Rasa Shastra

Around the eleventh century CE, Sanskrit medical texts began to record profound changes in the methods used for drug manufacture. New substances, especially metallic and non-metallic minerals, were added to the ayurvedic pharmacopoeia or were given new prominence. More significantly, however, new ways of processing raw materials were introduced that were thought to make them fit for medical use. Most of the new, but also many of the traditional substances were now put through a series of complicated, multistage processes before they were used as components of compound medicines. In this article, I will use the example of recipes for iron-based medicines, which describe the processing of iron and other substances to trace the evolution of these changes and to query whether the changes in drug production flow from earlier developments, or whether they represent a more fundamental shift in the theory and practice of medicine. I also consider whether the introduction of new substances and the new methods of drug production can be related to notions concerning the potency of substances and formulations.
Acknowledgements

This article was made possible through funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No.639363

Rasa plays a very prominent role in performing arts. Shringara Rasa is the primary Rasa that occupies a significant place amongst the Rasas.  It is the soul and motive of all the Rasas; and is termed as the king of all the Rasas. Due to its prominence and significance, it must necessarily be educated and explored. This chapter might provoke thought and further inspire the performer to devise various ways and means in understanding the concept and significance of ShringaraRasa and incorporate the same in their performances. It would also facilitate in creating interest among individuals and professionals and further help in taking up in-depth research in this domain.

Rasa plays a very prominent role in performing arts. It is the soul and motive for a successful performance of a dance, an act or a play. If Rasa is to be of any moment and significance, it must necessarily be educated and explored. This chapter might provoke thought and further inspire the performer to devise various ways and means in understanding the concept and significance of Rasa and incorporate the same in their performances. It would also facilitate in creating interest among individuals and professionals and further help in taking up in-depth research in this domain.

“Rasāyana and Rasaśāstra in the Persian Medical Culture of South Asia”, History of Science in South Asia, 7, 2019, pp. 1-41. Available at: https://doi.org/10.18732/hssa.v7i0.40.

In this article, I suggest that looking at the entangled issues of the creation of a new field of knowledge and the interaction with Others’ learning allows for a more accurate understanding of how Persian medical studies have developed and adapted to different natural and cultural settings during late medieval and early modern periods. This article studies the translation and reception of materials drawn from alchemy (rasaśāstra) and rejuvenating therapy (rasāyana) in the Persianate medical culture of South Asia. Chapters dealing with processed mercury and metals become a standard subject of Persian medical works written by Muslim and Hindu physicians in South Asia. Many of these works are in fact composite writings which combine Ayurvedic and Greco-Arabic materials. However, rasāyana is a branch of knowledge for which there is not a precise equivalent domain in the target culture. How does translation deal and negotiate with this asymmetry? In this study, I assume that cross-cultural translation implies a cognitive shift in the way different groups of readers may understand and classify a certain form of knowledge. I look at the Persian translation of materials drawn from rasāyana chiefly from the reader perspective which focuses on the hermeneutical and accommodation process through which translated materials are integrated into the target culture.

The purpose of the paper is to emphasize Dance as a mode of healing. Since ages, Dance has been helpful to us in various capacities.  Since ancient times it is used as a medium of communication, entertainment, spirituality – as an offering to Gods and so on. Dance, since its origin has undergone many developments and today, its knowledge is imparted in academics at various levels ranging from Certificate programmees to PhD programmee.  Individuals are opting and practicing Dance either as profession or as a hobby and various other options. Today, in the contemporary era, Dance is viewed and treated differently as it has various other benefits. One among them is the healing capabilities. With the ingenious thoughts of Marian Chace – The grand Dame of Dance Therapy, Dance is witnessed as a medium of Therapy besides communication and entertainment. Me, being an Indian origin, and practicing Dance since more than 3 decades, would like to correlate the origin of Dance in general to the origin of Dance Therapy in particular, according to Indian mythology. According to Hindu mythology, Dance has been created by Lord Brahma to heal the illness (bad deeds, misery, jealousy, exploitation etc) of the humans on the earth and bring them back to a systematic life. Hence, I feel the reason for the origin of Dance itself is with a therapeutic motive. It clearly justifies that practicing and implementing Dance has various other benefits besides entertainment. Dance has always been as a means of communication and entertainment till nineteenth century. Subsequently, Dance is being perceived and viewed into various other means and approaches to spread its wings and branches. Dance is analysed, substantiated and proved into various disciplines and forms to manifest its efficiency besides entertainment. In this context, Dance is witnessed as a mode of Therapy from 1920 onwards by Marian Chace, the lady behind the concept of Dance Therapy. The present paper is a modest attempt to highlight the importance of Dance; and to bring in and establish the concept of Dance Therapy, its origin and evolution, while enlightening its significance.

