Universityof Hawaii
The Royal Song of Saraha: A Study in the
Historyof BuddhistThought. TRANSLATED
V. GUENSeattle: University of Washington
Press, 1969. Vii, pp. Index. $7.95.

AND -ANNOTATED BY HERBERT

THER.

It is fortunate that there are no anti-monopoly laws in Oriental studies; Guenther has
written over the past two decades about all
that could possibly be written for a learned,
sympathetic, initiate or non-initiate audience
of English readers about Tibetan Tantric Buddhism. There is no one to match the quality
and the quantity of his output in this field in
the western world. Guenther has produced a
beautiful book. Saraha, a low-caste Vajrayana
Buddhist mystic (the dust jacket places him,
not too helpfully for the historian, but significantly, we suppose, for the mystic, "between
A.D. ioo and iooo") of the early Bengali
middle ages is known to all students of Buddhist Tantrism, and some of his extant writings
have been translated into French by the late
M. Shahidullah, and into Hindi by the late
Rahula Samkrtyayana. Neither of their translations have what Guenther would think of as
the true insight into the sophisticated complexities of Vajrayafia thought.
This reviewer is particularly happy about
the fact that Professor Guenther has finally
heeded the critique of many a critic, including
this reviewer's gentle rebuke in previous reviews. The English terms, by which Guenther
translated Tibetan and Indian terms, culled
from ordinary language, philosophy, existentialism, and depth psychology, are still there.