The Sanskrit Rasa-Dhvani Theory (Cultura.Vol. XIII, No. 2 (2016))
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
CULTURA CULTURA INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE CULTURA AND AXIOLOGY Founded in 2004, Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of 2016 Culture and Axiology is a semiannual peer-reviewed journal devo- 2 2016 Vol XIII No 2 ted to philosophy of culture and the study of value. It aims to pro- mote the exploration of different values and cultural phenomena in regional and international contexts. The editorial board encourages the submission of manuscripts based on original research that are judged to make a novel and important contribution to understan- ding the values and cultural phenomena in the contempo rary world. CULTURE AND AXIOLOGY CULTURE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL ISBN 978-3-631-71562-8 www.peterlang.com CULTURA 2016_271562_VOL_13_No2_GR_A5Br.indd 1 14.11.16 KW 46 10:45 CULTURA CULTURA INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE CULTURA AND AXIOLOGY Founded in 2004, Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of 2016 Culture and Axiology is a semiannual peer-reviewed journal devo- 2 2016 Vol XIII No 2 ted to philosophy of culture and the study of value. It aims to pro- mote the exploration of different values and cultural phenomena in regional and international contexts. The editorial board encourages the submission of manuscripts based on original research that are judged to make a novel and important contribution to understan- ding the values and cultural phenomena in the contempo rary world. CULTURE AND AXIOLOGY CULTURE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL www.peterlang.com CULTURA 2016_271562_VOL_13_No2_GR_A5Br.indd 1 14.11.16 KW 46 10:45 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, India 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 Sambalpur University, Odisha, 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