CULTURA 2016_271562_VOL_13_No2_GR_A5Br.indd 1 CULTURA ding thevalues andculturalphenomenainthecontempo­ judged tomake anovelandimportantcontributiontounderstan- the submissionofmanuscriptsbasedonoriginalresearchthatare regional andinternationalcontexts. The editorialboardencourages mote theexplorationofdifferentvalues andculturalphenomenain ted tophilosophyofcultureandthestudyvalue. Itaimstopro Axiology and Culture Founded in2004, www.peterlang.com ISBN 978-3-631-71562-8 ISBN Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Philosophy of Journal International Cultura. isasemiannualpeer-reviewed journaldevo- rary world. - 2016

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY OF 2 CULTURE AND AXIOLOGY CULTURA CULTURA 2016 AND AXIOLOGY OF PHILOSOPHYCULTURE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL Vol XIII 14.11.16 KW 4610:45 No 2 No CULTURA 2016_271562_VOL_13_No2_GR_A5Br.indd 1 CULTURA ted tophilosophyofcultureandthestudyvalue. Itaimstopro Axiology and Culture Founded in2004, www.peterlang.com ding thevalues andculturalphenomenainthecontempo judged tomake anovelandimportantcontributiontounderstan- the submissionofmanuscriptsbasedonoriginalresearchthatare regional andinternationalcontexts. The editorialboardencourages mote theexplorationofdifferentvalues andculturalphenomenain Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Philosophy of Journal International Cultura. isasemiannualpeer-reviewed journaldevo-

­rary world. - 2016

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY OF 2 CULTURE AND AXIOLOGY CULTURA CULTURA 2016 AND AXIOLOGY OF PHILOSOPHYCULTURE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL Vol XIII 14.11.16 KW 4610:45 No 2 No CULTURA

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE AND AXIOLOGY Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology E-ISSN (Online): 2065-5002 ISSN (Print): 1584-1057

Advisory Board Prof. Dr. David Altman, Instituto de Ciencia Política, Universidad Catolica de Chile, Chile Prof. Emeritus Dr. Horst Baier, University of Konstanz, Germany Prof. Dr. David Cornberg, University Ming Chuan, Taiwan Prof. Dr. Paul Cruysberghs, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium Prof. Dr. Nic Gianan, University of the Philippines Los Baños, Philippines Prof. Dr. Marco Ivaldo, Department of Philosophy “A. Aliotta”, University of Naples “Federico II”, Italy Prof. Dr. Michael Jennings, Princeton University, USA Prof. Dr. Maximiliano E. Korstanje, University of Palermo, Argentina Prof. Dr. Richard L. Lanigan, Southern Illinois University, USA Prof. Dr. Christian Lazzeri, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, France Prof. Dr. Massimo Leone, University of Torino, Italy Prof. Dr. Asunción López-Varela Azcárate, Complutense University, Madrid, Spain Prof. Dr. Christian Möckel, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany Prof. Dr. Devendra Nath Tiwari, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Prof. Dr. José María Paz Gago, University of Coruña, Spain Prof. Dr. Mario Perniola, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Italy Prof. Dr. Traian D. Stănciulescu, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University Iassy, Romania Prof. Dr. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, Purdue University & Ghent University

Editorial Board Editor-in-Chief: Co-Editors: Prof. dr. Nicolae Râmbu Prof. dr. Aldo Marroni Faculty of Philosophy and Social- Dipartimento di Lettere, Arti e Scienze Sociali Political Sciences Università degli Studi G. d’Annunzio Alexandru Ioan Cuza University Via dei Vestini, 31, 66100 Chieti Scalo, Italy B-dul Carol I, nr. 11, 700506 Iasi, Romania [email protected] [email protected] PD Dr. Till Kinzel Englisches Seminar Technische Universität Braunschweig, Bienroder Weg 80, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany [email protected] Editorial Assistant: Dr. Marius Sidoriuc Designer: Aritia Poenaru Cultura International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology Vol. 13, No. 2 (2016)

