The Tale of Hanuman: Revised

Before Hanuman came to be, there weren’t many monkeys in the forest. In fact, there used to be only one monkey who was both a male and a female named Riksharaja. This monkey in the form of a female monkey gave birth two other monkeys, Vali and Sugriva. Sugriva was fathered by the sun god Surya, and the other baby monkey Vali was fathered by Indra, the wind god. Riksharaja was watching her baby monkeys play and noticed that Sugriva was awfully lonely because Vali would always be training and fighting to become a strong monkey king. Because of this she asked the god of the winds, Vayu, to give her another monkey baby so he could keep Sugriva company. Vayu rejected the offer because he saw another beautiful monkey. Her name was Anjana.

Anjana was a free spirit. She liked to swing around the jungle and do whatever she wanted to do, with no one ever to boss her around. She never had any responsibilities before either, because all the male monkeys would be at her service in an effort to make Anjana their wife. Vayu chose Anjana to bear a child with, and Anjana didn’t refuse either because all she could care about was that she was going to be with a god, and not just an ordinary monkey. Anjana gave birth to Hanuman.

When Hanuman was born, Anjana left Hanuman because she could not handle the responsibility of a child. Hanuman had no one to teach him what things to eat and things not to eat, and what is dangerous or safe.  With no one to take care of him and feed his hunger, this innocent little monkey was swinging through the trees under the canopy looking for something to eat. His hunger grew more and more with each swing, but the poor little monkey still couldn’t find anything to eat. As he swung through the branches, he accidentally picked one of the skinnier, weaker branches. The branch broke and Hanuman landed hard on the ground. As Hanuman lay on the ground in a daze, he saw an orange disk between the leaves of a couple of trees. His eyes grew large with excitement. He thought he had found a mango to eat. What Hanuman thought to be a mango was actually the sun in the far distance about to set. Hanuman (with no knowledge of what it was), reached out toward the sun.

Vayu worried about Hanuman because his mother left him and there was no one to take care of him. Vayu had to quit his job to make sure Hanuman was safe at all times. Vayu noticed his son and stopped Hanuman from touching the sun and saved him from burning himself. This caused a problem in the world because Vayu is the wind god, and if there is no wind there would be no air, and without air there wouldn’t be people or other animals and bugs. The other gods started to worry and tried to convince Vayu to come back and begin blowing wind again before everyone died, but Vayu was way too concerned about his son. Brahma, the creator of the universe, then gave Hanuman the gift of eternal life. And Surya bought him an unlimited supply of mangos. This way Hanuman could never die from things he didn’t know were dangerous, and he would never go hungry. Satisfied with these gifts given to Hanuman for his safety and hunger, Vayu returned back to his old job and brought back the winds.

Author's Note:

I chose to retell the story of how Hanuman came to be and explain how he attained eternal life and an unlimited supply of mangos.  I was inspired to write about Hanuman mainly because I felt like he was not given enough credit in the Ramayan. The whole story was based around Ram but I felt like no one realized that without Hanuman and his involvement in Ram’s quest, Ram would not have been able to be the hero. Especially when Ram dies and Hanuman goes and brings a whole mountain over to Lanka to help the reviving process. I chose it to be the first story for my portfolio because I could not think of another better character from the Ramayan to base a story around, plus I thought Hanuman deserved some more attention. Not only that but I wanted to give a reason to why Hanuman was alone and why his mother had left him, so I gave a better explanation on how Anjana was a free spirit In the story I also included the story of Riksharaja and her two sons, mainly because it was told in the book but also it was a good lead up to why the decision of having a baby came up. Even though Hanuman turns out to be very strong and smart and a huge part of the Ramayan, I wanted to show that he also was a baby at one point. He is supposed to be a playful and innocent monkey that just wants to eat all the time. Other than that I tried to stick to most of what I read in the book but with extra explanation for the confused readers. This revised version of the story, has been changed so it has better flow within the paragraphs and story itself too, as that problem was brought up by one of my classmates. Other than that I fixed al the grammar errors I could find.

Picture of Hanuman

Bibliography:

Buck, William (1976). Ramayana: King Rama's Way.