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Sundar Kand · Episode 5 · Sargas 57–68
Hanuman leaps back across the sea, the monkeys feast in Sugriva's honey grove, and Rama weeps over the jewel Sita sent him.
A retelling of Valmiki's Ramayana, not a translation. Where a later tradition adds to the story, we mark it.
Hanuman crossed back over the sea through the open sky, and Valmiki turns that sky into a second ocean. The moon is a white water lily in it, and the stars are its swans. Hanuman tore through bank after bank of cloud, vanishing and appearing again like the moon on a stormy night. Midway he touched Mount Mainaka, which had risen from the water to rest him on the outward flight, and then he shot on like an arrow loosed from a bowstring.
When Mount Mahendra rose ahead like a dark rain cloud, he roared, and the sound filled the sky. On the northern shore the search party had waited in misery, with no word of Sita and their time long past. Old Jambavan read the sound at once. A messenger who had failed, he said, would never come home roaring like that. Hanuman came down on the summit, bowed to the elders, Jambavan and the prince Angada, and told them in a few words. He had seen Sita, thin from fasting, her hair in a single braid, guarded by rakshasis in an ashoka garden, longing for Rama. The monkeys roared with joy.
Jambavan asked for every detail, and Hanuman told the whole journey. Then he added a thought of his own. Ravana had touched Sita and had not burned, only because his long penance shielded him. Sita roused to anger could do what fire could not. That she held back was her restraint and her devotion to her husband; Rama would be the instrument of Ravana's end.
Angada's blood was up. Now that Sita was found, he said, it would not be proper to go back to Rama without her. No one could leap as they could, and Hanuman had already killed Lanka's best warriors. Let them go and bring her home. Jambavan was pleased with the spirit of it. The plan was not beyond them, he said. But they must first see what Rama himself wished. The monkeys accepted his counsel.
On the way north they came to Madhuvana, the honey grove. It was Sugriva's own garden, handed down from his father and grandfather, and guarded by his uncle Dadhimukha. The monkeys begged Angada for leave to drink, and Angada asked the elders and granted it. The monkeys sang, danced, laughed, wept, pushed each other, fell out of trees and lay snoring on beds of leaves. Hanuman told them to drink in peace while he kept the guards away, and the guards were dragged by their knees and tossed into the air. When Dadhimukha came at them with a tree in his hand, Angada threw him to the ground. Bruised and bleeding, the old guardian flew off to Sugriva, sure the king would have the vandals put to death.
He fell at Sugriva's feet and reported it all. No king, not even Vali, had ever opened the grove, and now it was stripped bare. Lakshmana asked what the trouble was, and Sugriva's answer is the heart of the scene. The party that went south has come back, he said, and drunk the honey. They would never have dared this if they had failed. Their time had run out, and only success could bring them home at all. Angada, if he had failed, would have come with a downcast face, not raided his uncle's garden. Sita has been found, and Hanuman found her, for in him are skill, intelligence and effort. Sugriva gladly pardoned the raiders, and Rama and Lakshmana were filled with joy.
The monkeys came flying in, with Angada and Hanuman at their head. Hanuman bowed to Rama and gave the news: Sita was faithful to him and unharmed. The monkeys told of the rakshasis and of the two months Ravana had left her. Rama asked where she was and how her heart stood toward him, and they pushed Hanuman forward. He bowed toward the south, where Sita was, and told it all. She slept on the bare ground and thought only of Rama, resolved to die rather than turn to Ravana. She had given him two memories as proof. One was the crow at Chitrakuta. The other was the day her forehead mark had rubbed off and Rama had painted one on her cheek with red mineral. Then she had given him the jewel for her hair, which she had kept hidden. Looking at it in her grief, she said, was like seeing Rama. And she sent this: she would keep her life for one month. Held by the rakshasas, she could not live beyond it.
Rama pressed the jewel to his chest and wept. As a cow's milk flows at the sight of her calf, he said, so his heart melted at the sight of it. Janaka had given it to Sita as a bride, and it had come to Janaka from Indra. Seeing it, Rama felt he saw his father, and Janaka, and Sita herself. What could hurt more than to see the jewel come without her? A month was a long time for her to live, he said; he could not live a moment without her. He begged Hanuman to repeat her words, as water to the thirsty or medicine to the sick.
So Hanuman told the crow story as Sita told it. At Chitrakuta a crow had struck at her breast while Rama slept with his head in her lap, again and again, until her blood woke him. The crow was Indra's son. Rama took a blade of darbha grass from his bed, charged it with the Brahma weapon and sent it blazing after the bird. The crow fled through the three worlds and no one would shelter it, not even Indra its father. At last it fell at Rama's feet, and Rama, though it deserved death, protected it. Because the weapon could not be wasted, it took only the crow's right eye. Then came Sita's question. If he would do that for a crow, why did he not turn such weapons on the rakshasas? Why did Lakshmana not come? She wondered what wrong of hers held them back. Hanuman swore to her that only grief for her had made Rama seem slow. Then she untied the jewel from the end of her garment.
As he turned to go, she asked him to stay one day in hiding, for his presence eased her sorrow. Then she voiced her deepest doubt. Only Garuda, the wind and Hanuman could cross that sea. How would armies of monkeys and bears, or Rama and Lakshmana, ever do it? And she would not be stolen back as Ravana had stolen her; it would be worthy of Rama to destroy Ravana and take her home in victory. Hanuman answered her. Sugriva had monkeys stronger than Hanuman and none weaker, for the great are not sent on errands. They would reach Lanka in one bound, and Rama and Lakshmana would ride on his shoulders like the sun and moon rising. Soon she would see Rama crowned in Ayodhya with her at his side. At that, Sita found peace, and here the Sundara Kanda ends. The messenger has told everything, and the jewel rests in Rama's hands.
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