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From: Prof. Maria Christopher Byrski
Subject: Thesis Report: Abhinavagupta’s Conception of Humour
Date: 14 September 1984
Opinion: Recommended
The ancient Indian civilization is surprisingly homogeneous. Its structure
on and on reveals deep logic and compactness, where each and every aspect fits
well into the general framework. There can be no doubt in this context that
the pivot which supports this magnificent edifice is the Veda or more strictly
speaking the Vedic sacrifice. It is therefore perfectly understandable that
the attitude of referring everything to the Veda, which until recently had been
considered solely a touchstone of the Hindu religious orthodoxy, now becomes
also a guiding principle of modern scientific research in Indology. The remarkable
thesis under review is yet another attempt to see from this angle a problem
[that] so far has been avoided by the Indologists, either because it was considered
insignificant or too elusive. Yet while the second adjective might still be
considered valid, the first one will have to be once and for all abandoned,
thanks to the profound research undertaken and conducted to a very successful
close by Mr. Suntharalingam, and since the subject of humor dealt with [by]
the young scholar is indeed most elusive, the credit that goes to him will have
to be proportional to the degree of difficulty that he had to face. The thesis
at hand is an admirable attempt to collect all that
The very Introduction maps clearly the problem that the Author intends to
tackle and convincingly shows the depth of what otherwise could have seemed
to be a rather limited problem without far reaching consequences. What strikes
one while reading these pages is that the Author seems to take the sacrificial
context of classical Indian theater in particular for granted, what I for one
wholeheartedly endorse, but maybe a handful of main arguments could have been
restated in order to convince the doubtful. In Chapter I the author comes to
grasp with the general definition of humor and manages to offer what appears
to be an altogether expert and most viable appreciation and criticism of all
hitherto important theories of humor. The postulated separation of humor and
laughter is to my mind most convincing and the remark that humor “the
most trivial emotion is in fact the most deceptively complex of all” acquires
great weight and opens many new vistas for further research. Now in Chapter
II,
The following Chapter III was meant to clarify the theory of bisociation,
since it tries to show how laughter and bisociation go together. Indeed, we
find in this part of Mr. Suntharalingam’s study remarks, mainly drawn
from A. Koestler’s works, which substantially broaden our understanding
of the problem. Some of them open interesting possibilities of looking for purely
Indian categories of apprehending this aspect. For instance, “…‘the
sudden dissociation of intellectual and emotional state, the rupture between
knowing and feeling, is a fundamental characteristic of the comic’ (Insight
and Outlook, p.65)” (p.89). Could we say that the comic is generated by
a sudden dissociation between the dharma-sphere
(intellectual, knowing?) and the kâma-sphere (emotional,
feeling)? Consequently a question could be asked whether it is necessary to
look for suitable notions to analyse humour outside the pale of traditional
Indian set of references. We shall return to this problem in our concluding
remarks again. Meanwhile we would like to say that although initially the further
discussion of
The problem of suddenness inherent in humor in general and in jokes in particular
constitutes the content of Chapter V. The following words taken from it very
pointedly sum up, exactly in the light of the bisociative theory, the main purport
of this chapter: “in other words, it is not the unexpectedness of the
total joke-content when heard for the first time that is responsible for the
surprise, but the sudden juxtaposition of two associative contexts that are
habitually never brought into relation with each other in this particular manner”
(p.165). Although on the whole there is a feeling that it fits well the Indian
context, yet certain doubt persists as to the precise way it should be related
to what could be termed a particular set of Indian references. It seems again
that the starting point of our Author’s investigation, i.e.,
The next Chapter VII does not make for easy reading. Yet, it is finally quite
clear that the Author managed to clarify the nature of
hāsa as the sthāyin
and hāsya as the
rasa. This [?illegible?] theory. The
problem certainly deserved that much toil, especially when seen from outside
the precincts of the classical Indian culture, looking wherefrom certain doubt
as to the right of hāsya to claim the status of
a full-fledged rasa could be entertained. The
multifaceted enquiry of this chapter should remove finally all doubts in that
respect contributing also many detailed, interesting observations among which
the most striking seems to be the one concerning the differing nature of various
rasas. Now, it appears obvious that they are not
generated in an identical way although such a suspicion could arise. Technically
speaking, all of them have been described, right from the
Nāṭya-Śāstra down to the
Sāhityadarpana, in almost identical terms. Since
the Author apart from hāsya speaks only about
śṛṅgāra and karuṇa,
there certainly the need to tackle the remaining ones is felt. This may be done
in a separate study for the present one is already a bit too extensive. Chapter
VIII that follows brings in a rather unexpected topic of the role of hāsya in
śṛṅgāra. The Author fully substantiates the need
to consider separately this peculiar relationship between love and humor. He
shows in the course of a very detailed study the exact way these two are intertwined
and what is the import of their union for the sahṛdaya.
