Note 74 — III DRAMATIC THEORY XIII THE THEORY OF THE DRAMATIC ART

The doctrine set out in Abhinavagupta is also that of the Daçarūpa, although it is rendered more obscure there by the brevity of its exposition. The process of transformation of an emotion to a sentiment is formally described; ‘a dominant feeling or emotion becomes a sentiment when it is transformed into an object of enjoyment through the co-operation of the determinants, the consequents, including the involuntary manifestations of feeling, and the transitory feelings’.74 The sense is made further precise by the assertion75 that the dominant emotion becomes a sentiment, because it is enjoyed by the spectator of taste, and he is actually at present in existence; the sentiment is not located in the hero whose actions are represented, for he belongs to the past, nor does it appertain to the poem, for that is not the object of the poem—its function being to set out the determinants, &c., through which the dominant emotion is brought out and generates the sentiment,—nor is sentiment the apprehension by the spectator of the emotions enacted by the actor, since in that case spectators would feel not sentiment, but an emotion varying in the different individuals, just as in real life from seeing a pair in union those who see them feel according to their nature shame, envy, desire, or aversion. The position of the spectator is compared to that of the child which, when it plays with its clay elephants—the ancient equivalent of our tin soldiers—experiences the sensation of its own energy as pleasant; the deeds of Arjuna arouse a like feeling in the spectator’s mind. This experiencing sentiment is a manifestation of that joy which is innate as the true nature of the self, and this manifestation comes into being as the result of the pervasion of the mind of the spectator with the dominant emotion and the determinants, &c., in combination.