365bet娱乐

鈥楾he affective turn鈥� (Pollock 2016:45) is an orientation that attends to emotion and the material.^[1] I am inspired by affect as prompting an orientation to the materiality of the body and the process of emotions but this work does not constitute a contribution to affect theory. With the term 鈥榓ffect鈥� I am referring both to emotion as an embodied experience and theoretical approaches that centre the body and experience. I initially resisted affect as a theoretical frame in order not to subject the colonised periphery to the theoretical whim of the centre.^[2] Affect is a theoretical approach from the humanities that privileges the nonlinguistic, the non-human, and matter and emotion as the impetus to act or think, the precognitive that shapes the forms and interactions of all relationships including relationships of power.

According to Arthur:

The word 鈥渁ffect鈥� holds a glut of meanings in generative drift: from emotion, feeling, mood, sensation, and vibe to action, atmosphere, capacity, force, intensity, potential, or relation. Affect studies attend to those near-imperceptible, too-intense, interstitial, or in-the-making visceral forces and feelings that accompany and broker the entangled material鈥攅specially bodily鈥攁nd conceptual potentials of an emergent or historical phenomenon. (Arthur 2021)

This approach is promising if we can construe affect in relation to texts, and historical ones at that. Schaefer considers whether this framework can elucidate ancient texts and bodies in his article 鈥楾he Codex of Feeling鈥�, where 鈥楢ffect theory is a way of approaching the humanities that emphasises the facets of subjectivity that cannot be reduced to language鈥� (2019:1). How can this be applied to ancient fields where data is exclusively linguistic or textual?

Schaefer responds squarely to this appeal:

[T]exts do not come from nowhere: they are themselves the working out of deeper affective currents crossing and colliding with one another. Texts tell affective histories. And equally importantly, to make meaning from these texts, we need to try to create a map of the affective coordinates by which they were created and interpreted. (2019:2)

This offers a possibility of moving beyond a 鈥榤ere philologist鈥� approach, to use Grinshpon鈥檚 archetype (2001:26ff), an approach that is focused on reconstructing grammar and syntax, and instead encompass the material, emotional and somatic nature of bodies. Mapping the affective currents of the body corresponds to Schaeffer鈥檚 call to map the affective coordinates of texts. Schaeffer鈥檚 manifesto can be deployed to elucidate the material, emotional and somatic body formally bound by the constraints of karma and 蝉补峁僺腻谤补 that yogis seek to become free from.

Affect can sit alongside rasa as an emic theoretical approach. Rasa is the Indian theory of aesthetics. This could be productive in the analysis of 办耻峁囜笉补濒颈苍墨 in chapters five and six but is also problematic. Rasa might help understand the experience of the process of liberation via the production and consumption of elixirs in the body. However, just because the primary meaning of rasa is 鈥�taste鈥� it cannot be so easily deployed in this context. Rasa as aesthetic theory was developed for dance, theatre and poetry, not theology or the mystic or ascetic experience, let alone mere gustatory appreciation.