All the while the theory of bisociation stands him in good stead, explicating
convincingly the functioning of humor also in the context of love-in-union (sambhoga-śṛṅgāra).
This chapter also very forcefully argues for the perfect utility and psychological
validity of the traditional Indian aesthetical notions and terminology. Indeed
it seems at times that Western thinking on the subject to certain extent can
be considered deficient without the notions of vibhāva,
anubhāva, vyabhicāri-bhāva,
et. al. The argument in this chapter is very well substantiated by the methodical
analysis of chosen examples from the Sanskrit kāvya
and mainly from Amaru.
Chapter IX is one of the richest in content and implications. It touches upon many problems in a manner that provokes enthusiastic comments. The Author is at his best when he discusses the vidûṣaṇa of the vidūṣaka. The argument is clear and direct. Among others it is a very important contribution to our understanding of Omkāra’s role as the patron deity of the vidūṣaka. One only wonders when for the first time Omkāra appears in Indian mythology. The answer to this question could contribute towards finding the date of the mythological account found in the Nāṭyaśāstra. Now the main problem tackled in this chapter, i.e., the rasābhāsa-hāsya is clear. But after careful and repeated reading of the relevant passages (especially p.322 and 323) there remains a doubt as to what exactly the Author wants his reader to understand under the term hāsyābhāsa. Is it a process which begins with somebody’s laughter and only then something that initially did not appear as a vibhāva of hāsya is perceived as such? Chapter X also abounds in very interesting and often altogether novel observations. A very convincing integration of the hāsya aspect of the vidūṣaka with his ritualistic role as visualized, among others, by Kuiper belongs to this category of problems. The masterly analysis of the vīthyaṅgas showing—in the words of the Author himself—“how an elitist vīthī draws inspiration from a traditional ritual milieu (connected with the verbal contests of the sabhā?)"—also belongs here, as well as connecting wit and humor of the Sanskrit drama with the bráhman-enigma of the Vedas. This should also be considered a very weighty contribution of Mr. Suntharalingam to our knowledge of the roots and nature of classical Indian theater. On the whole the Author rightly sees the problem as a kind of “transformation of sacrificial ritual into profane drama” (p.424), which to my mind is the most proper perspective. The concluding remarks of this chapter show very clearly how important it is to look for the Vedic undercurrents in the entire classical art in order to discover its deeper meaning and multidimensional implications.
The Conclusion of the entire study that follows pinpoints again remarkably
well all the most important contributions made in the present thesis. At times
it even manages to give sharper contours to some such arguments which tend to
lose their sharpness amidst the detailed discussion in the main body of the
thesis. The problem of hāsyābhāsa may be pointed
out here which now has been very clearly restated in the last sentence of the
first paragraph on page 438. Appreciating the figure of the
vidūṣaka with reference to the esoteric
sphere as contrasted with the exoteric one (pp.436-37) also belongs to the same
type of sharply redefined arguments. Besides the Author formulates here very
striking thoughts as for instance that the transgressive praxis recognized by
From the technical point of view the thesis on the whole has to be judged positively. Checking at random the translations from Sanskrit I have not found any serious shortcoming. Further, so far as a non-English-speaker may say, the language of the thesis is correct and readable. Some minor defects have been marked on the margins. The layout of the essay strikes me as very thoughtful, logical and coherent. Yet there is one aspect of it that provokes a difference of opinion. The thesis is at times overburdened with argumentation and information not always directly useful towards the understanding of the main points. The footnotes here and there grow unnecessarily into independent essays. The supplement crowns this tendency. We think that the Author should emulate here the Indian sūtra style or/and lecture on the subject which will certainly have a salutary effect in this regard. All this does not mean that the thesis should be changed before publication. All the material that it contains should appear in print and the present thesis is not meant to be a handbook for students, so it may be published as it is.
To conclude: after careful reading of the thesis of Mr. Suntharalingam, I am sure that his work complies with all the conditions laid down for such a study to merit the award of the Ph.D. degree. It is certainly an example of novel approach towards the interpretation of the way the problem of humor had been so far treated in the classical Indian thought. The work betrays a very wide reading of the Author not only within the broad precincts of Indology but also outside them in the world literature dealing with the problem of humor from different angles of psychology and philosophy. It is therefore certain that Mr. Suntharalingam thus gave a new turn to the research not only in the narrower sphere of Indian aesthetics but in general to the way that we have understood so far the basic trends that have contributed towards the making of classical Indian culture.
Warszawa,
doc. dr. hab. M. Christopher Byrski
Oriental Institute
P.S. While typing my report I omitted one important point announced earlier in the report.
My enthusiastic opinion of Mr. Suntharalingam’s thesis does not mean
that I see eye to eye with him all the problems tackled. Here I would like to
challenge one important aspect of his approach, not because I consider it to
be invalid but because it impresses me as construed upon, so to speak, external
premises. This is so because the general tendency of the Author’s argument
seems to be to confirm in terms of modern Western psychology all what Indian
aestheticians and in particular