Stories

Left hungry one morning, the infant Hanuman saw the sun rising red over the hills and took it for fruit. He leapt. Indra struck him from the sky with the vajra and broke his jaw; Vayu, in grief, drew all air out of the worlds until every god came to revive the child and load him with boons.

Too strong and too playful, he pulled the beards of meditating rishis and upended their pots. Their curse was kind: he would forget his own power until someone reminded him. Everything he later achieves begins with someone telling him what he already is.

On the southern shore the search party stood defeated by a hundred yojanas of water. Old Jambavan turned to the quiet one and recited his own history back to him — his birth, his boons, his strength. Hanuman grew as he listened, and the mountain under him cracked as he pushed off.

Mainaka rose from the waves to offer rest, and he touched it in thanks but did not stop. Surasa opened her jaws a hundred yojanas wide; he became the size of a thumb, passed through and out. Simhika seized his shadow; he tore her apart mid-air and flew on to Lanka.

He found her among the demonesses, thin with grief, and waited for the courtyard to empty. From the branches he dropped Rama's signet ring at her feet. He offered to carry her out on his back; she refused — Rama must come himself, and win her back in the open.

Dragged before Ravana, he coiled his tail into a seat higher than the throne. Denied a formal embassy's courtesy, he let them wrap his tail in oiled cloth and set it alight — then leapt roof to roof until the golden city burned, dipping the flame in the sea only at the end.

Lakshmana lay dying, and only the sanjivani would save him — by moonrise. Hanuman could not tell one glowing herb from another on Dronagiri, so he uprooted the whole mountain and carried it through the night sky, back before dawn, and took it home again afterwards.

When the sorcerer Ahiravana stole Rama and Lakshmana to Patala for sacrifice, Hanuman took his five-faced form to blow out five lamps in five directions at once — the only way the demon could be killed. It is the origin of the Panchmukhi image.

Given a necklace of pearls, he bit each bead open and threw it away. Asked why, he said he was looking for Rama, and found no Rama in them. Then what use is your body, they laughed — so he tore open his chest, and there sat Rama and Sita, within.

Ravana had bound Shani beneath his throne. Hanuman freed him, and the grim planet promised that no one who worships Hanuman would suffer his worst weight. It is why Saturday belongs to him, and why mustard oil is poured on Saturdays.

In the Mahabharata an old monkey lies across a forest path with his tail in the way. Bhima, proudest of the strong, cannot lift it — and learns he has met his elder brother, another son of the wind.

As a chiranjivi he is said to attend every recitation of the Ramayana, unseen at the back. Households still leave a mat and a lamp unoccupied when the Sundar Kand is read.