From Feelings to Flourishing: Integrating Navarasa Theory with Contemporary Affective Psychology Through the Rasa-Affect Integration Model (RAIM)

The Natyashastra (c. 200 BCE-200 CE), attributed to Bharata Muni, presents the Navarasa doctrine nine fundamental emotional essences as one of history’s earliest systematic accounts of human affect. Despite its theoretical sophistication, this framework has remained peripheral to contemporary Western-dominated emotion science. This paper argues that the nine Rasas align structurally with major modern theories, including Ekman’s basic emotions, Barrett’s constructed emotion, Gross’s emotion regulation model, Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory, and Kabat-Zinn’s mindfulness approaches. Building on these intersections, we advance the Rasa-Affect Integration Model (RAIM), a three-level bidirectional framework integrating biological, aesthetic-relational, and contemplative dimensions of emotion. Implications for clinical psychology, cross-cultural research, and mindfulness-based therapies are discussed.