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VALOR AGAINST TIME
mous power or factor that is divine; a neuter; the "godly essence" which is a transcendent force antecedent both to such mythical personifications as the gods themselves and to all god-wrought events. Daivam, "fate," cannot be personified, brought down to the scale of the human imagination; neither can it be reached by prayer, oblation, or magic spell. Daivam is that stony face of life which must be confronted when the comforting illusion of the magic mythological tradition, the consolation of devotional religion, has been outgrown; when at last it is realized what a little day is that of the victory of human arms. An acceptance, sober and brave, of man's position against this mighty background is then required, there being no longer any screening, comforting ideals: neither gods strong enough to defend us, nor satisfying illusions about the nature of the community-illusions, for example, of the nation surviving through the sacrifice and surrender of the individual, or through the sacrifice of a gencration, or such flattering notions as those of supremely valuable institutions and ideals that will outlive the doom of the period and the personal disaster of the individual sacrificed for their survival.
A lonely beast of prey, a wounded lion in its den, forsaken by fortune and his fellows, the Hindu king, no matter what his fortune, is doomed to die an exile in the jungle. Fame will scarcely outlive his brief career. His life-spark, his personal soul (jiva) will go on, in the vortex of rebirth, to subsequent embodiments, in the heavens or hells-most likely hells; and after the interlude of that yonder-life he will be born again, as man or beast. He may aspire to kingship again, go through the same struggle, the same cycle, thrilled in turn by the anxieties and the merciless triumphs, shaken by foreboding, submitting finally to doomrising like a rocket, falling like a star, and all the while oblivious of the fact that he has experienced this thing many times before. He will empty once again this cup of life to the last drop, in gluttony and disgust, in surfeit and misery, without understanding the elementary trick-namely that it was himself who mixed
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| SR No. | 007309 |
| Book Title | Philosophies of India |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Heinrich Zimmer, Joseph Campbell |
| Publisher | Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd |
| Publication Year | 1953 |
| Total Pages | 709 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 34 MB |