THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

IV. 2.Vyasa: Some Characteristics177sense of the sublime principally and do not dwell with them asdaily acquaintances. It was left for Vyasa to create epically thehuman divine and the human anarchic so as to bring idealismsof the conflicting moral types into line with the daily emotionsand imaginations of men. The sharp distinction between Devaand Asura is one of the three distinct and peculiar contributionsto ethical thought which India has to offer. The legend of Indraand Virochana is one of its fundamental legends. Both of themcame to Brihaspati to know from him of God; he told them togo home and look in the mirror. Virochana saw himself thereand concluding that he was God, asked no farther; he gave fullrein to the sense of individuality in himself which he mistookfor the deity. But Indra was not satisfied; feeling that there mustbe some mistake he returned to Brihaspati and received fromhim the true God-Knowledge which taught him that he was Godonly because all things were God, since nothing existed but theOne. If he was the one God, so was his enemy, the very feelingsof separateness and enmity were not permanent reality buttransient phenomena. The Asura therefore is he who is profoundlyconscious of his own separate individuality and yet would imposeit on the world as the sole individuality; he is thus blownalong on the hurricane of his desires and ambitions until he stumblesand is broken, in the great phrase of Aeschylus, against the throneof Eternal Law. The Deva, on the contrary, stands firm in theluminous heaven of self-knowledge, his actions flow not inwardtowards himself but outwards toward the world. The distinctionthat Indra draws is not between altruism and egoism but betweendisinterestedness and desire. The altruist is profoundly consciousof himself and he is really ministering to himself even in hisaltruism; hence the hot and sickly odour of sentimentalism andthe taint of the Pharisee which clings about European altruism.With the perfect Hindu the feeling of self has been merged inthe sense of the universe; he does his duty equally whether ithappens to promote the interests of others or his own; if hisaction seems oftener altruistic than egoistic it is because ourduty oftener coincides with the interests of others — thanwith our own. Rama's duty as a son calls him to sacrificehimself, to leave the empire of the world and become a beggar