Editor-in-Chief Nicolae Râmbu Guest Editors: Asunción López-Varela and Ananta Charan Sukla Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

Cover Image: © Aritia Poenaru

ISSN 2065-5002 ISBN 978-3-631-71562-8 (Print) E-ISBN 978-3-631-71635-9 (E-PDF) E-ISBN 978-3-631-71636-6 (EPUB) E-ISBN 978-3-631-71637-3 (MOBI) DOI 10.3726/b10729

© Peter Lang GmbH Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften Frankfurt am Main 2016 All rights reserved. Peter Lang Edition is an Imprint of Peter Lang GmbH. Peter Lang – Frankfurt am Main · Bern · Bruxelles · New York · Oxford · Warszawa · Wien All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems. This publication has been peer reviewed. www.peterlang.com

CROSS-CULTURAL INTERMEDIALITY: FROM PERFORMANCE TO DIGITALITY

CONTENTS

Asunción LÓPEZ-VARELA AZCÁRATE 7 Introduction: Performance, Medial Innovation and Culture

Ananta Charan SUKLA 13 Indian Intercultural Poetics: the Sanskrit Rasa-Dhvani Theory

Krishna PRAVEEN and V. Anitha DEVI 19 Kathakali: The Quintessential Classical Theatre of Kerala

Jinghua GUO 27 Adaptations of Shakespeare to Chinese Theatre

Cyril-Mary Pius OLATUNJI and Mojalefa L.J. KOENANE 43 Philosophical Rumination on Gelede: an Ultra-Spectacle Performance

María VIVES AGURRUZA 53 The Cultural Impact of the Nanking Massacre in Cinematography: On City of Life and Death (2009) and The Flowers of War (2011)

Qingben LI 67 China’s Micro Film: Socialist Cultural Production in the Micro Era

Annette THORSEN VILSLEV 77 Following Pasolini in Words, Photos, and Film, and his Perception of Cinema as Language

Adile ASLAN ALMOND 83 Reading Rainer Fassbinder’s adaptation Fontane Effi Briest

Yang GENG and Lingling PENG 103 The Time Phenomenon of Chinese Zen and Video Art in China: 1988-1998

Carolina FERNÁNDEZ CASTRILLO 125 Lyric Simultaneities: From “Words in Freedom” to Holopoetry

Janez STREHOVEC 137 Digital Art in the Artlike Culture and Networked Economy

Stefano CALZATI 153 Representations of China by Western Travellers in the Blogsphere

Horea AVRAM 173 Shared Privacy and Public Intimacy: The Hybrid Spaces of Augmented Reality Art

10.3726/CUL2016-2_13

Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 13(2)/2016: 13–18

Indian Intermedial Poetics: the Sanskrit Rasa-Dhvani Theory

Ananta CHARAN SUKLA University, , India [email protected]

Abstract. Rasa, Dhvani and Rasa-Dhvani are the major critical terms in Sanskrit poetics that developed during the post-Vedic classical period. Rasa (lit. juice) is used by a sage named Bharata (c. 4th C. B.C. – 1st C. A.D.) to denote the aesthetic experience of a theatrical audience. But Anandavardhana (9th C. A.D.) and Abhinavagupta (10th C. A.D.) intermedialize this experience by extending it to a reader of poetry. They argue that rasa is also generated by a linguistic potency called dhvani. Some critics like Bhoja (11th C. A.D.) also proposed generation of rasa by pictorial art, and further, some modern critics propose to trace dhvani property in non-verbal arts such as dance and music pleading thereby that these non-verbal arts also generate rasa. The present essay examines these arguments and concludes that generation of rasa is confined to only the audio-visual and verbal arts such as the theatre and poetry, and, dhvani as a specific linguistic potency, is strictly confined to the verbal arts. Its intermedialization is a contradiction in terms. Keywords: Rasa, Dhvani, Rasa-Dhvani, post-Vedic texts, Sanskrit poetics.

