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.
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