(
Hinduism,
Sanskrit)
Some sort of taste derived from sense perceptions. In the revealed
scriptures (the smriti), the following twelve varieties of
rasas are enumerated:
- raudra (anger)
- adbhuta (wonder)
- shringara (conjugal love)
- hasya (comedy)
- vira (chivalry)
- daya (mercy)
- dasya (servitorship)
- sakhya (fraternity)
- bhayanaka (horror)
- bibhatsa (shock)
- shanra (neutrality)
- vatsalya (parenthood)
These
rasas are displayed between man and man and between animal and
animal. According to scripture there is no possibility of an exchange or
rasa between a man and an animal or between a man or any other
species of living beings within the material world. These
rasas are
exchanged between member of the same species only.
However, in the spiritual world, these spiritual mellows of taste in a
relationship with the Supreme are perfectly possible. Therefore the term
rasa extends to describing the relationships between Lord Krishna
and the living entities (or, jivas). The Supreme Personality of
Godhead is therefore described in the sruti-mantras, the Vedic
hymns, as "the fountainhead of all rasas". When one associates with
the Supreme Lord and exchanges one's constitutional rasa with the
Lord, then the living being is actually happy.