Rasa Moderation in a Bhakti Poetry Unit
At a Gujarati-medium higher secondary school in Banswara, the Class 12 cohort of 32 students sat a 40-mark unit test on the Bhakti poetry unit. Question 4 carried 8 marks: 'Identify the mukhya rasa of the given stanza and justify with one line.' The stanza describes the devotee's beloved as 'ચંદ્ર જેવું મુખ', and the key expects bhakti, with shringara treated as an anga rasa. Twenty-one scripts wrote 'shringara' and supported it with the moon simile; nine wrote 'bhakti' but gave no textual line. The head examiner wants to deduct all 8 marks from the 21 scripts for 'wrong rasa'. A second examiner argues the question is ambiguous and that the stanza's literal level is erotic. The school must finalise marks before the board's internal assessment upload at 5 p.m. tomorrow. The teachers have one 40-minute moderation meeting and no authority to change the question paper.
1. As moderator, decide whether the 21 scripts deserve zero. Give a defensible marking decision and the principle behind it.
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No, zero is not defensible. The question asks for mukhya rasa, but the stanza's literal vehicle is shringara: the moon simile is an upama, and the devotee's longing is expressed in erotic vocabulary. In Bhakti poetry, shringara often works as an anga rasa while bhakti is the mukhya rasa. A script that names shringara and stops there has answered half the question, not none of it. Mark by analytic parts: 3 marks for naming a rasa with a defensible textual base, 3 for quoting the simile or another marker, and 2 for explaining the relation between the literal and devotional levels. The 21 scripts should receive 4-5, not 0: they have evidence but have not subordinated the anga to the mukhya. The nine scripts that say bhakti without a line should receive 3-4, because the term is right but the justification is missing. Record the question's ambiguity in the moderation note so the board-facing internal marks are consistent. This is a judgement about the question's scope, not a licence to accept every reading.
2. Rewrite the question so it tests judgement rather than recall, and state what a full-mark answer must contain.
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Rewrite as: 'The stanza uses the imagery of shringara. Identify the mukhya rasa and the anga rasa, and explain in two sentences why the poem does not become rasabhasa.' A full-mark answer must do four things: (1) name bhakti as mukhya; (2) name shringara as anga; (3) quote a concrete marker, e.g. the upama 'ચંદ્ર જેવું મુખ'; (4) explain that the beloved is the deity or the devotee's ideal, so the erotic level serves devotional longing rather than replacing it. It should also show awareness that rasa is a whole-text experience, not a dictionary meaning. A weaker answer that lists both rasas without ranking should get part marks. This design removes the guess between two labels and tests the relation between them, which is the actual skill in the criticism unit.