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The Nine Rasas · नवरसाः
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What a verse tastes like
रस means juice, sap, flavour. Sanskrit criticism holds that a poem does not describe an emotion — it distils one, and hands it to you to taste. Nine flavours cover everything that has ever been written.
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made from
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its colour
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Round {{ qRound }} of {{ qTotal }} · {{ qScore }} right
Which flavour is this line carrying?
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साधु! · {{ qScore }} of {{ qTotal }}
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Where the idea comes from
Bharata’s Nāṭyaśāstra, the oldest manual of drama in any language, lists eight rasas and gives each a colour and a presiding deity. Śānta — peace — was added centuries later and argued about for centuries more, because a flavour with no agitation in it barely seemed like a flavour at all. The theory’s claim is precise: what you feel reading a tragedy is not grief but karuṇa, grief refined into something you can taste without being wounded by it.
Flavours tasted: {{ metCount }} of nine. ॐ