2. Art as communion involves the world of All, not the world of It, the whole as against the particularities of real-life experience. 3. Art puts the artist in communion with his own self, which is revealed simultaneously with the art creation.^ The art experience, as a rushing stream of awareness, has removed all obstacles to the artist's perception, not of his psychological, but his metaphysical self. This perception of the metaphysical self through the communion of art is what Sanskrit esthetics calls pasa, a key term which I will return to at some length later. 4. Art as communion is an end in itself, and has no other purpose but its own fulfillment.1- 5. Art as communion differs from spiritual experience in that, while the latter requires complete surrender to a higher more impelling stream of reality, the former involves the complete merger of non-identical objects with the subject."0 That is, art does not reject common experience, but through communion, transforms it so that all that participates in the art experience finds its place in one whole. This does not mean release from^ but release of passions and attachments. Besides the intellectual basis for Sanskrit poetics, of course, there is the social one which can be perceived as a threefold matter: the poe^s social position, his audience, and his education. Even during the period of degeneration of Sanskrit poetry, the poet^ position at court was as eminent as it was unchallengeable. Moreover, he could expect an extremely sophisticated audience, initiated to his art by a gradual process of refinement, which was partly the result of intense and incessant experience with art and literature,and partly the result of minute observation of man and nature.21 Thus, the poet, using conventions of various kinds, could expect his audience to understand his hints and indirections. Indirectness became a tool of great power, though never an end in itself. The contract between poet and audience was so rich and complicated that much could be said with little; but this demanded a poet who could live up to such a bargain. His training was rigorous, but depended more on self-discipline than a regular course of instruction. Poetic discipline required not merely emotional involvement, but intellectual refinement,^ for the poetic ideal went beyond social good to encompass that highest propriety which is the source of ethical formulation.ZJ This propriety is the awareness of the order and harmony of things; the function of poetic creation is to generate a true sense of identity of all knowing subjects, a sense that can be called a full and perfect beatitude.-4 These then are the fundamentals. Upon them, Sanskrit poetic tradition develops its chief characteristics. As would be expected, this tradition gave priority in its methods to the abstract. Thus, meticulous analysis of form became paramount in criticism, concrete representation giving way to abstract representation. The formal categories of rhetoric — figure, diction, assonance, and tonal variety -- became subservient to one end;"3