ABSTRACT
There is no drama without rasa' according to The Natyashastra (The Science of Drama), the Sanskrit aesthetic treatise attributed to Bharata. Rasa has been variously translated as juice, flavour, taste, extract and essence; it is the 'aesthetic flavour or sentiment' savoured in and through performance. The goal of Sanskrit drama was to create rasa, and rasa remains central to genres such as kutiyattam (a particular way of performing Sanskrit drama in Kerala, South India) and kathakali (a genre of classical dance-drama in Kerala). According to Bharata, 'rasa is the cumulative result of vibhava [a stimulus], anubhava [an involuntary reaction to the stimulus], and vyabhicari bhava [a voluntary reaction to the stimulus]'. Bharata lists eight rasas, each of which has varying degrees of intensity: shringara (love, affection), hasya (joy, laughter, happiness), raudra (anger, rage), karuna (sadness, grief, depression), vira (strength, heroism), adbhuta (wonder, awe), bibhatsa (disgust) and bhayanaka (fear).