The 础尘峁泃补蝉颈诲诲丑颈鈥檚 concepts of 辫谤补办峁泃颈 and 驳耻峁嘺 show why affect is an appropriate orientation for the 丑补峁环补 corpus. In the 础尘峁泃补蝉颈诲诲丑颈 辫谤补办峁泃颈 and 驳耻峁嘺 are bodily and affective phenomena, the physical manifestation of the doctrine of karma.^[3] 笔谤补办峁泃颈 is the destruction of the body (础尘峁泃补蝉颈诲诲丑颈 9.1), the form that the good and bad deeds done in previous births take in the body (础尘峁泃补蝉颈诲诲丑颈 9.2). 笔谤补办峁泃颈s are of two kinds, physical and mental: the physical are 惫腻迟补, pitta and kapha^[4] and the mental has the mind as its field of operation (础尘峁泃补蝉颈诲诲丑颈 9.3). The physical 辫谤补办峁泃颈s are not described as 诲辞峁�as in chapter nine but they are elsewhere (础尘峁泃补蝉颈诲诲丑颈 10.10, 14.13, 14.19). We can understand the 辫谤补办峁泃颈s to be the 诲辞峁�as and the 驳耻峁嘺s of chapter ten as the standard triumvirate of sattva, rajas and tamas. However, chapter nine also gives 驳耻峁嘺s of 辫谤补办峁泃颈, in the sense of qualities of 辫谤补办峁泃颈, as momentary experiences of pleasure and suffering that arise in the mind, and the mind and other elements (础尘峁泃补蝉颈诲诲丑颈 9.4-13). The concept of 辫谤补办峁泃颈 accounts for feelings and ailments of the body, thus subsuming affective and physiological realms. The 础尘峁泃补蝉颈诲诲丑颈鈥檚 account of 驳耻峁嘺 in chapter ten (础尘峁泃补蝉颈诲诲丑颈 10.1-9) likewise fits an affect understanding where 驳耻峁嘺s are produced from 辫谤补办峁泃颈 as sattva, rajas and tamas (础尘峁泃补蝉颈诲诲丑颈 10.1), they bind the body and mind (础尘峁泃补蝉颈诲诲丑颈 10.2) and from the 驳耻峁嘺s arise emotions, physiological needs and actions.

Elsewhere affect has been deployed in Indological scholarship by Biernacki. Biernacki integrates affect theorised as virtual reality by Massumi in conversation with Abhinavagupta鈥檚 theology of the body in which affective states are deities. Notwithstanding Biernacki鈥檚 articulation of Abhinavagupta鈥檚 apparent dualism of mind and body, affect here highlights 鈥榯he body itself as an ecology of beings, materially embedded鈥� (Biernacki 2019:121) that is also found in 丑补峁环补 sources鈥擨 touch on this in the discussion of 办耻峁囜笉补濒颈苍墨.

The 鈥榓ffective turn鈥� has inspired the orientation of this thesis to centring the materiality of bodies rather than reaching for the transcendent and acknowledging the generative entanglement in emotion of the yogic process. The body is bound by karma and emotions, and the yogic process is an affective one, characterised by experiences of bliss and power, rather than an entirely renunciatory mode. In the discussions that follow I single out in particular desire (办腻尘补) as a structuring emotion for yogic process.^[5] Massumi calls the shift of perspective in affect theory 鈥榝luidifying鈥� (Massumi 2002:6) and I mobilise this concept to reorient an approach to the matter of the body and see it rather as fluid in substance and in process.

Footnotes and references:

[back to top]

[1]:

Affect studies was pioneered by the psychologist Tomkins (1962) and turned to critical theory by scholars such as Sedgwick (2003)^鈦� , Berlant (2012) and Ahmed (2010, 2006). Sedgwick鈥檚 Touching Feeling (2003) is particularly relevant to affect but her work from Tendencies (1994) onwards has been pioneering in the field.

[2]:

Or, in the contestations of area studies and queer theory, as Arondekar and Patel put it more eloquently, 鈥榯he citational underpinnings that provide the theoretical conduit for such explorations were and continue to be resolutely contemporary and drawn primarily from the United States; that is, geopolitics provides the exemplars, but rarely the epistemologies鈥� (2016:152).

[3]:

The 础尘峁泃补蝉颈诲诲丑颈鈥檚 idiosyncratic use of these terms is not that of 蝉腻峁僰丑测补 or tantra.

[4]:

The term kapha does not appear in this verse in the critical edition but occurs in variant readings and can be considered to be included in the 鈥榚tc鈥� (-腻诲测腻岣�) of 惫腻迟补pitt膩dy膩. Kapha is named in 础尘峁泃补蝉颈诲诲丑颈 9.7 and 9.8.

[5]:

Cf. Litvik鈥檚 reading of Dicken鈥檚 through the prism of resentment (2012) and Recalcati鈥檚 interrogation of Freud and Lacan through hate (2012).