Rasa and Savoring: A Comparative Study of Aesthetic Emotions

This chapter makes a comparative analysis of two classical theories of aesthetic emotions, the Indian rasa and the Chinese notion of savoring. Textual analysis showed that rasa and savoring share in common the two defining dimensions of emotion refinement—detachment and self-reflexivity (Frijda & Sundararajan, Perspect Psychol Sci 2:227–241, 2007), but that the two traditions differ in knowledge structure. The difference in knowledge structure between rasa and savoring seems to correspond to the ontological/epistemological divide between the ancient Greeks (and other Indo-European languages) and the Chinese as predicted by Nisbett (The Geography of thought. Free Press, New York, 2003). Implications of this study for theory and research on emotions are discussed, with special focus on basic emotions theory, cross-cultural psychology, and future directions for empirical testing of the hypothesis presented here.