INTRODUCTION

Rasa as a critical term is used first by a mythical sage named Bharata (4th C. B.C. – 1st C. A.D.) in his treatise on dramaturgy titled Näöyaçāstra. The term connotes a specific kind of pleasure that one experiences in perceiving a dramatic performance. Bharata borrows this term from a Vedic text titled Taittiréyopaniñad (II.7) where the nature of ultimate Reality (Brahman) is explained in terms of gustatory delight (änanda). The text reads: “That (Brahman) is certainly Rasa (literally, both “juice” and the act of tasting this juice); he who attains (tastes) it is delightful (änandé).” In this way, ontology is explained in terms of non-linguistic (yato väcä nivartante) phenomenological epistemology. The use of the word rasa in the Taittiréyopaniñad Vedic text originates in a sacrificial ritual where the juice of a creeper named soma was offered to the Vedic gods. Soma is the Vedic name for the moon-god, famous for bestowing mental strength, lustre, happiness, and soma rasa is therefore considered an elixir (amåta) that bestows immortality. The ancient Indian

13 A. Charan Sukla / Indian Intermedial Poetics: the Sanskrit Rasa-Dhvani Theory dramaturgist and musicologist Bharata Mini uses the term in his theoretical treatise Natya Shastra (composed between the 3rd century BCE and the 1st-century CE), referring to the delight experienced by the audience during a dramatic performance. This occurs by means of the unification of emotion (bhäva), as it is manifested in the action (anubhāva) of a character within necessary environment(s) (vibhāva). Rasa is, thus, the self-manifestation of an emotion in the action (both physical [anubhäva] and mental [vyabhicārībhäva]) of a character(s). In its experiential form¸ rasa is a phenomenological phenomenon, not a material object, and music and dance are its necessary corollaries, involving visual, auditory and verbal signs: dramatic dialogue, music (both vocal and instrumental) dance and the action of the actors. Thus, the core of Bharata’s theory is the manifestation of an emotion (bhava) by means of an audio-visual performance, relished as rasa by the audience. Bharata therefore states that bhäva and rasa are interdependent, they manifest each other; rasa is nothing but an emotion relished by the audience – äsvädya: (VI, prose after 31 and 34-37) the tasted emotion. Rasa is not produced on the stage by the performance of the actors, but in the (perceptual) experience of the audience; not again any kind of audience, but only a properly qualified sahådaya (like-hearted/sensitive) audience, as stated by Abhinavagupta (c. 950 – 1020 CE), the celebrated commentator on Bharata’s treatise.

MANIFESTATION OF EMOTIONS ON STAGE

Acording to Abhinavagupta, the manifestation of emotion on the stage (abhinaya) is constituted by three factors: (1) vibhäva, which externalizes permanent emotions (sthäyé) enacted by the actors and the scenic elements; (2) the physical gestures and postures (anubhäva) that express emotions, and (3) the drifting feelings or moods (vyabhicäré/saïicäré bhävas) associated with permanent emotions, as expressed by the facial movements. Permanent emotions and mental states are love, laughter, sorrow, anger, heroism, fear, distress and wonder, and appear externally in accordance with their relevant stimulants as eight rasas respectively – Śrringära, Karuëa, Häsya, Raudra, Véra, Bhayänaka, Vébhatsa and Utsäha. In these manifestations there might be several rasas at a time, though with a leading or dominating one as the plot and situations of a play demand. Different commentators offer their different views on the process of generation of rasa. The major issue is the identity of the emotion that is

