Aesthetic Ideas and Concepts of the Hindu Tradition: Specific Features and Analogies

Abstract

This article deals with the main ideas and basic concepts of Hindu aesthetics. The problem area reveals itself in the question of European culture’s perception of Hindu aesthetics. In this connection, the following questions are actualized: what can be considered as original aesthetic conceptions of Hinduism? is it possible to find direct analogies in other cultures? how relevant and correct is the conceptual apparatus describing various aesthetic phenomena? what is the role of the religious thought in the proposed aesthetic context? Proceeding from the historical and cultural position of aesthetic knowledge as it is presented in the European tradition, key approaches to the phenomenon of the aesthetic are shown, with the ideas of classical German philosophy – the cradle of aesthetic science (A. Baumgarten, I. Kant) – at the centre. The marked heterogeneity of aesthetic knowledge indicates its problematic status in the European historical-philosophical discourse and at the same time allows one to see, against its background, the harmonious place of aesthetics in Hindu culture. It mainly concerns the peculiarities of religious and worldview systems. Further, the paper studies the similarities and differences between the theoretical and ritual ideas and practices in Christianity and Hinduism. In particular, what they have in common is the importance of “threshold people” – liminal personae – in the spiritual life of society. Among the radical differences is the natural embedding of aesthetics in the religious system of India, while for European aesthetics, the religious world is just one of the spheres of the aesthetic. Using the method of comparative text analysis with reference to leading Russian orientalists and foreign researchers (V. Shokhin, D. Zilberman, E. Torchinov, R. Guénon, N. Gupta), the author takes a number of concepts as an example to demonstrate identity of religious and aesthetic ideas in Hindu and European cultures, as well as a possibility of mutual “cultural translation” of such basic concepts as aesthetics, the aesthetic, rasa and bhava.

For citation: Sobolev Yu.V. Aesthetic Ideas and Concepts of the Hindu Tradition: Specific Features and Analogies. Vestnik Severnogo (Arkticheskogo) federal’nogo universiteta. Ser.: Gumanitarnye i sotsial’nye nauki, 2021, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 119–127. DOI: 10.37482/2687-1505-V108