A Practical Guide to Indian Aesthetics

Art and life in India have been inextricably intertwined from the ancient to the contemporary. Art as a way of life, art as ritual, art as decoration and art as unity with Godhead, bore testament to the socio-cultural milieu, the high level of sophistication that developed in ancient India was reflected in the arts by their study in a holistic light. The arts thus strived to home mean intellectual sensibilities, thus raising him level of the transcendental, which in India was Brahma or ultimate reality. Some reflection is available in Indian tradition in all the fields covered by aesthetics; it is primarily poetics that dominates. The present book is an attempt to bring forth the popular theories of Indian Aesthetics and Indian poetics. Bharatmuni, Abhinavgupta, Anandvardhana and many others have given substantial dimensions to the concept as found in Natryashastra, Dhvanyavloka and other texts and as different critics have analysed them in different languages.  It is primarily a compilation of such criticism. It shall be a preliminary guide to the students and researchers of Indian Aesthetics and Poetics. In the Appendix there are few papers brought together on Indian Aesthetics. The papers compiled here, though small in number, do justice to the theme. An informative and comprehensive bibliography has been appended according to the primary and secondary sources as available in print today. An exhaustive glossary has been compiled at the end to provide added aid for the non-fearners of Sanskrit.