Ebook: Western Indology on Rasa: A Pūrvapakṣa

There is perhaps no realm of Indian heritage that Western Indology does not feel tempted to tamper with and tarnish.

Among others, the field of Alankara-sastra (poetics/rhetorics/dramaturgy) is also a natural efflorescence of the Indian ethos, and the Rasa Theory therein is one of the greatest contributions of India to the understanding – of literature, seen or heard, and of its impact on the audience – the lay or scholarly connoisseurs; and of psychology itself in general.

In this Rasa Reader, Prof. Sheldon Pollock of Columbia University brings to bear a wealth of scholarship in order to subtly, and at places no so subtly, underrate and undermine Indian contribution to the comprehension of the role of human mind in the creation of, relish of, and response to, belles lettres.

Over half a dozen scholars, all Indian, have looked deep in this looked deep in this volume into many aspects of the predominantly negative role of Pollock, and scripted their own understanding of the tradition and its nuances.