The Greatest Leap: Hanuman Crosses the Ocean

The leap across the ocean is one of the best-loved episodes in the Rāmāyaṇa. Sita, the wife of Prince Rama, has been carried off by Ravana, the ten-headed king of Lanka. An army of monkeys and bears, allies of Rama, has searched the land for her and finally learned where she is: on the island of Lanka, across the sea. No one in the army can cross that water — except Hanuman, a monkey hero who has forgotten how powerful he is. This is the story of how he was reminded, how he jumped, and what he found on the other side.

How the search reached the sea

The monkey army had been sent out in every direction by Sugriva, the monkey king who had become Rama’s ally. The southern party, which included Hanuman, Prince Angada and the old bear Jambavan, searched forests, mountains and rivers without success. When the time allowed for the search was nearly up and every other option had been eliminated, they met Sampati, an aged vulture and the brother of Jatayu, the bird who had died trying to stop Ravana. From his high vantage Sampati could see far across the water, and he told them plainly: Sita was in Lanka.

That answered one question and raised a harder one. Lanka was across the ocean, and the ocean was one hundred yojanas wide. A yojana is an old Indian measure of distance whose length varies from source to source; a common rendering puts a hundred yojanas at about 800 miles. But the text is not really offering a distance you can check on a map. It is giving a number that means: impassable.

At the shore

The generals of the monkey army looked at the water and fell silent. The greatest warriors of the animal world stood at the edge of something they could not cross. One by one they said how far they thought they could jump, and none of the answers was enough.

Angada, the son of Vali, said he could perhaps leap across, but he was not sure he could make the return journey — and a messenger who reaches Lanka and never comes back is of no use to Rama. Jambavan, the ancient bear king, said that his great jumping days were past; in his youth he could have done it, but not now.

They were running out of options when Jambavan turned to someone who had been sitting quietly at the edge of the group, watching the water.

‘Hanuman,’ Jambavan said. ‘Why are you silent?’

Why Hanuman needed reminding

Hanuman’s silence has an explanation in the tradition. As a child he was full of mischief and immense strength, and he disturbed the sages living in the forest. They laid a mild curse on him: he would forget the full extent of his powers until someone reminded him of them. The curse was not meant to destroy his strength but to teach him how to use it — power that is not always within easy reach cannot be thrown about carelessly. (Some retellings name the sage Matanga as the one who pronounced it; the Rāmāyaṇa’s Uttara Kāṇḍa speaks of the forest sages as a group, so versions differ on this detail.)

So Hanuman did not always have full access to his own knowledge of what he could do. He had to be reminded — not because the power was gone, but because the reminder was the way the power woke up. Someone had to recognise him, name him, and speak his nature back to him.

Being reminded who he is

Jambavan did exactly that. He spoke of Hanuman’s birth as the son of Vayu, the wind god — a child born, in the tradition’s words, of divine intention. He recalled the morning when the infant Hanuman saw the rising sun, took it for a ripe fruit and leapt into the sky to catch it. He recalled how Indra, king of the gods, struck the child down with his thunderbolt; how Vayu in grief withdrew the air from the world; and how the gods, to appease him, gave Hanuman boons — protection from weapons, great speed, great strength, and the power to change his size at will.

Jambavan spoke of all of it, the whole of what this creature was capable of, without hedging or qualification.

As Jambavan spoke, Hanuman grew.

The story describes this quite literally: his body expanded. He grew to the size of a mountain, his form swelling to fill the space his nature actually required. The small monkey-servant of Rama became, for as long as it was needed, what the wind god’s son really was. His tail curled enormous behind him. His face — which devotees picture as the meeting of complete devotion and complete power — was calm.

The launch from Mahendra Hill

He climbed Mahendra Hill, a mountain on the southern shore, and crouched on its summit, gathering that enormous body for the leap. The mountain itself bent under his weight. The monkeys around him stepped back in awe, and perhaps with some sensible caution.

He leaped.

The launch was like a second dawn. The air rushed out from under him and flattened the trees; the sea heaved; the birds of the coast scattered. He rose into the sky with Rama’s name in his heart, and the tradition likes to say that the name guided him the way stars guide sailors.

Three encounters over the water

The crossing was not uneventful. The Rāmāyaṇa tells of three encounters in the air above the ocean, and each is often read as a different kind of test.

Mainaka, the mountain that offered rest

First a mountain named Mainaka rose up out of the sea and invited Hanuman to rest on its peak before going on. It was a kindness, offered as thanks to Rama’s family. Hanuman touched the mountain respectfully with his hand, explained that he could not stop while his task was unfinished, and flew on. Readers often take this as the test of comfort: even a well-meant invitation to pause can pull someone away from a duty.

Surasa, the mouth that had to be entered

Next came Surasa. In the Rāmāyaṇa she is the mother of the nāgas (serpent beings), sent by the gods to test Hanuman’s strength and wit; many retellings simply call her a sea-goddess or sea-monster. She blocked his path and insisted that he must enter her mouth, for it was the rule that nothing could pass without doing so. Hanuman grew larger, and she opened her mouth wider; he grew larger still, and so did she. Then, suddenly, he shrank to the size of a thumb, darted into her mouth and out again in an instant, and was gone before she had finished taking in what had happened. Surasa, satisfied, blessed him. This encounter is usually read as the test of intelligence: brute force alone would not have solved it.

