Kids · सुन्दरकाण्ड Sundara Kāṇḍa · Ages 8–12
The Guardian at the Golden Gate
The Great Leap is over. Hanumān Jī has crossed a hundred yojanas of open sea, slipped free of the sky-demons who tried to swallow him, and landed at last on the far shore. Ahead of him, on the peak of Mount Trikūṭa, stands Laṅkā — the golden city of Rāvaṇa, where Mother Sītā is held.
This is the story of how the mightiest of the vānaras chose to become the smallest thing in the world — and of the guardian at the gate who struck him, and then blessed him.
The city that shone like fire
Hanumān Jī climbed a tall mountain and looked down, and there it was. Laṅkā! Its walls were gold, set with jewels that flashed in the dark. The sea lapped all around it. Inside were palaces, gardens, lakes and wells, and streets full of elephants, horses and chariots — and everywhere, crowds of rākṣasa guards with weapons in their hands. "No one could take this city by force," thought Hanumān Jī. "So I shall not use force. I shall make myself very, very small — and go in by night."
In both Rāmāyaṇas
Small as a gnat
So he waited for the sun to set. Then the great vānara, who could grow as vast as a mountain, shrank and shrank — until Sage Vālmīki says he was no bigger than a cat, and Gosvāmī Tulsīdās says he was as tiny as a masaka, a gnat! Remembering Lord Rāma in his heart, the little traveller set off across the dark toward the golden gate.
In both Rāmāyaṇas
"Who goes there?"
But Laṅkā had a guardian of its own. At the gate rose a towering rākṣasī with a terrible face and blazing eyes — Laṅkinī, the spirit of the city herself. "Who are you, forest-creature?" she boomed. "Where do you think you are going, without so much as asking me? Every thief who comes this way is my dinner!" Hanumān Jī answered her politely. "I have only come to see your beautiful city, good lady — its palaces, its gardens and its walls. When I have seen it, I shall go back the way I came."
In both Rāmāyaṇas
One blow, and a memory
"You shall not see it unless you get past me!" cried Laṅkinī, and she struck the tiny vānara with the flat of her hand. Hanumān Jī did not roar, and he did not grow. He simply closed his fingers and gave her one blow — with his left hand, Sage Vālmīki tells us, his weaker hand, because she was a woman and he would not truly hurt her. Down she tumbled to the ground. And as she lay there, something stirred in her memory: words spoken to her long, long ago.
In both Rāmāyaṇas
The guardian remembers
Laṅkinī rose slowly and folded her hands. "When Brahmā the Creator gave Rāvaṇa his great boon," she said, "he turned to me as he left and gave me a sign. 'The day a vānara overpowers you,' he told me, 'know that the end of the rākṣasas has come.' That day is today. And oh, how great my good fortune is — with my own eyes I have seen the messenger of Lord Rāma! Go in, and do everything you came to do. Search wherever you wish for the daughter of King Janaka."
In both Rāmāyaṇas
Enter, with the King in your heart
Then the guardian who had barred the gate became the first friend Hanumān Jī found in Laṅkā, and she gave him one last piece of advice. "Keep the King of Kosala in your heart as you go," she said. "For anyone Lord Rāma looks upon with kindness, poison turns to nectar, enemies turn into friends, the ocean becomes a puddle in a cow's hoofprint, and fire itself grows cool." So Hanumān Jī, tiny and unafraid, remembered the Lord once more — and slipped into the sleeping golden city.
Gosvāmī Tulsīdās
✦ Two tellings, one story
Sage Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa (Sanskrit)
Sage Vālmīki tells it in a full canto. Hanumān Jī surveys Laṅkā from Mount Trikūṭa, judges that no one could take it by force, waits for sunset and shrinks to the size of a cat. The city's presiding spirit — Laṅkā herself, in the shape of an ogress with a hideous face — rises before him and demands to know who he is; he answers courteously that he has come only to see the city and will go back as he came. She strikes him with her palm; he strikes back with his left fist, deliberately gently, because she is a woman. Fallen, she recalls the words of Brahmā — that when a vānara overpowers her, the destruction of the rākṣasas is at hand — and tells him to enter and search at will for the virtuous daughter of Janaka. Hanumān Jī then leaps over the rampart without using the gate, setting his left foot, as the old manuals of war advise, on the heads of his enemies.
Gosvāmī Tulsīdās’s Rāmcaritmānas (Awadhi)
Gosvāmī Tulsīdās tells it in a few swift caupāīs. Seeing the countless guards, Hanumān Jī resolves to take a very small form and enter by night; he becomes as tiny as a gnat and sets off remembering the Lord. The rākṣasī Laṅkinī challenges him — "where are you going, disregarding me? Every thief here is my food" — and one blow of his fist sends her rolling. She rises, folds her hands and remembers the sign Brahmā gave her when Rāvaṇa received his boon: when a vānara's blow overwhelms you, know the rākṣasas' end has come. "Great is my merit," she says, "to have seen Lord Rāma's messenger with my own eyes." Then she blesses him: enter the city with the King of Kosala in your heart, for to one whom Lord Rāma has glanced upon with grace, poison becomes nectar, enemies become friends, the sea a cow's hoofprint, fire cool, and Mount Sumeru a grain of dust. Tulsīdās pauses here to add that all the joys of heaven, weighed together, cannot match a single moment in the company of the good.
What this story teaches
Small can be the bravest choice
Hanumān Jī could have stormed the gate as a giant. Instead he made himself tiny and went quietly. Knowing when not to show your strength is a kind of strength too.
Strong hands, gentle heart
Even when Laṅkinī struck him, Hanumān Jī used his weaker hand and held back. Being able to hurt someone is never a reason to.
Carry your purpose inside you
"Keep the King of Kosala in your heart," said the guardian. When we hold what we love and what we are here to do close inside, even a city full of enemies cannot frighten us.
Words to know
- Laṅkā · Rāvaṇa's golden city on Mount Trikūṭa, surrounded on all sides by the sea
- Laṅkinī · the rākṣasī who guarded Laṅkā's gate — the spirit of the city herself
- masaka · a gnat or mosquito — the size Hanumān Jī shrank to in Gosvāmī Tulsīdās's telling
- rākṣasī · a demoness; the feminine of rākṣasa
- Brahmā · the Creator, whose boon made Rāvaṇa mighty — and whose sign told Laṅkinī when that might would end
- dūta · a messenger; Laṅkinī calls Hanumān Jī "Lord Rāma's dūta"
A real episode from both Rāmāyaṇas: Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa — Sundara Kāṇḍa (the canto of Hanumān Jī's entry into Laṅkā) and Śrī Rāmcaritmānas — Sundar-kāṇḍa (the caupāīs around dohās 3–4). Where the tellings differ, both are presented faithfully in the Two Tellings note.