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Why Sārus Cranes epitomize Karuṇarasa in the Rāmāyaṇa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2009

NIELS HAMMER
NIELS HAMMER*
Affiliation:
Affiliated to the University of Lund
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Abstract

By correlating literary evidence, avian ethology and neurophysiology I will try to demonstrate why Vālmīki chose a pair of Sārus Cranes, and not any other avian species, to epitomise grief and sorrow in the Rāmāyaṇa. This choice illustrates the importance of personal experience of the living reality (behaviour of Sārus Cranes); but the grief, śoka, as experienced by Vālmīki, became in later critical literature, the rasa of karuṇa, the aesthetic appreciation of grief, as suggested by Ānandavardhana and explained by Abhinavagupta. By emphasising the central importance of affective states (sthāyibhāvas) in life as well as in the arts (rasas) Vālmīki, Abhinavagupta and Ānandavardhana appear to have had a perception of the human condition that is consistent with recent developments in affective neuroscience; and thus it is the pitch and the tonal quality of the cries of grief that convey the depth and universality (sādhāraṇatva) of the emotion.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , April 2009 , pp. 187 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2009

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Footnotes

1

Niels Hammer, Forhåbningholms Allé 47 A, 1904 Frederiksberg C, Copenhagen, Denmark. E-mail: <[email protected]>

2

I would like to thank Dr Yvonne Hammer and Professor Olle Qvarnström for helpful comments and suggestions.

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