The Bhāgavata Purāṇa combines Vedāntin philosophy, dramatic and aesthetic elements , and personal expressions in a unique manner. Moreover, it seems to be conveying a notion of selfhood or personhood which is unique and innovative for the Hindu tradition. This paper aims at uncovering this unique notion. It deconstructs the BhP by arguing for the amalgamation of the Rasa-aesthetic school with Vedānta. It then turns to the topic of personhood in the Hindu tradition; it raises the complexity of discussing personhood in the Indian context and discusses three notions of personhood which are 'the Worldly Self of Mīmāṁsā', the 'Solitary Self of Sāṅkhya', and the 'Transcendental Self of Vedānta'. Having articulated these three notions, it highlights the notion of aesthetic personhood underlying the BhP. The paper goes further to differentiate notions of Vivarta from those of Pariṇāma, pointing out at the Pariṇāma worldview to be underlying the notion of aesthetic personhood of the BhP. At last and as an outcome of its main argument, it offers a sketch of ascending notions of aesthetic notions of personhood in the BhP.

The Jain monk Jinaprabhasūri (1261-1333) was one of the most prolific intellectuals of early fourteenth-century India. This article analyzes one citrakāvya ('image-poem') stotra (hymn) and two ṣaḍbhāṣā (six-language) stotras in light of his other works on grammar and poetics (including his lost commentary on the Vidagdhamukhamaṇḍana). It argues that these genres of laghu-kāvya (short works of belles lettres) are best understood by examining their ideal sites of performance, the kavi-goṣṭhi or "assemly of poets." Examining the poems in light of the site of their performance helps us to understand the forms they take on, challenging notions that Jains were simply comfortable composing in Middle Indo-Aryan langauges and helping to shed light on why poets continued to compose citrakāvyas long after Ānandavardhana's (9th c.) dismissal of the genre as incapable of evoking rasa.

It is always a bit risky to apply terms developed and used in one set of reli-gious traditions to another set of religious traditions with its own insights, history and way of thinking and talking about religious matters. Such risk attaches especially to the use of the word monotheism in connection with

Precious stones Hiraka (Diamond) is used for the treatment of several ailments. To achieve the desired therapeutics benefit from these stones, it is essential to use good quality of stones and then to process them classically by shodhana and marana procedures.There are several methods described in Ayurveda classics to prepare Hiraka Bhasma. Here the research work is aimed to find out the most easy, economicaly, qualitatively and least time consuming method for preparing Hiraka Bhasma.

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https://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/catalog/book/746?lang=en

This rich ethnographic and socio-historical account uncovers how toxicity and safety are expressed transculturally in a globalizing world. For the first time, it unpacks the “pharmaceutical nexus” of mercury in Tibetan medicine (Sowa Rigpa) where, since the thirteenth century, it has mainly been used in the form of tsotel. Tsotel, an organometallic mercury sulfide compound, is added in small amounts to specific medicines to enhance the potency of other ingredients. In concordance with tantric Buddhist ideas, Tibetan medical practitioners confront and tame poisonous substances, and instead of avoiding or expelling them, transform them into potent medicines and elixirs.

Recently, the UN Environment Programme’s global ban on mercury, the Minamata Convention, has sparked debates on the use of mercury in Asian medicines. As Asian medical traditions increasingly intersect with biomedical science and technology, what is at stake when Tibetan medical practitioners in India and Nepal, researchers, and regulators negotiate mercury’s toxicity and safety? Who determines what is “toxic” and what is “safe,” and how? What does this mean for the future of traditional Asian medical and pharmaceutical practices?

