Rock on, Grammarians
Posted in ashtanga yoga, poetry on 06/22/2008 09:02 am by karen
From Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies: The Philosophy of the Grammarians:
Abhinavagupta recognized the similarity between aesthetic experience and the mystical experience, but points out the boundary line that separates the two. The mystical experience of the ultimate reality is total and complete, and the yogin is far beyond any form of discursive thought. Aesthetic experience gives bliss only temporarily and cannot be considered supreme bliss, though it is superior to the worldly joys.
Later Jagannatha Panditaraja, aithor of the Rasagangadhara, states that rasa (aesthetic pleasure) is identical with consciousness or Brahman, and aesthetic experience, in its truest sense, is the realization of that consciousness by the removal of the veils covering it.
