DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

The Effectiveness of Rasa-Bhava in Śakuntalā


     Sanskrit theater is based off of Bharata’s Nāṭyaśāstra, which is accredited with establishing drama, dance, and music in Indian culture. The Nāṭyaśāstra touches on two crucial components of Sanskrit theater: rasa and bhava. Rasa is literally the flavor of something—as Bharata explains, “Rasa is the cumulative result of stimulus, involuntary reaction and voluntary reaction…persons who eat prepared food mixed with different condiments and sauces, if they are sensitive, enjoy the different tastes and then feel pleasure; likewise, sensitive spectators, after enjoying the various emotions expressed by the actors through words, gestures and feeling feel pleasure” (Gerould 97). Bhava, on the other hand, is emotion behind the codified performance embodied in Sanskrit theater. Kālidāsa’s Śakuntalā, the story about the love of King Duṣyanta and Śakuntalā, embodies the rasa and bhava of Sanskrit theater. George Drance, SJ, helped our class understand the different mudras, or hand gestures, associated with Bharatanatyam dances of Sanskrit theater. Although these rasa and bhava can be extremely effective in storytelling, the audience must have preexisting knowledge of each of these mudras and therefore serve little purpose to an unknowledgeable Western audience observing storytelling through Bharatanatyam.

     In the enactment of different scenes of Śakuntalā, Drance helped the class to perform several different mudras. Before the lesson began, he taught our class how to thank the floor for allowing us to perform upon it. Drance then led the class through the majority of the single hand gestures of Bharatanatyam. Many of these mudras are very similar to another but contain a subtle difference in meaning. As with all performing arts, subtlety and attention to detail is crucial to the success of the performance. After the class finished single hand gestures, Drance taught some of the double hand mudras and how they are used. Each mudra has a specific meaning relevant to a story. Luckily, this step—learning the symbolic language of Bharatanatyam—taught us the vocabulary necessary to properly perform scenes from Śakuntalā.

     After the class finished learning about the different mudras, it was time to apply them to the enactment of Śakuntalā. The class split into two groups and enacted the scene from Act I when Duṣyanta is chasing the deer in his chariot. Everyone was involved and utilized in this scene. The characters included Duṣyanta, a charioteer, four wheels, three horses, and several trees. The wheels all moved together and moved as the horses led them. Duṣyanta, the respected king, stood tall and ordered his charioteer to chase the deer. The deer scurried in hopes of escaping the king’s chariot and hid behind the trees, which moved backward. From the audience’s perspective—the audience being the second group—the chariot looked as if it was moving swiftly since the trees were moving backward and getting smaller as they did so. The deer, embodying the Mrigashirsha mudra, appeared frightened and worried. The emotional bhava bhaya, or fear, allows the audience to taste the rasa bhayanakam. The audience lives vicariously through the deer’s fear of being captured. The mudras used in this scene helped communicate the different societal roles and the experiences of each of the characters by eliciting different rasas in the audience. The mudras of this Bharatanatyam communicate the scene by using the rasa-bhava approach. This particular scene wasn’t very difficult to understand from an outsider’s perspective because of the clarity of the scene.

     Other scenes that utilized the rasa-bhava approach are the lily pad scene, the hunters and demons scene, and the grove scene. In each of these scenes, the message of each scene is communicated through various mudras utilized by the performers. These mudras help the audience experience the performer’s bhavas by eliciting a rasa in the audience.

     In the gandharva wedding scene, Tiffany Sarchet and I enacted the gandharva wedding between Śakuntalā and Duṣyanta. In this scene, the two of us picked up three flowers using the mudra Hamsasye, or the head of a swan. This mudra often signifies an auspicious occasion, such as a wedding. After we each had three flowers, we tied garlands and put them over each other’s heads. We then did the kilaka mudra, which symbolizes love and affection. Duṣyanta and Śakuntalā are in love, even though their gandharva marriage is somewhat illegitimate in Indian society since it is based on mutual attraction and does not contain rituals like traditional Indian marriages. Finally, I put a ring on Tiffany’s finger to symbolize our marriage. Each of these mudras helps communicate the affection between Śakuntalā and Duṣyanta and the joviality of the marriage. These mudras help to denote the bhava rati, which is the feeling of love. The mudras in the scene were a little more obvious than in other scenes because they represent physical actions. The bhavas are clearer, but that is more likely attributed to the fact that there were only two performers in the scene and they both embodied human characters. That being said, however, the bhavas in this enactment elicit the most rasa in the audience because the Western audience is more adapted to realistic acting, not codified acting.

     From this, we can deduce that an audience’s reaction to a performance—its rasa—is primarily dependent on the mainstream culture. There is an uncomfortably strong disconnect between our class’s enactments of Śakuntalā and the rest of the class’s reaction and interpretation of the performance aspects of each scene. Because the mainstream culture does not subscribe to Bharatanatyam and Sanskrit theater, the majority of the class had just experienced mudras for the first time that day. However, if Drance’s activity were to take place in India, where the predominant culture subscribes to Bharatanatyam mudras, the audience would most likely understand a Sanskrit production of the tale of Śakuntalā.

     Ultimately, the effectiveness of Bharata’s rasa-bhava aesthetic is effective in theory, but in practice, it is completely dependent on the predominant culture. Many Bharatanatyam performers have been training for their whole lives in order to accurately portray Sanskrit theater, so to think that a group of Western college students could learn the art form and effectively communicate the truths in Śakuntalā is naïve.

As a whitewashed half-Indian, I could relate to the performance and embodiment of Indian cultural norms, especially the performance of an Indian wedding. This past April, I was fortunate enough to travel to India for the first time in order to attend the wedding of my cousin and his bride. At first, I was culture shocked, but this was likely attributed to the fact that I had met more than eighty relatives that were somehow related to me and I was expected to remember each one of them. Within days, I was able to connect to my Indian roots, and I even got to see my dad perform some mudras as part of his surprisingly skillful Bollywood dance moves. Although I did not know that he was performing an art form that dates back to Bharata—honestly, I wasn’t sure what he was doing—I now have the knowledge to more accurately appreciate my heritage.

 

Works Cited

"Asamyukta Hasta or Single Hand Gesture." Online Bharatanatya. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Jan. 2013.

Gerould, Daniel. Theatre, Theory, Theatre. New York: Applause, 2003. Print.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.