The Bhāvas on the Stage

In this paper I don’t want to show what are bhāvas and rasas because my understanding is too unclear to claim for such an explanation. At the same time it doesn’t discourage me to write about them because apparently no understanding of them in our era is clear enough: disagreement among the scholars is too fundamental to be ignored.

Furthermore; there is a more fundamental confusion, not only about Nātyaśāstra but about all textual heritage received by us: in order to understand a text as the author has meant, how isolated should the text be considered and how should the tradition be trusted? In order to find any middle way between these two extremes there is no way than determining conditions, virtues and values of an authorized commentator. In the case of Bharata’s Nātyaśāstra, the confusion is usually embodied in this question: is Abhinavagupta an authorized commentator? We should not forget that although whoever denies the tradition seems a brave rebel, at the same time, if he is successful, he is busy in founding a new tradition which must seem not so pleasant to the further rebels. In spite of that, I deeply have doubt whether any meaningful understanding of a far historical text is possible in absolute absence of some tradition.

The other consideration which I think is very important to understand Bharata’s meaning is to know what the aim of his treatise is. This consideration can be treated in three levels: a) what his aim was while writing or delivering the text; b) what the aim of the sources from which he had taken his materials was; c) what the reporters of his work assumed his aim. As answer to each question I suggest three alternatives: 1) to give an analytic account of whatever business goes on the stage in a drama; 2) to make a terminological framework for art criticism; 3) to give a practical awareness to the artists (poets, directors and actors) to perform better. One may say that a single theoretical attempt can support all these aims. I accept but the manner of presenting that single theory is completely determined by the aim of the text as Aristotle in his Poetics, Tolstoy in What Is Art? and Stanislavski in his An Actor Prepares! differ in manner of presentation. It’s quite meaningful to speak of a theory of art which has manifested in An Actor Prepares! But if somebody reads that as a book on the philosophy of art, he will be in a deep trouble. Therefore, the aim of the text some how determines who to read the text. Even if not now, some time, I should make a decision about the aim of Nātyaśāstra or about the way in which I prefer it to be read. It doesn’t mean I want or I am able to trace its aim. It is satisfactory if I know assuming each alternatively suggested aim for the book, how it should be read. The meaning and classification of bhāvas, I think, directly depends on this consideration.

The first difficulty to understand the meaning of bhāvas is that Bharata has given two classifications of them without trying to make or explain a relationship between these two: one classification consists of sthāyī bhāvas, sañcāri bhāvas and sāttvika bhāvas and the second classification consists of vibhāvas, vyābhicāribhāvas and anubhāvas. Some questions immediately occur to the reader:

- Is the subject of these classifications the same? In other words, is the object which is classified in the first classification is the same as the object classified in the second one?

- What is the method and criterion of classification in each?

As for the first question, application of one word ‘bhāva’ to all classes as the object of both classifications cannot compel us to accept that one category has been classified in two ways. The word bhāva is too common to specify a class and its literal meaning is too loose to be applied to a distinctive characteristic. Nevertheless, Bharata has given an etymologic definition of bhāvas regarding their function bhāvayanti which raises the reasas.

In this paper I don’t want to study the second classification and its elements and criterions, though I now with respect to rasas and rasanispatti which are considered as the most important ideas of Bharata’s theory the second classification is more remarkable. Here I try to explain, with a great degree of uncertainty, how the first classification has been formed. The main thesis of mine is to declare that in this classification the general abilities of actor are classified and the classification is action-oriented. I need a separate opportunity to show that the second classification is around what the spectator receives from the stage while his eyes are fixed on the actor as the center of the drama. That is a character-oriented classification concerning the relationship between the character and his conditional environment i.e. a net of cause-effect factors of sthāyī bhāvas (vibhāvas), the relationship between the character and his own existence as a combination of soul, mind and body (vyābhicāri bhāvas ) and finally the relationship between the character and his body as an instrument for communication (anubhāvas).



Classification of Bhāva as an Item of Sangraha

Probably, Bharata means by Sangraha the subjects which should be spoken in the treatise among which he mentions bhāvas. In one classification he introduces three classes of them: sthāyī bhāvas (including 8 kinds: love, laughter, sorrow, anger, dynamic energy, fear, disgust and wonder ), sañcāri bhāvas (including 33 kinds like physical weakness, anxiety, envy, shame, remembrance and death etc.) and sāttvika bhāvas (including 8 kinds: numbness, sweating, horripilate, faltering voice, trembling, change of color, tears and fainting).

