The leap
Episode 14 of 20 in Ramayana: Valmiki's story, told gently.
Narrated with an AI voice.
- Reading time
- 6 min
- Listening time
- 9 min
- By
- DharmikStudio Originals
- Narration
- AI voice
Read along
Namaste. Last time, the searchers learned from old Sampati that Sita is in Lanka, across the sea. Nobody could promise to cross and return. Then Jambavan reminded Hanuman of who he was, and Hanuman rose and said, I will go.
Tonight we begin the **Sundara Kanda**, the beautiful book. Many families read this part of the Ramayana on its own, as a prayer, in times of worry. Tonight you will hear why.
Why is it called beautiful? Valmiki does not tell us, so families have their own answers. Some say it is because everything in it is lovely: the sea, the city, the grove, and above all the news it carries. Some say that Sundara was a pet name Hanuman's mother gave him, so this is his book. An old saying puts it simply: in the Sundara Kanda, what is not beautiful? We do not have to pick one answer. They all point the same way.
And there is a reason it comforts people in hard times. Until now the story has been a long line of losses. A kingdom lost, a father lost, Sita lost. In this kanda, for the first time, the tide turns. Someone goes out alone into the unknown, and comes back with good news.
**
The kanda opens with a line that sets everything in motion.
**tato rāvaṇanītāyāḥ sītāyāḥ śatrukarśanaḥ**
"Then, to find the trail of Sita, whom Ravana had carried away..." The sentence goes on to say that Hanuman wished to travel the path that only celestial beings travel, through the sky.
Hanuman climbs **Mount Mahendra** by the sea. He bows to the Sun, to Indra, to Brahma, to his father the wind, and to all beings. He gathers his strength. Valmiki says the mountain itself trembles under his feet, flowers fall from the trees, and streams start to flow from the rocks.
Then he leaps.
**
Picture it from the shore. The vanaras watching, silent. A great golden form rising over the waves, arms stretched out, the wind roaring around him, his shadow moving across the water like a ship.
The sea, Valmiki says, wants to help. It remembers that Rama's ancestors, the kings of the Ikshvaku line, once did it a kindness. So it asks the mountain **Mainaka**, hidden under the waves, to rise up and offer Hanuman a place to rest.
Mainaka rises, golden, and says, rest on me a while and eat, you have far to go. Hanuman is touched. But he does not stop. He brushes the mountain gently with his hand, as a way of accepting the kindness, and says, I have made a promise, and I cannot rest until it is done. Then he flies on.
I love this. He does not refuse rudely. He honours the offer. He simply keeps his eyes on his work.
**
Next comes a test. The gods want to see Hanuman's strength and wisdom, so they ask **Surasa**, the mother of serpents, to block his path. She takes a huge form and opens her mouth wide. No one may pass without entering, she says.
Hanuman makes himself bigger. She opens wider. He grows larger still. She opens wider still. Then Hanuman does something clever. In an instant he makes himself as small as a thumb, darts in, and darts straight out again before she can close her mouth. He bows to her. I have entered, as you asked, he says. Now let me go.
Surasa laughs and takes her true, gentle form. Go, she says, and may you succeed. You have both strength and wit.
A third obstacle waits further on: a being in the sea named **Simhika**, who could catch a flier by grasping his shadow on the water. Hanuman understands the trick and overcomes her quickly, and carries on.
**
At last he lands on a mountain on the far shore. He is not even tired, Valmiki says. Before him, in the evening light, lies **Lanka**.
It is beautiful. Golden walls, tall white mansions, gardens, lakes full of lotuses, gates guarded day and night. Hanuman thinks carefully. If I walk in as I am, I will be noticed at once. So he waits for the dark, and then makes himself very small, about the size of a cat, and slips into the city.
At the gate, Valmiki tells us, he is stopped by the guardian spirit of the city herself. Hanuman overcomes her with a light blow, and she stands aside. She remembers an old prophecy: when a vanara gets past me, the end of Ravana's rule is near.
**
Now begins the search, and this is where Valmiki slows everything down.
The moon rises over Lanka. Hanuman moves from house to house, roof to roof. He hears music. He sees people laughing, singing, reciting the Vedas. He sees scholars and soldiers, gardens and treasure. He enters Ravana's own palace, sees the great flying chariot **Pushpaka**, walks through rooms where Ravana's queens lie asleep.
He sees one queen more graceful than all the others, sleeping on a fine couch, and for one joyful moment he thinks, this must be Sita. He almost dances. Then he stops himself. No, he thinks. Sita, separated from Rama, would not sleep peacefully in a palace. She would not wear jewels. She would not be here. This must be another. It is **Mandodari**, Ravana's chief queen.
It is a small moment, but it tells us so much about Hanuman. He knows Sita's heart before he has even met her.
**
He also feels uneasy. He has walked among sleeping women, which is not proper for someone like him. But he checks his own mind and finds it calm and clear. I came here only to find Sita, he tells himself, and where else could I search for a woman except among women? My heart has not been stirred.
He searches everywhere. Every hall, every cellar, every garden. And he does not find her.
Now Hanuman sinks into despair. Valmiki lets us hear his thoughts. If I go back without news, Rama will lose hope. Lakshmana too. Sugriva. Angada. All of them. Perhaps I should not go back at all.
Then he stops himself. He says, in effect: despair is the root of failure. Someone who does not lose heart finds a way.
He bows. He bows to Rama and Lakshmana, to Sita, to Sugriva, to the gods. And he looks up, and notices, beyond the palace, a great grove of ashoka trees that he has not yet searched.
**
So let us gather what we heard tonight.
Hanuman leapt from Mount Mahendra, and on the way he politely declined Mainaka's offer of rest and passed Surasa's test with wit rather than force. He entered Lanka at night in a tiny form and searched palaces and gardens in the moonlight without once losing sight of his purpose. And when he did not find Sita, he nearly gave up, then chose hope, bowed to Rama and Sita, and went on to the one place he had not searched.
**One thing to take with you.** When Hanuman felt like giving up, he did not wait for the feeling to pass. He said a small prayer and took one more step. Next time you feel stuck, try just that: bow inwardly, and take one more small step.
In the next episode, Hanuman climbs into an ashoka tree, and, in the grove below him, he sees Sita.
*[Night breeze, leaves. Silence 2 seconds.]*
**Credits (read out):** Written by the DharmikStudio team from the Valmiki Ramayana, Sundara Kanda. Narrated with an AI voice. If you hear a mistake, please use "Report a mistake" on this episode.