Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 164
Feeling is composed, not commanded
Rasa directs attention to the ensemble of form body suggestion context and audience without promising emotional control
Premise
Communication can be semantically clear yet aesthetically inert. Classical Indian rasa theory examines how drama, poetry, music, ritual, and performance arrange circumstances, expression, bodily action, sound, timing, and receptive attention so that an audience may savor an aesthetic mood. The question is not merely what the artifact says, but what mode of experience its elements make possible.
The tradition changed across centuries. Bharata’s Natyashastra supplied a dramaturgical architecture; Anandavardhana emphasized dhvani, or suggestion; Abhinavagupta deepened the role of spectator reception and immersion. Annette Wilke’s 2018 description of rasa as “embodied rhetoric” is a modern reconstruction connecting affect, form, body, audience, and religious or cultural meaning—not a label used by the classical authors themselves.
What the model is: Rasa Aesthetics as Embodied Rhetoric in Knowledge →
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- FamilyModel
- CategoryParadigms, Traditions & Metatheories
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What these mean
Editorial orientation · Family
Model
In this series, Model names the editorial family primarily used to understand and explain communication: theories, frameworks, effects, traditions, principles and other conceptual resources. It is an umbrella for a route into the field, not a claim that every included object is a predictive model.
Editorial orientation · Category
Paradigms, Traditions & Metatheories
Provides a broad intellectual perspective within which multiple concepts, theories or investigations are developed. Traditions carry histories and commitments; metatheories examine how theories themselves are organized or related.