The word sthāyī suggests us to consider a sense of permanence or stability or basis in sthāyī bhāvas. They are said to become rasas which are the central ideas of staging; so they are illustrated as kings among the other bhāvas which serve sthāyī bhāvas as courtiers. They are also said to be of the nature of cittavrttis or modifications of mind. But it deserved to be questioned: modifications of whose mind? As an answer some alternatives can be thought of: the poet’s mind, the director’s mind, the actor’s mind, the spectator’s mind or the character’s mind. The first three are not obliged to express their own mentality on the stage though the stage should be a manifestation of their professional intentions; therefore I rule them out of concern. If I accept that the sthāyī bhāvas belong to the spectator’s mind, then it will be very difficult to distinguish them from rasas. Additionally, it means, for example, it’s possible to have a rasa of sadness while the mentality of the characters is modified by happiness; but it is the nature of comedy in which sadness is raised along with happiness. I believe that sthāyī bhāvas are the assumed most primary mental moods of the characters. I say ‘most primary’ because they cannot be reduced to any more primary feeling. One may say they cannot belong to the character since the character doesn’t exist in fact on the stage; therefore his mentality and consequently its moods don’t exist. Of course they don’t exist! If they existed on the stage as real, they would not be bhāvas. The other bhāvas also don’t exist as real on the stage: they are assumed and they are tried to be shown. They are void of their real existence and consequently of their natural effects ; otherwise the actors should love or hate each other on the scene. The nature of death as a sañcāri bhāva on the stage is not to cease life but only to produce a rasa. Bhāvas are void of their own reality. In the case of poet, director and actor, sthāyī bhāva is the mood which is intended to be assumed of the character by the spectator. In the case of spectator, they are the moods of characters which, regardless the intention of the agents of the stage, are inferred by spectator as artha and tasted by him as rasa.

Professor Barlingay expressed the sañcāri bhāvas as ‘the atomic behavioral patterns’ and sāttvika bhāvas as ‘the organic sensations’. The first interpretation I appreciate but about the second one I prefer to understand sāttvika bhāvas as ‘the physiological reflections to emotional states’. Probably they are sāttvika because unlike the first two they don’t need any medium to be conveyed to the spectator: they are directly perceived while the other bhāvas are inferred; they are self-illuminative.

Some considerations are possible in the case of this threefold classification:

First: the order of arrangement in this classification reflects the degree of temporality. Drama is a temporal art. The element of time cannot be ignored in action which is the medium of drama. In this classification, the duration of presence on the stage is remarked: usually the primary mental moods stay for a long time so that they determine the whole emotional atmosphere of the drama; behavioral patterns stay shorter than the emotional moods and longer than physiological reflections; and the latter should appear for a short time. If this temporal pattern is not followed, the risk of failure increases for the drama. A drama in which the moods change frequently is a case of chaos; lasting physiological reflections are boring and disturbing; when the behavioral patterns stay long, the drama will be monotone and if they appear for an instant, they will not be expressive.

Second: this order is arranged from subtle to concrete: sthāyī bhāvas are mental; they are translated to behaviors (which are media between mind and action) by the means of sañcāri bhāvas and are reacted by apparently involuntary bodily actions. In the same order, the degree of intellect which the spectator needs to cognize them reduces. Does it remind us of Sāmkhya theory of evolution? It did professor Barlingay though not exactly with the same details. Anyway, as in the Sāmkhya system evolution flows from subtlety to concreteness in order to manifest and present the objects for the purusa’s experience, here this order is to manifest sthāyī bhāvas to the spectator . But the most important point in this comparison is that all tattvas present at the same time on the stage: they are not replaced by each other.

Third: the personal skill of acting consists in these three classes of expression. A good actor should be able to convey these items. They are what an actor as his general ability should be able to perform. The director can say to the actor that “now I want you to be sad”, “now I want you to show that you are jealous” or “now I want you to faint”. This classification maintains a sufficient terminology for the technical conversation between the director and the actor by the means of which the director successfully and confidently can direct the actor to manifest his basic abilities which are compulsory to be already attained by the actor to be an actor. Therefore I can say that in this part of the text Bharata addresses the director and the actor. This classification is action-oriented.

Fourth: is this classification a specific feature of drama or it can be applied to the other per-formative arts? If I find another art to which the same classification is applicable then there will be a hope to generalize this classification. Let’s try the thesis in the case of rhapsody. First we should find a counterpart for the actor of drama. Is the rhapsodist the actor? Actor gets void of his own characteristics to take on the characteristics of the character. Is the rhapsodist void of his own characteristics? For example the actor should not be assumed as himself to be allowed to be assumed as Hamlet for a time. Who is the rhapsodist going to be assumed apart from himself? In fact the rhapsodist is the rhapsodist throughout the whole rhapsody: he is a reporter. The actor lends himself to the poet; what a rhapsodist lends to the poet? I think the correct answer is ‘his voice’. His voice is not an interpreter of his mind but of the work of the poet; therefore the actor in rhapsody is not the rhapsodist but his voice. The actor should lose his identity on the stage while the rhapsodist’s identity is safe. The qualities which the rhapsodist’s voice gives to the poem, consists of these items: per-formative themes, intonation patterns, and interjections. Here, I would like to suggest ‘per-formative themes’ to stand for sthāyī bhāvas, ‘intonation patterns’ for sañcāri bhāvas and ‘interjections’ for sāttvika bhāvas. I think I don’t need to justify the first correspondence. As the sañcāri bhāvas are the states according to which the actor should take a particular behavior, intonation is a vocal property of the sentence which is determined by its meaning and grammatical mood. In other words, intonation is the behavior of the voice regarding the various levels of semantic, syntactic and contextual aspects of the phrase. The correspondence between sāttvika bhāva and interjection is more interesting: both of them are supposed to appear involuntarily under the stress of a strong enough emotion. Interjections have no lexicographical definition as sāttvika bhāvas have no behavioral value. Both of them may appear in the case of any nervous state regardless the content or specific nature of that state. You may utter ‘O my God!’ whether you are frightened or surprised or disgusted as you may sweat whether you are frightened or you have fallen in love or in anger: they present the existence of a strong nervous state rather than its nature. Thus, there is a hope for generalizing this classification to all cases of per-formative arts.


The End