Jagat

Bharata Muni names eight rasas, coupling them in four complementary pairs. Thus he associates hāsya with śṛṅgāra (laughter and romantic love), vīra with bhayānaka (fear and heroism), adbhuta and bībhatsa (wonder or astonishment with disgust or horror), and karuṇa with raudra (grief, empathy or pity with anger). Bharata did not accept śānta as a rasa, and there is a debate going on pretty much through the tradition about whether it should be considered one. Abhinava Gupta was the great defender of śānta-rasa and since his time there have been nine rasas rather than eight. Abhinava Gupta also denied bhakti as a rasa and subsumed it to śānta-rasa , which is probably a reflection of his religious philosophy. Amongst the various poeticians there was always an attempt to find the one rasa that incorporated all the others, with some like Abhinava Gupta saying it was śānta , others claiming wonder ( adbhuta ), and Bhojadeva naming śṛṅgāra as the one rasa that included all the o...