Śāstra in Sāhitya: The Philosophy of Aesthetic Expression and Experience in Bālakāṇḍa
摘要
The Rāmāyaṇa tradition can undoubtedly be called one of the most fascinating literary artifacts in South Asia, considering the veritable influence it had exercised on the cultural and moral ethos of the people of this geographical location. Practitioners of kāvya, in various spatiotemporal locations, responded differently to Rāmakathā (Rama’s story) (the basic narrative of Rāma’s marriage, exile, and battle with Rāvaṇa) and produced numerous versions of the Rāmāyaṇa to both entertain and instruct the readers. Among the numerous versions of the Rāmāyaṇas in South Asia, the Rāmāyaṇa composed by Vālmīki is particularly important, as it is considered by poets and literary theoreticians as the first literary artifact (ādikāvya) in Sanskrit literary tradition. In addition to being the first kāvya, the Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki also gives the readers a good glimpse into the traditional Indian thinking about the very process of composing a kāvya through the first four sargas of the first chapter of Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa titled Bālakāṇḍa which can be rightly called an upodghāta or preamble to the whole story. This paper explores how these four sargas in Bālakāṇḍa subtly reflects some of the crucial thoughts pertaining to the form of kāvya in the kāvyaśāstra tradition. These cardinal principles of kāvya that the Bālakāṇḍa in the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa reflects are twofold—(1) kāvya is a formally unique linguistic expression with aesthetic and formal singularities and (2) the aesthetic emotion (rasa), irrespective of the nature of its ordinary counterpart in daily life, ultimately leads to an alaukika experience.