In this episode, we’re going back into the Ramayana. We’ll continue the story of Hanuman in Lanka! We’ll see what happens when Hanuman faces off with Ravana, a showdown that ends up being rather costly for the city when Hanuman burns Lanka! If you haven’t heard previous Ramayana episodes, that is okay, because I’ll be doing a recap. But if you do get a chance, I recommend that you check out those earlier episodes. These are linked in the show notes.
A Recap of the story so far
The Ramayana is one of two major epics in Indian mythology, the other being the Mahabharata which we have also covered on this show. The story of the Ramayana begins with Ram, the crown prince of Ayodhya. Ram was denied the opportunity to become King. His stepmother Kaikeyi pressured her husband, Ram’s father, into sending Ram into exile for 14 years. Ram didn’t go alone. Sita, his wife and Laxman, his brother, went along.
I should mention here that Ram was an avatar of Vishnu, one of the holy trinity in Indian mythology. Vishnu is the preserver of the Universe, creating a kind of balance between Brahma the Creator and Shiva the Destroyer. A bit of a shameless plug here, but Brahma is also my dad.
Anyway, Ram, Laxman and Sita left Ayodhya and spent years moving from one forest to another. For the trio life was sometimes exciting but mostly exhausting. Because they had one challenge after another to deal with. There was always a demon or a demoness looking to eat them. Ram, Laxman and Sita managed to fight off all such challenges. Except Ravana. Ravana was the ruler of Lankaand the mega villain of this epic. If you want a pop culture analogy, take Voldemort from Harry Potter, but with 10 heads, so 10 times as evil. Thankfully, without 10 times as many horcruxes.
Ravana caused a distraction for Ram and Laxman and abducted Sita in their absence. Follwing clues here and there, Ram and Laxman searched for Sita. They got help from the vaanars – a kingdom of monkeys including Sugriva, their King, and Hanuman who was Sugriva’s adviser and right hand vaanar. Hanuman located Sita in Lanka. Because he was the only Vaanar with superpowers to cross an Ocean, it was a solo trip for Hanuman. In Lanka, Hanuman found Sita in Ravana’s garden. He met her and verified her identity. But she refused his offer of going back to Ram with Hanuman. She insisted that Ram should himself make the trip to Lanka, defeat Ravana and take her back, in full honor. We left the last episode on a cliffhanger when Ravana’s soldiers discovered and surrounded Hanuman, after they found him in the garden uprooting massive trees.
So let’s continue the story shortly after this in Ravana’s court.
A Bad Day in Ravana’s Court
Ravana was seated on a huge throne. The size of the throne wasn’t just because he was a huge person. No, the throne needed to be wide enough to accommodate Ravana’s 10 heads. There was an unpleasant episode once when the throne was narrower. And one of the palace maids thought it would be a good idea to put flower vases all around the throne. Ravana’s first and tenth heads had bumped into those vases and not reacted well. Needless to say that palace maid no longer had a job. She was lucky to keep her head.
One could say she was being let off easy. Ravana usually reserved the worst for people he was displeased with. And this morning he was in an especially nasty mood. Sita was still not ready to marry him. He had done a lot for her already, hadn’t he? He had brought her out of a tiny little hut in a forest into his own palace. It was true that he was treating her like a prisoner, but he had explained to her that once she was his queen, she could do whatever she pleased. He even promised her a golden deer, something her husband Ram was unable to fetch for her. So was it too much to ask if he wanted to marry her? But no, this high and mighty Princess of Ayodhya refused. He tried telling her he would make it legal, but she wouldn’t even consider divorcing Ram, she said.
He was frustrated by this lack of progress. And even his advisors were out of ideas. All except Vibhishana, his brother. Vibhishana had the most laughable idea. He suggested returning Sita to Ram and apologizing. Imagine that! Ravana apologize to someone? At his moment of triumph, would Lord Voldemort have considered giving up his wand and apologizing to Harry Potter for all the pain he had caused him? Ridiculous!
So he was in a sour mood when his guards announced that they had captured an intruder in his garden. He signaled his permission and they brought in Hanuman, bound in ropes.
Hanuman vs Ravana face off
Upon seeing the vaanar, Ravana was suddenly cautious. “Vaali, is that you? But we made peace”. Vaali was the only creature who had defeated Ravana so far, so you can understand Ravana being anxious.
“No, I’m not Vaali.” Hanuman had taken offense. “Are you saying, to your 10 racist pairs of eyes, all of us Vaanars look alike?”
Ravana replied more in disgust with his own initial reaction than with Hanuman’s appearance: “You’re just a monkey. Guards – must you bring every little problem like this to me? Can’t you deal with this monkey yourself? Go sell him to a zoo or a circus. Just get him out of here”
The guards did not move. Finally one of them sheepishly admitted “Your highness, we do not have any control over him. Yes, we’ve bound him with ropes, but he’s the one who pulled us here by force, not the other way around. We can’t seem to make him do anything”
Ravana paused and then looked at Hanuman with growing respect – “what’s your game Monkey? Why did you want to see me?”
