Hanuman's Leap to Lanka

Rāma had searched everywhere for his wife Sītā, who had been carried off by the demon king Rāvaṇa. The monkey-people had joined him. Their king Sugrīva sent search parties into the four quarters of the world. The southern party, led by the prince Aṅgada, came to the southern sea and stopped. They had failed. They sat together on the shore in despair. The whole bowl of the sea was between them and the place where Sītā might still be alive.

The old vulture Sampāti came down to where they sat. He had eyes that could see across great distances. He looked across the water and said: "She is there. On the island of Laṅkā. In a garden of asoka trees, with demonesses guarding her. She is alive. But who among you can leap that sea?"

A hundred yojanas of water lay between them. The monkeys looked at one another. One said he could leap ten. Another said twenty. Another said sixty. Aṅgada said he could leap there but he was not certain he could leap back. None of them was sure.

The old monkey Jāmbavān, who knew the truth of things, looked at Hanumān, who was sitting quietly with his head down.

"Son of the Wind," he said, "you have forgotten what you are."

Hanumān looked up.

"You are the son of Vāyu, the wind that goes everywhere. As a child, you reached out to swallow the sun, taking it for a fruit. You have power that has slept in you since the gods clipped your wing. Stand up. Remember."

As Jāmbavān spoke, Hanumān felt the strength of his birth coming back. He stood. He grew. He grew until his head was higher than the trees. He ran up to the top of the mountain Mahendra at the southern shore, and his weight pressed the mountain down so that springs burst out of it. The other monkeys shouted his name.

He took a great breath. He gathered himself. He bowed in the direction of Rāma. Then he leaped.

The mountain sank as he pushed off. The trees on it were ripped up by the wind of his rising. He shot up into the sky and cleared the height of the clouds and went out over the open sea, his arms before him, his tail trailing behind, his face like Rāma's name.

Halfway across the sea, the gods sent a mountain rising up out of the water to test him, the golden mountain Mainaka, who had been hiding under the sea since the gods cut the wings of mountains long ago. Mainaka rose up so Hanumān could rest on him. Hanumān only touched him with one foot in passing, in respect, and went on.

A demoness named Surasā rose up from the water and demanded he enter her mouth before he could pass. The gods had sent her too, to test him. Hanumān grew to be enormous; she grew larger to swallow him. Hanumān shrank suddenly to the size of a thumb, slipped in and out of her mouth in a moment, and was gone.

A second demoness, Siṃhikā, who could catch the shadows of flying things and pull them down, caught at his shadow on the water. Hanumān felt the drag. He turned in the air, dove down, entered her open mouth in his small form, and tore her apart from the inside.

He came over the island of Laṅkā at evening. He shrank himself to the size of a cat and slipped in over the wall. The city was beautiful, lit with thousands of lamps, and full of the sound of music and of demons making merry. He went from house to house, from palace garden to palace garden, looking. He could not find Sītā in any of them.

At last he came to a quiet garden of aśoka trees, and there, under one of them, sat a thin woman, her hair unwashed, her clothes worn, demonesses sitting around her with weapons. She was speaking to herself, saying her husband's name. Hanumān, hidden in the leaves, knew her at once.

He waited until Rāvaṇa himself came into the garden and threatened her, and he saw her refuse. He waited until Rāvaṇa left. Then he came down out of the tree slowly, in a small form, and showed her Rāma's ring, which he had carried in his mouth across the sea. He told her where Rāma was. He told her that an army was coming.

She wept. She gave him a jewel from her hair to take back to Rāma, so he would know.

Hanumān, before leaving, decided to test the strength of the demons. He let himself be caught. Rāvaṇa's son took him to the court. Rāvaṇa's brother Vibhīṣaṇa argued for his life because a messenger should not be killed. Rāvaṇa instead ordered Hanumān's tail to be set on fire and the monkey paraded through the city as a humiliation.

Hanumān let them wrap his tail in cloth and oil. He let them light it. Then, with his tail flaming, he broke his bonds. He grew large again. He leaped from rooftop to rooftop in Laṅkā, dragging his burning tail across the thatched and wooden roofs, and the city burned behind him. He paused only at the aśoka grove to be sure Sītā was not in danger from the fire he had set, then he leaped over the wall, plunged his tail into the sea to put it out, and rose into the air again.

He came back over the southern shore at dawn. The monkeys saw him in the sky. They shouted with one voice. He came down on Mahendra mountain. Aṅgada and Jāmbavān ran to him. He bowed and said: "I have seen her. She lives. She sends this." He held out the jewel. They wept together.

Then they all went north together, to bring the news to Rāma. The army was already gathering. The road to Laṅkā was opening.