This paper examines the affective doublet of humour and horror in the Bengali ghost story, 'Mahesher Mahajatra' ('Mahesh's Funereal Journey', 1930). I will track the affective transformation of horror into humour and vice versa in the aforementioned Bengali short story wherein the ghost is situated in relation to a dialectical interplay of western rational knowledge and native belief systems. I will foreground the dialectic of humour and horror as a specific modulation of the Bengali ghost narrative. I will be looking at the affective network of horror and humour by taking it through Indian classical rasa theory to make an argument on affective economy through the complex of multiple rasas that underline humour and horror. We will see how this affective economy has a relation to the trope of spectral economy at work in Rajshekhar Basu's text. 1. Humour and Horror in Theory In the famous sixth chapter of The Natyashastra, Bharata Muni builds up a theatrical repertoire of sentiments or Rasas. For him, rasas represent states of mind. They arise from mental states and not the other way around. He classifies humour or the comic sentiment (Hasya) as a mimicry of the erotic that gives pleasure. If we attempt to construct from Bharata, an affective theory of horror, it boils down to a complex of more than one rasas. There is 'The Terrible Sentiment (Bhayanaka)', stemming from fear but 'The Odious Sentiment (Bibhatsa)' is intimately connected with the former. If bhayanaka rasa comes from fear, bibhatsa rasa arises from a state of disgust. As Bharata says, bibhatsa results in bhayanaka. This suggests that the rasas do not simply represent states of mind, but they can also transform into one another. In other words, sentiments are expressions of states and they can very well travel from one to the other. There is an affective flow which is mutative whereby one sentiment turns to and into another. Bharata indicates that the Odious "results in the Terrible" (107). We may bring in a third sentiment here to consolidate the notion of horror. The affect in question is 'The Marvellous Sentiment (Adbhuta).' Though Bharata considers this affect to be a representation of astonishment in a positive sense, it is not difficult to imagine astonishment, turning into shock when something horrific is encountered. Horror can thus be seen as a combination of bhayanaka, bibhatsa and adbhuta. To set them in a particular sequence, we could imagine a situation where something disgusting and shocking produces fear. So, we turn from bibhatsa and adbhuta to bhayanaka. This is an affective complex or series wherein one affect turns to and turns into another. Bharata does not see any similarity between humour and horror though. Humour for him is all that pleases whereas the question of pleasure is missing in horror. The question then is why we read horror narratives. In Sheldon Pollock's discussion of Abhinavagupta, the classical Indian aesthete is said to have maintained that: […] all the emotions we experience in an aesthetic event "are primarily pleasant, insofar as the pure homogeneous illumination that takes the form of the relishing of one's own consciousness is in essence blissful" (191).

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Parmi les critiques de la dramaturgie en Inde, il ya deux noms : Shilaleen et
Krishashava. Ils écrivaient sur la théorie du théâtre, même avant Bharata. Bharata’s
Natyashastra (du premier siècle ?) et Abhinav Gupta’s Abhinay Bharti sont
disponible pour nous en Hindi grâce à Archaraya Vishveshwar. Abhinav est l’un des
plus anciens et authentiques écrivains de la critique Tikas (paraphrase) sur
Natyashastra. Cet article, donc, est une lecture critique des rôles du traducteur, du
lecteur et de l’auteur à travers les théories indoues de Rasa, particulièrement dans les
deux textes susmentionnés de Baharata et Abhinav Gupta.
Mots clés : Rasa ; Anuvaad ; Terahvad ; The Rasuttama Translator ; Kaushiki Vritti

Background: Ayurveda, systematically evolved science of the universe, focuses on preventing, preserving health, and curing diseases in a comprehensive way. This heritage is survived through the ages and Ministry of Ayurvedic, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH) took a number of initiatives to showcase its usefulness at global levels. Exclusive and extensive use of various metals and minerals in therapeutics is an integral part in Ayurveda. But, safety and toxicity concerns in the past couple of decades opened debates in conventional community, which attempted to malign the glory of Ayurveda. Aim: The aim of this study is to review classical concepts and published researches on metallic formulations and generate evidences inferring the effectiveness and safety of Ayurveda interventions in different pathologies. Results: Classical Ayurveda texts are filled with comprehensive information pertaining to drug collection, storage and preservation methods, standards of raw materials, standard operative procedures for different dosage forms, quality control aspects for finished products, shelf life, posology, safety, adverse drug reactions (ADRs) on inappropriate use of medicines and their management, concurrent diet advices, etc., to avoid possible ill effects. It infers that the seers were well studied about good collection practices (GCPs), good storage practices (GSPs), good manufacturing processes (GMPs), therapeutic use of such formulations, good dispensing practices (GDPs), good agricultural and collection practices (GACPs), etc., and took maximum care in the management of diseases. To substantiate classical concepts, a good number of studies on herbomineral and metallic formulations have been conducted that have proven their safety and efficacy. Conclusion: It can be said that rational use of Ayurvedic formulations is well established before the period of Charaka Samhita, more than 5,000 BC. All the safety and efficacy concerns raised in the recent past are possibly some part of conspiracy that needs to be addressed systematically.