Hanuman stared back and said “I’m not playing a game here. I just wanted to see what a big coward you are. But now that I’m here, maybe I’ll go easy on you. I’ll accept your unconditional surrender and apology if you also deliver Sita back where you kidnapped her from”
There was a sudden hush all over the court. No one had dared insult Ravana like this before. When the leader of the opposition had very indirectly critiqued Ravana’s governance, Ravana had dropped a mountain on him. People shuffled their feet trying to step back further from Hanuman to get out quickly from the blast radius when Ravana did something nasty.
But Ravana didn’t do that. It started with head no 7 who chuckled at Hanuman’s remark. Then, heads 6, 5, and 3 joined in, and finally all heads were laughing as if Hanuman had made a big joke. Hesitatingly at first, Ravana’s courtiers joined in the laughter, when they realized Ravana really was amused.
“Oh ho, I haven’t laughed like this in years, you’re an amusing little monkey. I’m thinking of keeping you as my pet”
Hanuman was rather offended, but he counted to ten and let it pass. He could crush this Ravana guy. He was confident of that. Hanuman could simply supersize himself and step on him. Or maybe all he had to do was put his little pinky on either of Ravana’s extreme heads. The guy would simply topple due to imbalance. So many options, but it’s a shame he couldn’t do any of that. No, he must save Ravana for Ram. Sita had practically ordered it. Ram himself would have to come here and avenge the insult.
Hanuman sighed. He opened his mouth to say that he’d really tried and if Ravana was being pig-headed in all of his 10 heads, on his own 10 heads be it. But he stopped, because one of Ravana’s advisers spoke up. He suggested that Ravana make an example of this Vaanar. Parade him in the streets of Lanka and let the citizens pelt him with stones.
An odd punishment
“That’s not a bad idea at all,” Ravana replied. “It’ll be good for the morale of the citizens. It’s been a while since we had a good stoning. And we can charge a premium for front row participants”. He didn’t mention it, but he also owned the quarry that supplied hand-sized stones for just such events. Good way to make some money off of this insolent monkey.
“Let’s make it more thrilling!” said another minister. “I’ve often felt that there are gaps between when the stones hit the prisoners, and to close those gaps we can set this monkey on fire!”
“I like how your wicked little mind thinks,” Ravana said gleefully. “Alright, set the monkey on fire! But it should burn him slowly, so set only his tail on fire”
Hanuman during this time had been about to clear his throat to interrupt that he hated to break up the party but he was going to leave now. But he stopped himself. Tail on fire, huh? That was perfect!
And in case you’re wondering, no Hanuman didn’t lose his mind. He just had an idea. And part of it was to do with one of his many superpowers.
“Oh dear, not fire” he said, with just enough mock concern in his voice to assure the court they had picked just the right punishment.
Epic burn by Hanuman
The guards quickly wrapped Hanuman’s tail in an oil cloth. They led Hanuman to the palace gates. Announcements had quickly gone out all over the city. Some Lankan citizens were more thrilled about the impromptu holiday they got from work, than the actual stoning, but everyone was there ready at the palace gates. They had to be. When Ravana wished for the city to “enjoy” an event like this, they enjoyed it, whether they liked it or not.
When everyone was ready, the palace gates were finally opened and simultaneously, a guard lit fire to the oil cloth on Hanuman’s tail. It caught fire quickly, and people jumped up and down in delight when they saw Hanuman’s tail burning. But then they stopped almost immediately. Because something was wrong here. Hanuman wasn’t crying out in pain. He was actually smiling! What kind of a sick monkey was he, to enjoy being burnt?
They didn’t know, because they hadn’t heard episode 25 of this show where I’d described how Hanuman had acquired the superpower of being impervious to fire. It was a gift from the God of Fire, Agni.
Using one of his other superpowers, Hanuman quickly grew in size. And when he did, the ropes binding him broke. With a well executed leap, he was suddenly on a rooftop. This happened so quickly, none of the citizens even got a chance to toss a stone in his direction.
Meanwhile Hanuman was executing his plan quickly. He used his tail to set fire to the house he was on, leaped on to another rooftop, set fire to that one and then another and so on. But Hanuman wasn’t a monster. He made enough noise caused enough commotion to give every child and senior citizen a chance to escape out of their home before it burned down.
He was aiming for a destruction of property, not loss of life. That alone would put a little economic pressure on the Kingdom.
He was very fast. He managed to set fire to most of the city before the firefighters in their fire-chariots even began operations.
Hanuman was also careful not to set the palace garden on fire. He knew Sita was there, so he kept a little distance from there.
