From the early years of the Common Era to 1700 Indian intellectuals explored with unparalleled subtlety the place of emotion in art Their investigations led to the deconstruction of art's formal structures & broader inquiries into the pleasure of tragic tales Rasa or taste was the word they chose to describe art's aesthetics & their passionate effort to pin down these phenomena became its own remarkable act of creation This book is the first in any language to follow the evolution of rasa from its origins in dramaturgical thought-a concept for the stage-to its flourishing in literary thought-a concept for the page A Rasa Reader incorporates primary texts by every significant thinker on classical Indian aesthetics many never translated before The arrangement of the selections captures the intellectual dynamism that has powered this debate for centuries Headnotes explain the meaning & significance of each text a comprehensive introduction summarizes major threads in intellectual-historical terms & critical endnotes & an extensive bibliography add further depth to the selections The Sanskrit theory of emotion in art is one of the most sophisticated in the ancient world a precursor of the work being done today by critics & philosophers of aesthetics A Rasa Reader's conceptual detail historical precision & clarity will appeal to any scholar interested in a full portrait of global intellectual development A Rasa Reader is the inaugural book in the Historical Sourcebooks in Classical Indian Thought series edited by Sheldon Pollock These text-based books guide readers through the most important forms of classical Indian thought from epistemology rhetoric & hermeneutics to astral science yoga & medicine Each volume provides fresh translations of key works headnotes to contextualize selections a comprehensive analysis of major lines of development within the discipline & exegetical & text-critical endnotes as well as a bibliography Designed for comparativists & interested general readers Historical Sourcebooks is also a great resource for advanced scholars seeking authoritative commentary on challenging works