The Mountain of Herbs: Hanuman’s Greatest Journey

Of all the stories told about Hanuman — the monkey hero of the Rāmāyaṇa and the most devoted follower of Rama — none is pictured more often than this one: a giant figure flying through the night sky with a whole mountain held up in one hand. It is the story of how Lakshmana, Rama’s younger brother, was struck down in the war against Ravana, and how Hanuman crossed the length of the land to fetch the healing herbs that could bring him back. When he could not tell which plants were the right ones, he brought the mountain instead.

This page tells the story as it is most widely known, then explains where it comes from, how the main versions differ, and what the tradition has taken from it.

The setting: war in Lanka

Ravana, the king of Lanka, had carried off Sita, Rama’s wife. Rama, Lakshmana and an army of vānaras — the forest-dwelling monkey people who are Rama’s allies in the epic — had crossed the sea to Lanka to win her back. Hanuman had already found Sita there and returned with word of her, and the army had built a bridge across the ocean. Now the war was under way, and it was going badly for Rama’s side.

Ravana’s most dangerous champion was his son Indrajit, also called Meghnad. He had earned the name Indrajit, “conqueror of Indra,” by defeating Indra, king of the gods. He fought with sorcery and with divine weapons, among them the Brahmāstra — the weapon of Brahma, the creator god, which no ordinary defence can turn aside.

Lakshmana falls

In the telling AdiVeda follows here, Indrajit loosed the Brahmāstra, and the weapon struck Lakshmana in the chest. The younger brother of Rama fell and did not rise. (As the section on sources below explains, the texts differ over exactly which weapon it was and who else fell with him.)

The army of the monkeys grew silent. Rama knelt beside his brother. Lakshmana lay white and still, his breath so shallow it was almost not there. Lakshmana had followed Rama into fourteen years of exile without being asked; to Rama, losing him was close to losing everything.

The one chance

The healer Sushena, who was among the monkey army, came forward and examined Lakshmana carefully. There was, he said, one chance. On Dronagiri, a mountain in the Himalayas far to the north, four herbs grew:

• Mṛtasañjīvanī (often shortened to sanjeevani) — which revives those who appear dead;
• Viśalyakaraṇī — which draws out weapons and heals the wounds they leave;
• Suvarṇakaraṇī — which restores the skin’s natural glow;
• Sandhānakaraṇī — which joins broken bones.

All four were needed, and they had to reach Lakshmana before sunrise. If the sun rose before he received them, Sushena warned, the weapon’s work would be complete and no power in the three worlds — heaven, earth and the underworld — could undo it.

Everyone turned to look at Hanuman.

Hanuman goes

Hanuman is the son of Vāyu, the wind god, and from him he inherited the power to fly and a speed no one else in the army could match. He could also change his size at will. He grew until he was as large as a mountain himself, and leapt.

The leap carried him out of Lanka, over the ocean and across the long stretch of land between the island and the mountains of the north, above sleeping kingdoms, rivers and forests. He reached Dronagiri while it was still dark and began to search.

The herbs were said to be divine, growing in hidden places. Sushena had described them, but Hanuman was a warrior, not a physician, and on a mountainside covered in plants the descriptions were little help. He searched with growing urgency, parting grasses and turning over rocks, and could not be sure of any of them.

Bringing the whole mountain

Dawn was coming. Hanuman made the decision that, in every retelling, makes listeners laugh and marvel at once: if he could not find the herbs, he would bring all the herbs.

He took hold of the mountain’s peak and pulled. The earth groaned, trees tilted and streams ran in new directions, and then the peak broke free. Hanuman rose into the sky carrying it and flew back towards Lanka, a huge figure against the stars with a mountaintop balanced in his hand. This is the image found on temple walls, calendar prints and statues across India.

When he landed, the battlefield was filled with the scent of growing things.

Lakshmana wakes

Sushena went over the peak, found the four herbs, prepared the medicines and gave them to Lakshmana. Lakshmana opened his eyes and sat up. The army’s silence broke into a roar of relief. Rama held his brother without speaking.

Afterwards the mountain peak was carried back to its place in the Himalayas. The battle resumed, and in time Ravana fell and Sita was returned — but for many who love this story, the turning point of the war is not a victory in battle. It is this night.

Where this story comes from

The episode belongs to the war section of the Rama story, and it appears in several major tellings. They agree on the heart of it — a fallen hero, a Himalayan mountain of herbs, Hanuman’s flight and the mountain carried back — but they differ in details, and it helps to know how.

Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa

In the Sanskrit Rāmāyaṇa attributed to the sage Vālmīki, the oldest full telling of the story, the herb mountain appears in the Yuddha Kāṇḍa (the Book of War), and Hanuman makes the journey twice:

• The first time, Indrajit’s Brahmāstra fells not only Lakshmana but Rama and a great part of the army. It is the old bear-king Jāmbavān who tells Hanuman about the mountain and its four herbs. Hanuman brings back the peak, and the fragrance of the herbs alone is enough to revive the fallen. He then returns the peak to the Himalayas.
• The second time, Ravana himself strikes Lakshmana down with a powerful spear-like weapon (a śakti). Here it is Sushena, a senior monkey chief, who sends Hanuman for the herbs, and who treats Lakshmana when Hanuman again returns with a mountain peak.

The popular story told above blends these two episodes into one.

Tulsidas’s Rāmcaritmānas

In the sixteenth-century Hindi (Awadhi) retelling by Tulsidas, the Rāmcaritmānas, which is the version most North Indian households know best, the episode comes in the Laṅkā Kāṇḍa. There Lakshmana is struck by a śakti weapon hurled by Meghnad, and Sushena is the royal physician of Lanka, whom Hanuman fetches to examine Lakshmana. The Mānas also adds two memorable scenes: Ravana sends the demon Kālanemi, disguised as a holy man, to delay Hanuman on the way, and on the return flight Rama’s brother Bharata, seeing a giant figure passing over Ayodhya at night, shoots him down with an arrow before learning who he is and helping him on.

Other tellings

The Rama story is told in many languages and regions, and details such as the name of the mountain (Dronagiri is the name most people know today), the deadline of sunrise, and who names the herbs vary from one telling to another. None of these should be taken as the single “correct” version; they are different branches of a living tradition.

The episode is also remembered in the Hanuman Chalisa, the forty-verse Hindi hymn to Hanuman, which recalls how he brought the sanjeevani and restored Lakshmana to life, to Rama’s great joy.

Why he asked for nothing

This is the episode most often carved, painted and printed of Hanuman, and one reason is that it holds all three of his best-loved qualities at once: the strength to lift a mountain, the speed to cross India twice before dawn, and a complete lack of interest in being thanked for it.

In the story as it is usually told, Hanuman makes no claim on anyone’s gratitude. He returns to his place among the army as if he had simply done the next thing that needed doing. The devotional tradition calls this attitude dāsya bhāva, the mood of service: love for the divine expressed as usefulness rather than as feeling. Hanuman is its model, and this is part of why he is invoked before difficult undertakings rather than after successful ones.

How the story is often read

Like most sacred stories, this one has been read in many ways. A few are common:

• Devotion as action. The story is often read as saying that devotion is something you do, not only something you feel — even in the dark, even when you cannot find what you are looking for.
• Doing what is needed, not what is neat. Hanuman does not have the physician’s knowledge. Instead of giving up or wasting the night, he finds a way that does not depend on knowledge he lacks. Many teachers use this as an example of practical wisdom and wholehearted effort.
• Hanuman as protector in crisis. Because he saved Lakshmana from death, Hanuman is widely called Saṅkaṭamocana, “the one who frees from trouble.” Devotees turn to him in times of illness, fear or difficulty. The story is the background to that trust; it is not a promise of any particular outcome.

The story in worship and art

The image of Hanuman carrying the mountain is one of the standard forms in which he is shown — often in flight, with the peak raised on the palm of one hand and a mace in the other. It appears in temple sculpture, household shrines and popular prints, and the episode is a favourite scene in Ramlila performances, the dramatic re-enactments of the Rama story staged in many towns of North India.

Hanuman is honoured on Tuesdays and Saturdays in many communities, and his birth is celebrated as Hanuman Jayanti; recitation of the Hanuman Chalisa and of the Sundar Kāṇḍ — the section of the Rama story centred on Hanuman — is a common part of that devotion.

Read on AdiVeda

• The Greatest Leap: Hanuman Crosses the Ocean — the earlier journey that first brought Hanuman to Lanka.
• The Bridge That Should Not Exist: Building Ram Setu — how Rama’s army reached the island.
• Hanuman Chalisa — the hymn that remembers this episode.
• Sundarkand — Tulsidas’s account of Hanuman’s mission, in parts.
• Hanuman texts on AdiVeda — stotras, mantras and hymns to Hanuman.