Chapter 5: Hanuman
Ramayana: Chapter 5 : Hanuman
Quick recap: old king, no kids, gets kids, eldest is Ram, awesome dude, one queen plots, kicks ram out to place her son at the throne, ram with brother laxman and wifey sita out in the jungle for 14 years, sita is kidnapped, ram is distraught, allies with sugrive to find her.
Now, hanuman.
So, now that sugrive is back to his senses, he call out to all monkey people [vanars] to come and assemble, and help ram.
Ram distributes them in 4 groups, to go in 4 directions. To each group, he gives a few of his ornaments [ rings, amulets etc] so that if they meet sita, they could convince her to come with them.
we will limit ourselves to one of these groups, the group that went south. This consisted of Vali's son Angad, A wise old bear-man Jambuwant and Hanuman. Now this Hanuman is a general in the army, a very strong person and all. They get ram's ring, which Jambuwant keeps safely.
At the sea front, they fall to the ground disappointed, as there is endless sea before them and no sight of sita. Just at this moment, a huge, ugly wingless vulture comes up to them, licking his chops, proceeds to try and eat them. Jambuvant says, "what creatures these vultures! one this ugly creature, about to eat us all, and one the brave and valint Jatayu, who gave his life trying to save sita."
At these words the vulture stops, and says "jatayu? you know of him? tell me more..."
Jambuvant proceeds to tell him the story of how noble jatayu laid down his life fighting ravana. The vulture bursts into tears... "that jatayu is my brother! I am Sampati, lord of Vultures... when we were young, we would fly higher and ever higher. once, jatayu flew so high, the sun began to burn his wings. i spread my wings over him to protect him, and got burnt in the process. Hence the winglessness. i thank you for giving me news of my brother. This sita you talk of, i know where she is held captive. King Ravana has held her captive in his kingdom across the sea."
they duly thank him and he goes off, full of grief for his brother. Now angad is worried. He asks jambuvant, if ravana is on the other side of this sea, how can we get there?
Jambuvant says, this is the time to tell hanuman his true story. he says to hanuman "You are Hanuman, son of the cursed angel Anjani, incarnate of lord shiva and son of wind god, Pawan. You have supreme strength and divine prowess. When you were small, you didnt know the extent of your own power. you once flew up to the sun and swallowed it whole. The gods wished to punish you, but wind god got angry. he wouldnt blow and the earth suffered due to this standoff between the gods. So they reached a truce, whence you would go unpunished, but you would have no knowledge of your true power. It was ordained onto me to tell you this and return to you the knowledge of your power at the appropriate time."
He tells him this and hanuman Becomes awesome. better than superman of batman, this is HanuMan :) lol .
So, hanuman learns that he can change size at will, become really huge or really tiny. He also possesses super strenght and eternal life [he is one of 8 people in indian mythology who (suffer) have this eternal life ] .
So, he at once become huge and takes a huge leap, landing at sri lankan shores.
But, before he reaches lanka, he has to pass a test. there is a serpent demon, Surase, in the sea. She says "you are food for me, you cant go any further without going into my mouth."
Hanuman, intelligent that he is, becomes as small as a thimble and goes into her mouth. then comes back out and says, now that i have gone into your mouth, let me pass. She is pleased with his wit and lets him pass.
Reaching lanka, he becomes really tiny, and goes past the gaurds and starts looking for sita in this magical and rich city of lanka. Known as सोने कि लंका [sone ki lanka] or the lanka of gold. All houses have loads of gold on them, everyone is quite rich.
finally, he reaches a garden , known as ashok vatika, where he sees a lady, who looks like it is sita. he is about to investigate, when suddenly ravan comes up to this place with his entourage bearing something on a plate. he crouches down on some branches and bides his time, looks on.
Now, ravan has been trying to seduce sita, and induce her to submit to him so that she could be his. This time, he resorts to Rakshas magic. he recreates a severed head of a ram, and shows it to her. He tells her that he has killed her husband and she should submit to him. Brave sita, though quaking with fear inside, puts up a brave face and says nothing. Ravan decides to give her some time and goes away. As soon as he goes away, she breaks down and starts to cry.
Now sita is a sweet person. Even the rakshashi [female rakshas] gaurds she has like her. One of them cant bear her crying, and goes and tells her of ravan's treachery. Sita is relieved, and goes to sleep.
Hanuman waits till nightfall, for the gaurds to sleep, and appears in front of sita, with ram's ring. She is skeptical at first, as she thinks maybe this is another one of ravana's tricks. but, he convinces her and gets ready to whisk her away to safety.
She forbids him to do this, as she feels ram should be the one to rescue him. Not from a misplaced sense of propriety, but she feels it is appropriate that way. By kidnapping the prince's wife, ravana has challenged not just Ram, but the royal family. So, Ram should defend his honor and duly rescue her himself. only then would the stain on the family be wiped of or something.
point to be noted. how, even in times of extreme duress, everyone thinks of dharma first and then of their own life. This is how highly valued principles are. Were. Should be.
So, back to the story. So hanuman decides to do a little recon and frighten off the lankans. He deliberately gets caught and lets the soldiers take him to ravana's court. here i will end this chapter and we will continue with his adventures later.
