SOAS Research Online

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Abstract

In his Alaṅkāra-cintāmaṇi (“Wish-Granting Jewel of Ornament”), Ajitasena, a fifteenth-century Jain monk from the Digambara Senagaṇa lineage, connects the rise of sthāyi-bhāva (stable emotion) with different types of material karmas. This paper investigates connections between Ajitasena’s interpretation of the production of rasa and Jain metaphysics and, in doing so, argues that the category of emotion ought to be understood as a cognitive, embodied, and karmic concept. I examine the role of deluding karma (mohanīya-karma) that Ajitasena identifies as the source of stable emotion, further revealing rasa, and emphasize the importance of conduct-deluding karma (cāritra-mohanīya-karma), which manifests through passional states (kaṣāya and no-kaṣāya). I conclude that Ajitasena’s introduction of karmic processes in the Alaṅkāra-cintāmaṇi highlights the complex nature of aesthetic emotion as both a mental and embodied state that, even if temporarily, transforms the self in conformity with Jain metaphysics.