‘Ram, Ram’, from which they learned that he belonged to the army of their brother, and let him pass on; but he remained lame for life from the wound.  This accounts very satisfactorily, according to popular belief, for the halting gait of all the monkeys of that species;[23] those who are descended lineally from the general inherit it, of course; and those who are not, adopt it out of respect for his memory, as all the soldiers of Alexander contrived to make one shoulder higher than the other, because one of his happened to be so.  When he passed, thousands and tens of thousands of lamps were burning upon his mountain, as the people remained entirely unconscious of the change, and at their usual occupations.  Hanuman reached Ceylon with his mountain, the tree was found upon it, and Lachhman’s wound cured.[24]

Govardhan is now within the boundary of our territory, and a native collector resides here from Agra.[25]

Notes: 

1.  January, 1836.

2.  See note on Govardhan, ante, chapter 53, note 1.

3. Ante, chapter 9, note 8.

4. Ante, beginning of chapter 53.

5.  This Hindoo version of the Massacre of the Innocents necessarily recalls to mind the story in St. Matthew’s Gospel.  Numerous incidents of the Gospel narrative, including the birth among the cattle, the stable, the manger, and the imperial census, are repeated in the Indian legends of Krishna.  The exact channel of communication is not known, but the intercourse between Alexandria and India is, in general terms, the explanation of the coincidences (Weber, Die Griechen in Indien, 1890, and Abh. ueber Krishna’s Geburtfest, 1868).

6.  This story may be an adaptation of the similar Buddhist tale.

7.  Uj is the Og, King of Bashan, of the Hebrew version of the legend.  The extravagant stories quoted in the text are not in the Koran, but are the inventions of the commentators.  Sale gives references in his notes to chap. 5 of the Koran.

8.  The kingdom included the modern Oudh (Awadh).  The capital was the ancient city, also named Ajodhya, adjoining Fyzabad, which is still a very sacred place of pilgrimage.

9.  It is, I think, absolutely impossible for the most sympathetic European to understand, or enter into, the mental position of the learned and devout Hindoo who implicitly believes the wild myth related in the text, and sees no incongruity in the congeries of inconsistent ideas which are involved in the story.  We may dimly apprehend that Brahma is conceived as a [Greek text], or Architect of the Universe, working in subordination to an impersonal higher power, and not as the infinite, omniscient, omnipotent Creator whom the Hebrews reverenced, but we shall still be a long way from attaining the Hindoo point of view.  The relations of Krishna, Vishnu, Brahma, Rama, Siva, and all the other deities, with one another and with mankind, seem to be conceived by the Hindoo in a manner so confused and contradictory that every attempt at elucidation or explanation must necessarily fail.  A Hindoo is born, not made, and the ‘inwardness’ of Hinduism is not to be penetrated, even by the most learned of ‘barbarian’ pundits.