This book grew out of a long-standing fascination with the point where classical Indian aesthetics meets contemporary affect science and lived poetic practice. In the intricate landscape of the Braj verse, the many-sided heroines (nayikas) function not only as literary figures, but as a finely wrought cartography of early-modern emotional life-an unspoken psychology in rhyme and rhythm. I aim to show that the traditional taxonomy of nayika-bheda gains fresh clarity when read through the lenses of cognitive literary studies and modern appraisal theories of emotion.
The project stands on the shoulders of three scholarly lineages: the philological rigor of Sanskrit, Hindi, and Braj criticism; the analytic tools of psychology and philosophy; and the interpretive frameworks of cultural theory. Each has helped me to trace how feelings are scripted, performed, and aestheticised across texts and contexts. I am especially grateful to the teachers, mentors, and colleagues who urged me toward "cross-cultural" inquiry-moving beyond simple comparison to genuine conceptual exchange.
Inspiration has come from many quarters: the lyric brilliance of Bihari, Raskhan, and Jayadeva; the aesthetic treatises of Abhinavagupta and Bharata; and the insights of the contemporary mind scientists. Libraries and literary societies across North India opened their archives, allowing me to rediscover lesser-known poets whose voices still resonate in the Braj dialect.
If this study succeeds, it is in offering a small act of homage and renewal: weaving classical typologies and cognitive perspectives into a unified account of how emotion animates verse.
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