Lajja: The Missing “Basic” Emotion in the Natya Shastra and What That Tells Us About the Hindu Moral Code

This chapter explores the relationship between moral codes and emotional functioning in Hindu India. It examines both the rasa theory and its model of moral development as presented in Natya Shastra, the ancient and seminal treatise on dramaturgy and the arts, as well as the experience of the moral emotion lajja. Noting that the rasa theory does not include lajja in its list of basic emotions, the chapter attempts to provide a plausible explanation for this omission. It suggests that lajja’s absence illustrates the uneasy yet enduring tension that exists within the Hindu worldview between the two equally valid moral goals of dharma or world-affirmation, and moksa or world-renunciation, with lajja lying squarely within the temporal world, while the Natya Shastra points its readers toward moksa and Ultimate Reality.