Ritual Texts and Literary Texts in Abhinavagupta’s Aesthetics: Notes on the Beginning of the ‘Critical Reconstruction’

Abstract

In a recent paper in this Journal Hugo David discussed the possible sources for the comparison that Abhinavagupta draws between ritual and literary discourse at the beginning of his “critical reconstruction” of the theory of rasa in the sixth chapter of his New Dramatic Art. The question of Abhinavagupta’s sources raises more general questions about Abhinavagupta’s use of the concepts and analytical procedures of Mīmāṃsā in his literary-theoretical works. What, if anything, does Mīmāṃsā really have to do with the analysis of literary texts? How, if at all, can we construct parallels between ritual and literary texts such that the hermeneutics of one can illuminate the hermeneutics of the other? And more specifically, what are the examples that might convince us that there are such parallels? With these questions I attempt, modestly, to reach a somewhat better understanding of the beginning of Abhinavagupta’s “critical reconstruction,” which has already received a disproportionate amount of scholarly attention. I also hope, however, that this passage might serve as an example for how to think of the “borrowing” of concepts typically associated with Mīmāṃsā into the realm of literary theory.