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Given the closeness of the rasa-experience to spiritual realization and the general tendency in traditional Hindu culture to understand everything in terms of its relation to final salvation, it is not surprising that the list of rasas began to expand at a fairly early date to include sentiments of more overtly religious dimensions. The first rasa to be added to the list was

211 santa, the "tranquil" sentiment, associated with the quest for moksa. Its corresponding permanent emotion was identified as nirveda, distaste for worldly pleasure, which was said to arise from knowledge of reality (tattvajnana). As early as the fifth century A.D. the Jain Anuyogadvarasutra mentioned santa as a rasa. 27 It was accepted by the theorist Udbhata, who wrote in the eighth century, as well as by many of the later writers such as Anandavardhana (ninth century), Abhinavagupta (tenth-eleventh century), and Visvanatha (fourteenth century). Other writers, however, were opposed to the acceptance of santa as a sentiment on the grounds that, being a state of detached absence of emotion, it was neither appropriate for, nor amenable to, dramatic representation. 28 Despite this conservative opposition, the acceptance of santa as the ninth rasa by influential authorities brought the finality of the earlier limitation of the number of rasas to eight into question, and the way for the elevation of other emotions to the status of rasa was opened. Soon new rasas were proposed. Preyas ("friendship") was first mentioned as a rasa by Rudrata (ninth century). Prior to this time it had been considered only a bhava ("secondary emotion").29 Later writers continued to add other moods that they felt to be important to the list of rasas. Among these were sraddha ("faith") and vatsalya ("parental affection").30

212 The most important of the new sentiments, however, at least from a religious point of view, was bhakti. It is difficult to determine who first advocated its adoption. Abhinavagupta mentioned that others were proposing bhakti as a new rasa, so the possibility had been broached before his time. But he himself held that bhakti should be regarded as 31 an accessory (anga) of santa. This was no doubt a reflection of his own spiritual interests as an exponent of Kashmir Saivism, which were deep but centered more on yogic practice than devotion. The orthodox rhetoricians on the whole did not accept bhakti as a rasa. Shortly after Abhinavagupta, Mammata (eleventh century) decreed that "love directed toward a deity, etc." (ratir devadivisaya) was a bhava, and he explained that the "etc." here included sages, preceptors, kings, and sons but, interestingly enough, not a beloved woman. This meant that, according to this writer, only erotic love was capable of development into a rasa and that bhakti and the others did not have this possibility. The fact that this position was widely accepted suggests that many aestheticians did not have serious interest in 32 religious matters.33 Indeed, even Jagannatha (seventeenth century), writing after the heyday of the advocates of bhaktirasa, still accepted this conservative view. He argued, against Abhinavagupta, that bhakti should not be included in santa because it is based on attachment. 34

213 The advocates of devotion were, understandably, not happy with the orthodox aestheticians' denial of bhaktirasa. Nor could they accept Abhinavagupta's inclusion of bhakti under santa, as this sentiment reflected, not the mood of ecstatic devotion, but that of the detached follower of the path of knowledge or yogic meditation. They were, we can imagine, intrigued by the idea that aesthetic sentiment transported the appreciator beyond the limitations of his or her personal situation to experience emotion on a universal level. Rasa-theory seemed to provide an ideal conceptual apparatus for explaining the problems, outlined above, entailed by the bhakta's devotional identification with the characters of the Krsna story. If the emotion of a gopi is made available through poetry in such a way as to suggest 35 rasa, any sensitive person can enter into it. Participation in the Krsna-lila, then, becomes open to all who are capable of appreciating the rasas evoked by the works celebrating it. Realizing the potential in such 36 thinking, the Vaisnava acaryas took up the study and religious elaboration of aesthetic theory with zeal. Since bhakti is in itself the highest goal as well as the supreme means, they argued, it is not only a rasa but in fact the highest of all rasas. Vopadeva (thirteenth century) was the first, so far as we know, to apply rasa theory to the task of explaining the emotional bhakti of the Bhagavata-purana 37 In his Bhagavata-

214 muktaphala, this Maharashtrian writer developed the idea that bhakti is the primary rasa, to which the others are subordinate. There are, he stated, nine types of devotee because the experience of bhaktirasa occurs under the form of the nine sentiments, Bharata's original eight plus santa.38 Vopadeva's commentator, Hemadri, argued that bhakti meets all of the technical specifications, such as having a legitimate sthayibhava, 39 normally required of a rasa. If it is argued that bhakti is not a rasa because of the limited nature of its appeal, said Hemadri, this is true of santa and the other sentiments also. Each of the rasas can be appreciated only by those who are capable of responding to it. 40 " Hardy refers to an interesting poem in Old Marathi dated 1316, the Vacchaharana, which shows the influence of Vopadeva in describing Krsna as the one who plays "the drama of the nine rasas. More important, the poem also introduces a new metaphysical new metaphysical emphasis into the discussion by calling Krsna the "container" of those sentiments. This is the first suggestion that we can find in the literature that the theoreticians of bhaktirasa were working to raise the ontological status of bhakti toward ultimacy. shall see, this effort involved a new conceptualization of devotional sentiment, one that elevated it from the sphere of poetic suggestion and psychology to a level that was truly transphenomenal. 41 As we

215 The pioneering efforts of these Maharashtrian devotionalists were continued by Vallabha (1481-1533), the founder of an important Krsnaite school of Vedanta and associated devotional sect (sampradaya). The extent of his contribution on the subject of bhaktirasa, however, is difficult to estimate, as it has received practically no scholarly attention to date. 42 The situation, fortunately, is different in respect of the efforts of Rupa and Jiva Gosvamin (sixteenth century), who developed and elaborated 43 Their work, the bhaktirasasastra into a complex system. which is perhaps the best example of the direction this kind of thinking took, has been fairly well studied, thanks particularly to the pioneering efforts of S. K. De. 44