It is always a bit risky to apply terms developed and used in one set of religious traditions to another set of religious traditions with its own insights, history and way of thinking and talking about religious matters. Such risk attaches especially to the use of the word monotheism in connection with the religious traditions of India. There is no comparable word or conception in any of the Indic languages. The idea of there being one and only one god would seem strange and even perverse to religious people nurtured in the rich, diverse, and densely populated religious world that has flourished in India for thousands of years. Even the terms that are used for the supreme god indicate a sense of the plurality of cosmic powers: god of gods (deva-deva), lord of gods (devesa), master of the moving (jagannatha), the fortunate one (bhagavan) etc. Each of these indicate the singling out of one god from among many gods. This on the surface has more of the feel of monolatry than anything li...

There have been a number of attempts at editing and translating the text of the Nāṭyaśāstra and Abhinavabhāratī, including most recently Professor K.D. Tripathi’s first volume of the Nāṭyaśāstra (2015) and a selection of translations included in Professor S. Pollock’s Rasa Reader (2016). Despite a relatively long history of scholarly engagement, however, much about this tradition remains poorly understood, and the texts themselves remain very difficult to establish conclusively: both texts are technical, and to add to this, the Nāṭyaśāstra is available in widely-divergent forms in several families of manuscripts, while the Abhinavabhāratī is available only in a highly corrupt form in a single family of manuscripts.

This workshop will principally include a close textual reading of selections from the Rasādhyāya (chapter 6) of the Nāṭyaśāstra of Bharatamuni—the celebrated work on Indian aesthetics—together with the Abhinavabhāratī commentary of Abhinavagupta. The discussion in the Abhinavabhāratī includes a critical overview of the history of Indian aesthetics up to Abhinavagupta himself in the tenth century, including such thinkers as Śrī Śaṅkuka, Bhaṭṭa Lollaṭa, Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka, etc. The aim of the workshop is not only to familiarize the participants with the principal questions and debates in Indian aesthetics, but also to discuss the philological challenges posed by these texts with experts in the field. We will therefore work with parallel texts and manuscripts in our readings of the Abhinavabhāratī.

Precious stones Hiraka (Diamond) is used for the treatment of several ailments. To achieve the desired therapeutics benefit from these stones, it is essential to use good quality of stones and then to process them classically by shodhana and marana procedures.There are several methods described in Ayurveda classics to prepare Hiraka Bhasma. Here the research work is aimed to find out the most easy, economicaly, qualitatively and least time consuming method for preparing Hiraka Bhasma.

Rasa plays a very prominent role in performing arts. Shringara Rasa is the primary Rasa that occupies a significant place amongst the Rasas. It is the soul and motive of all the Rasas; and is termed as the king of all the Rasas. Due to its prominence and significance, it must necessarily be educated and explored. This chapter might provoke thought and further inspire the performer to devise various ways and means in understanding the concept and significance of ShringaraRasa and incorporate the same in their performances. It would also facilitate in creating interest among individuals and professionals and further help in taking up in-depth research in this domain.

Agad Tantra Vyavahara Ayurved Evam Vidhi Vaidyaka is a subject which is growing in magnitude day by day. Newer poisonous substances evolving every day are making toxicology an ever altering focus. Current textbooks on this subject cover the subject in a scrappy manner, very few textbook or handbook covers the whole spectrum of subject in a practical way or approach. The book entitled “Practical handbook of Agad Tantra (Toxicology)” is an unique arrangement of Ayurvedic and contemporary assortments. Incorporation of different coloured photographs and tables has enriched the book in its substance. The book is made in an expressive and meaningful manner to showcase various vishas and their consequences in most apposite and practical manner for the study and examination purpose. The authors of this book sincerely feel that this book will be of a great help not only to the third year BAMS student, but also to researchers, teachers and people interested in Ayurved all over the world. The topics mentioned herein with both understanding of Modern as well as Classical narrations are earnestly highlighted by the student’s enthusiasm, motivation, enthusiasm, hard work and their ‘worthiness in the field of Ayurved’. The unique pattern of this book will help undergraduate, postgraduate scholars, physicians of Ayurved to understand the Toxicity of the Visha dravyas. The content of this book is in the form of notes with pictures which is very helpful for all practical as well as written examination of the subject.