The flight back home
Hanuman didn’t stop and admire his work. He needed to rush back to Ram and Laxman with the good news. They would be happy to know that Sita was okay, and unharmed physically. He leapt across the Ocean, flying faster than he had ever before. And even though the fire didn’t bother him, he did douse it out in the Ocean to avoid accidentally burning down something.
If his flight to Lanka had encountered one challenge after another, the flight back was completely uneventful. Or maybe he was just going back a lot faster now and didn’t even notice it when someone attempted to interrupt his journey.
A celebration!
Back in Kishkinda, in the Vaanar kingdom ruled by Sugriva, Ram and Laxman anxiously waited for news of Hanuman. The last thing they had heard had been from Jambavan the bear, and other members of Hanuman’s search party. That group had all gone south, and Hanuman had what seemed a very credible lead. But since then there was only radio silence.
Ram and Laxman contemplated going south proactively so as to be closer to Sita if it turned out that was indeed the direction she had been taken in. But that was a risk as well. They knew Sugriva had complete faith in Hanuman, but what if Hanuman was just wrong? Then they’d waste more time getting back to Kishkinda.
Sugriva sat with the Ayodhya brothers. “Don’t worry” he told them, as he peeled a banana and ate it. “Hanuman will bring some news soon. Here have a banana. It’s from my own private garden. And only the best fruits are grown there. We reserve this fruit only for VIP, but I’ll make an exception for you”
Laxman was quite visibly frustrated with the lack of news. He was going to graphically describe what Sugriva could do with the exclusive fruit from his exclusive garden, but there was an interruption.
A Vaanar guard quickly came and addressed the Vaanar King. “Your highness, Hanuman has let all the Vaanars into your private garden, they’re eating all the fruit!”
Sugriva’s face turned a deep red shade but Ram pointed out what was in fact a reasonable explanation. “This is quite unlike Hanuman, from what I’ve heard of him. I suspect he has brought good news and is giving the Vaanars a treat”
The three of them rushed to the garden where they saw Hanuman being carried by the other vaanars, like a hero. Hanuman stepped right up, and handed Ram something Sita had given him as proof. It was an earring. Ram recognized it immediately. And in that moment he was suddenly filled with hope. Until just a few minutes ago, he had been dreading any kind of news, but now he knew that it was all going to be okay. Sita was alive and she was unharmed, judging by Hanuman’s smile. All he had to do was to go to her and bring her back. And nothing, absolutely nothing was going to stop them from getting her back.
That’s all for now
Some notes on the show
Valmiki was the author of the Ramayana. We covered his origin story in Episode 6 – Fish Highwayman
The Ramayana kicks off in Episode 7 – Kingdom by Horse. Episode 15 – Rishi vs Rishi: Un-civil war! and Episode 16 – Six….teen Flags are about Rama and Laxman’s encounter with Vishwamitra
A flashback to Dasharath’s past is in Episode 24 – Promises made, hearts broken
Ram, Laxman, and Sita begin their exile in Episode 30 – Banished! and continue it in Episode 41 – Forest Life and Episode 64 – The First Kidnapping of Sita
They encounter Shoorpanakha in Episode 78 – Ramayana – An Indecent Proposal
We have also covered three episodes that aren’t part of the main storyline but feature some central Ramayana characters:
Hanuman’s origin story is in Episode 25 – Up, Up, and Away!
Episode 55 – Saturnine is about an encounter between Shani and Ravana.
Episode 81 – Ramayana – Wolverine Claws is the origin story of Ravana and Shoorpanakha.
And Episode 92 – Ramayana – Shanta is the story of Ram and Laxman’s sister – Shanta.
Episode 101 – Ramayana – A Wild Stag Chase explained how Ravana engineered a diversion so he could abduct Sita. In Episode 112 Ram and Laxman got their first hint of what had happened to Sita and also were told that Sugriva could help them
In Episode 118, Ram and Laxman learned more about Sugriva and Vali’s rivalry before finally meeting Hanuman and ensuring Sugriva’s victory in Episode 125 – Ramayana – Sugriva and Vali. Hanuman met Sampati in Episode 132 and then crossed the ocean in Episode 142 and infiltrated Lanka in Episode 156. Vali was also the character of the Week in Episode 21.
Jambavan was character of the week in Episode 2.
Jatayu and Sampaati’s story is mentioned in the Character of the Week section of Episode 11.
That’s all for now.
Next Time
In the next episode, we’ll do a story from the Brihatkatha. The Brihatkatha are a series of stories that no longer exist, except in derivative works like the Kathasaritasagara which we have also covered before on the show. Specifically in next week’s story, we’ll see why it’s a bad idea to jump into a tub full of tomatoes! And we’ll see an early variation of a Trojan Horse that is actually an Elephant!