Simhika, the demoness who seized his shadow

Finally a demoness named Simhika, who lived in the sea, caught hold of his shadow on the water and dragged him down towards her. Hanuman saw what she was, let himself fall into her open mouth, and killed her from within, then continued. This is the test that could only be met with courage and strength.

Finding Sita

He arrived on Lanka’s shore at dusk. He reduced his size to nothing remarkable — a small monkey, the kind that moves through the trees without anyone paying attention. In Vālmīki’s telling he also has to get past Lanka’s guardian at the city gate before slipping inside. Then he searched the city through the night: palaces, halls, the private rooms of Ravana himself. Sita was nowhere, and for a while Hanuman came close to despair.

At last he found her in the Ashoka grove (Aśoka-vana), a garden of Ravana’s palace. She was thin and grieving, surrounded by demoness guards who pressed her day and night to give in to Ravana. Hanuman hid in a tree above her. Softly, in a voice the guards nearby would not notice, he began to tell the story of Rama.

Sita looked up. When he came down and showed her Rama’s signet ring, which Rama had given him for exactly this moment, she knew he was a true messenger. Some things are recognised before they are understood.

Hanuman offered to carry her back on his shoulders. Sita refused: she wanted Rama himself to come and win her back, as was fitting. She gave Hanuman her crest-jewel as a token for Rama, together with a message only Rama would recognise.

After the grove

He had crossed the uncrossable. He had found what could not be found. He had done what he was sent to do. And he did more before he left Lanka: he wrecked a good part of Ravana’s gardens, fought the demons sent against him, allowed himself to be captured so that he could meet Ravana face to face, and, when the demons set his tail on fire as a punishment, leapt from roof to roof and set much of the city ablaze with it. Then he leapt back across the ocean.

But the heart of the episode is the quiet moment in the Ashoka grove, with Sita looking up at the small monkey who had come so far. That is what the leap was for.

He carried Rama’s message. He returned with hers. The ocean was still there, still one hundred yojanas wide. It was no longer impassable. Hanuman had proven that.

Where this story comes from

The episode belongs to the Rāmāyaṇa attributed to the sage Vālmīki. The scene at the shore, with Angada and Jambavan and the reminding of Hanuman, closes the Kiṣkindhā Kāṇḍa (the book set in the monkey kingdom). The leap itself, the crossing and the search of Lanka open the next book, the Sundara Kāṇḍa — the “beautiful” book — which is devoted almost entirely to Hanuman’s journey. The story of Hanuman’s childhood curse and boons is told more fully in the Uttara Kāṇḍa, the Rāmāyaṇa’s final book.

The same events are retold, with differences of detail and emphasis, in later Rama traditions, including Tulsidas’s sixteenth-century Hindi Rāmcaritmānas, whose Sundarkand is recited widely in North Indian homes and temples. Many regional retellings, performances and oral versions add or change details — who laid the curse on Hanuman, what exactly Surasa was, what happened at Lanka’s gate — so it is normal to meet more than one version.

What the leap is often taken to mean

The tradition reads this episode on several levels. These are interpretations, not claims about history.

• Remembering one’s own nature. Hanuman does not gain new power at the shore; he remembers power he already had. Many teachers read this as a picture of the spiritual life: the self is already whole, and what is needed is to be reminded of it — often by an elder or teacher, as Jambavan reminds Hanuman.
• Strength placed in service. Hanuman’s power is enormous, but it is used entirely for Rama and Sita, not for himself. This is why he is so widely honoured as the model devotee (bhakta): devotion and strength are not opposites in him.
• Different tests, different responses. Mainaka, Surasa and Simhika are often read as three kinds of obstacle — comfort, a challenge that needs cleverness, and open hostility — each met in its own way.
• Humility as a tool. The hero who can become the size of a mountain chooses to become a small, unnoticed monkey when that is what the task needs.

The leap in practice today

Because it tells of Hanuman’s journey and of news of Sita reaching Rama, the Sundara Kāṇḍa — in Vālmīki’s Sanskrit or in Tulsidas’s Hindi — is one of the most frequently recited parts of the Rama story. Many devotees read it on Tuesdays or Saturdays, days traditionally associated with Hanuman, or at Hanuman Jayanti, or read it straight through as a household devotion. The Hanuman Chalisa also alludes to this episode, remembering how Hanuman crossed the sea carrying Rama’s ring in his mouth.

Read on AdiVeda

• Sundarkand, Part 1 — Tulsidas’s telling of the leap, with the text to read
• Hanuman Chalisa
• The Day Hanuman Tried to Eat the Sun — the childhood story Jambavan recalls
• The Bridge That Should Not Exist: Building Ram Setu — how the whole army crossed the same sea
• More texts for Hanuman