The statement of the Nāṭyaçāstra is simple. Sentiment is produced from the union of the determinants (vibhāva), the consequents (anubhāva), and the transitory feelings (vyabhicārin). The determinants fall in the later classification into two divisions, the fundamental determinants (ālambana) and the excitant determinants (uddīpana); fundamental determinants comprise such things as the heroine or the hero, for without them there can be no creation of sentiment in the audience; excitant determinants are such conditions of place and time and circumstance as serve to foster sentiment when it has arisen, for instance the moon, the cry of the cuckoo, the soft breeze from Malaya, all things which foster the erotic sentiment. The consequents are the external manifestations of feeling, by which the actors exhibit to the audience the minds and hearts of the persons of the drama, such as sidelong glances, a smile, a movement of the arm, and – though this is but slightly indicated in later texts – his words.[1] A special class is later made of those consequents, which are the involuntary product of sympathetic realization of the feeling of the person portrayed, and hence are called Sāttvika, as arising from a heart which is ready to appreciate the sorrows or joys of another (sattva); these are paralysis, fainting, horripilation, perspiration, change of colour, trembling, weeping, and change of voice. The transitory or evanescent feelings are given as thirty-three; they are discouragement, weakness, apprehension, weariness, contentment, stupor, joy, depression, cruelty, anxiety, fright, envy, indignation, arrogance, recollection, death, intoxication, dreaming, sleeping, awakening, shame, epilepsy, distraction, assurance, indolence, agitation, deliberation, dissimulation, sickness, insanity, despair, impatience, and inconstancy. But these factors are not sufficient to account for sentiment, nor does the Nāṭyaçāstra intend this. It recognizes that an essential element in the production of sentiment is the dominant emotion (sthāyibhāva) which persists throughout the drama amid the variations of the transitory feelings; it stands to the other factors in the position of the king to his subjects or a master to his pupils, as the Çāstra says; it is, says the Daçarūpa, the source of delight, and brings into harmony with itself the transitory states of feeling.
- ↑ Mātṛgupta (Hall, DR., p. 33) subdivides sentiment as vācika, produced by words; nepathya, generated by appropriate garlands, ornaments, clothes, &c.; svābhāvika, produced by such natural excellencies as beauty, youth, grace, firmness, courage, &c.