14 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 13(2)/2016: 13–18 manifested as rasa: is it the emotion of the characters of the play, of the actors, or of the audience? Drawing upon his predecessor Bhaööa Näyaka, Abhinavagupta explains that it belongs to none of these three. Although assigned to the characters of the plays and performed by different actors at different times, the emotions are general in their forms, and it is because of their generality (sädhäraëya) that they escape any individual attachment, so thatthey can affect different audiences (see Gnoli, 1968: 62-72). I have argued earlier (2003) that rasa experience could not be equated with aesthetic experience in general (contra Gnoli, 1968: 72), although there are some similarities with Aristotelian catharsis. Rasa leads virtually to a view that it is essentially an experience of pure consciousness, thereby justifying Bharata’s borrowing the term from the Upanisedic texts and applying it, metaphorically, to the theatrical experience. Abhinavagupta explains this experience by distinguishing it from other forms of congnition (Gnoli, 1968 82) so that the semantic dimension of rasa has two levels – ontological and epistemological – rasa as the unmanifest reality that manifests itself (sukåta) and its experience as an extraordinary, non-sensory cognition, is metaphorised in explaining both the ontology and epistemology of theatre (nāöyam). Although written in verse, Bharata emphasizes the importance of narrative (VII: introduction) or the verbal description of the events, characters and their emotions, as they occur in the two great epics Rāmāyaëa and Mahābhārata. Most of the Sanskrit plays draw their plots upon these narratives, although some plays are also based on the popular legends and events of history. In the opening passage of chapter VII, Bharata uses the term bhāva in two senses: mental states that exist internally (bhū), and as externalization or perceptual manifestation of the meanings of verbal narratives by the four constituents of action/stage performance – physical, verbal (speeches/dialogues), facial movements and costume. Thus, according to Bharata, it is the enactment of the dialogue that generates rasa, not its referential meaning. It is further clear that although Bharata uses the word bhāva in two different senses, that use is only apparent. Virtually they are correlated. When the internal bhāva is transformed into the external bhāva (perceptual form of the audiovisual kind) rasa is generated. The denial of rasa to poetry was challenged by Kashmirian metaphysical philosopher Änandavardhana (9th century CE) who forwarded an

15 A. Charan Sukla / Indian Intermedial Poetics: the Sanskrit Rasa-Dhvani Theory intermedial theory of rasa by demonstrating that poetry also generates it. The linguistic potency that manifests the unmanifest in poetry is termed vyaïjanä, and the manifest semantic entity (or meaning) is called dhvani (literally “sound”). By saying so, Änandavardhana rejects the rhetorical theory of poetry forwarded by the realist logicians of the Nyāya School and the Vedic exegetes of the Mémāàsā School. According to them there are two semantic levels – literal or denotational (abhidhā) and indicative or figurative (lakñaëā). The grammarians of the Paninian school also agreed with these two schools in taking account of these two levels of meaning. The figurative use of language is necessary when the denotational level fails to express the desired meaning. But in addition to these two levels of linguistic potency, Änandavardhana suggested a third one: revelation (vyaïjanä). He said that when denotation and indication fail to express the desired meaning this vyaïjanä potency operates anchoring on either of the other two semantic levels. He asserted that this tertiary semantic potency manifests what remains unmanifest in the first two linguistic functions. For him, rasa is the dhvani expression that manifests the unmanifest in poetry. Dhvani itself is rasa (delight) and he who relishes this meaning (dhvani/ rasa) also becomes delightful (ānandé). In the case of poetry, it is the same as its tasting by the reader. Änandavardhana formulated his dhvani theory by a thorough analysis of its doctrinal foundations and its different categories as based on the denotational and indicative functions of language (abhidhä-mülä and lakñaëä – mülä classifications of dhvani). Keeping the technical perspectives aside (to avoid the length of this chapter while asking the readers for consulting the bibliography attached to it) a brief focus is shed on the three major categories of the denotational dhvani-Vastu (objects and events), alaìkära (images and tropes) and rasa (emotions). Änandavardhana observes that rasa is not related to any figure, it is only the effect of dhvani (DhvaA.II). Thus, experience of an image or figure may be due to all the three cognitive processes – perception, inference and analogy. It also involves recognition implying the function of memory. Returning to Abhinavagupta, the epistemological implications of theory is that all our cognitive experiences are stimulated by emotions, and end in emotional responses, and that amidst all our emotions, love is the central one. Thus, whereas the rasa experience due to the theoretical performance is transmediated to the experience of poetic expression of

16 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 13(2)/2016: 13–18 dhvani by the Sanskrit poeticians, this transmediation is not possible in the experience of other arts such as painting (or the pictorial arts in general). Therefore, the experience of rasa confined to the audio-visual and verbal arts cannot be interpreted as aesthetic experience in general. Even not all the varieties of poetic expressions generate rasa excepting the dhvani expressions. Narrative literature in general is unable to generate rasa as the theatre does.

CONCLUSIONS

Änandavardhana’s purport was not to extend dhvani beyond its semantic function to include the semiotic functions of music and dance, which are cited only as examples for immediacy in comprehensions of two kinds of (verbal) meanings. Treatises on painting and sculpture during the early medieval period discerned six limbs of the visual arts of three categories – three dimensional sculptures (citra), half-sculptures (citrārdha) and pictures (citrasama): formal distinctions (rüpabheda), appropriate measurements (pramāëāni), similitude (Sādåçya), proper disposition of colours (vaëikābhaìga), application of emotions (bhāvas) and grace (lāvaëya). But no critic has ever accepted the view that visual arts generate rasa that is attributed only to theatrical performance and to the dhvani expression in poetry.

References Änandavardhana. Dhvonyāloka with the commentary Locana by Abhinavagupta (Translated with notes and commentaries by Daniel Ingalls et. al). Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 1990. Bharata. Nāöyasāstra with the commentary Abhinavabhāratī by Abhinavagupta, Chaps. I, II and VI (Translated with notes and commentaries in Hindi by V.S. Siromani). Delhi: University of Delhi Press. 1960. Bhoja. Samarāìganasūtradhāra. Baroda: Gaekwad Oriental Series. 1966. Chari, V.K. Sanskrit Criticism. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 1990. Gnoli, Raniero. The Aesthetic Experience According to Abhinavagupta (Portions from Abhinavagupta’s commentaries on Bharata’s Nāöyasāstra, chapters-I and VI; Dhvanyāloka, II.4 with notes, commentaries and Introduction). Varanasi: The Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series. 1968. Sukla, Ananta Charan. The concept of Imitation in Greek and Indian Aesthetics. Calcutta: Rupa and Co. 1977. Sukla, Ananta Charan. “Emotion, Aesthetic Experience and the Contextualist Turn”. International Yearbook of Aesthetics, Vol. I, Lund, 1996.

17 A. Charan Sukla / Indian Intermedial Poetics: the Sanskrit Rasa-Dhvani Theory

Sukla, Ananta Charan. Art and Representation: Contributions to Contemporary Aesthetics. Connecticut and London: Praeger Publishers. 2001. Sukla, Ananta Charan. (Ed.). Art and Experience. Connecticut and London: Praeger Publishers. 2003. Sukla, Ananta Charan. “Rasa, Dhvani and Rasa-Dhvani: Ontology and Epistemology of Emotion in Sanskrit Literary Discourse”. Aesthetic Theories and Forms in Indian Tradition, Eds. Kapila Vatsyayan et al., Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research. 2008. Sukla, Ananta Charan. “Aesthetics as Mass Culture in Indian Antiquity: Rasa, Śåiìgāra, and Śåiìgāra Ras”. Dialogue and Universalism, Vol. VII, Warsaw. Sukla, Ananta Charan. “The Poetics of Freudian Corpus: Jacques Lacan’s Reading of the Sanskrit Dhvani Theory”. International Journal of Humanities, Annual Review, Illinois, 2013. Sukla, Ananta Charan. Visvanātha Kavirāja. Delhi: Sahitya Academi. 2011. Śinhabhūpāla. Rasārëavasudhākara, Trivendram. 1919. Taittirīyopaniñad, Gorakhpur: Gita Press (Any Edn.)

Ananta Charan SUKLA was Formerly Professor of English at Sambalpur University (Orissa, India), Visiting Professor at the University of Uppsala (Sweden), Founder Editor of the Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics (inception 1978), author of several books and journal articles on philosophy of religion, language and art, an authority of Sanskrit and comparative poetics, widely traveled in the Western countries lecturing at several Universities, founder member of the editorial board of the International Yearbook of Aesthetics (1996) and editor of several projects on philosophical and literary aesthetics such as Representation (2001), Experience (2003), Essence (2003), Expression (2012) and Fiction (forthcoming 2014).

18