sunderkand

 

Sunder means beautiful, since Hanuman has a cute face he is called sunder, sunderkand is his story in search of Sita, the story of his awakening, his selflessness, his virtue and his deeds.

 

Hanuman is kapi / Vānara (a forest dweller) depicted as a monkey which symbolizes a restless mind, his story tells us that an individual who has achieved self-realization, with a controlled mind becomes useful to the lord

 

 

The allegory of the sunderkand

 

Sita represents the kundalini Shakti which is trapped in the muladhara (root) chakra, waiting to unite with the lord, the top chakra is north while the lower root chakra is at the south end and the journey of Hanuman is southwards towards the Kundalini

 

Motivation, self-realization and increase in consciousness

 

Ram had formed an alliance with the forest dwellers; he helped Sugriv by killing Bali from behind which seems to be an unrighteous act, it is said that when Ram reincarnated as Krishna, he had to pay back this karma when an forest dweller hunter shot him with an arrow, even God’s cannot escape karma

 

Now in turn the forest dwellers are helping Ram to search sita, someone has to cross the ocean and go to lanka to carry out the search, but who can carry out this seemingly impossible task; Jambavan, the king of the bears motivates Hanuman, he asks him to remember who he really is (note that The bear spirit animal is the energy of courage that replenishes you with power. This animal will take you through any challenging situation with your head up; the bear spirit animal personality makes you fearless—hence the allegory of a bear)

 

Hanuman had forgotten his true self, now he gets the self-realization; he is ready to leap

 

He prays to the God’s and celestial beings, he starts growing in size, for lord Ram’s successes, which signifies the increase in consciousness, he turns south, and under his force immovable mountains shook and with this the people also ascetics who had their abode in these mountains started fleeing leaving behind worldly pleasures, this signifies the unrest around when one achieves higher consciousness, he literally kicked the worldly life, huge trees uprooted along with him but fell and sank in the ocean—the world cannot keep up with the one of higher consciousness

 

He leaps southwards towards the kundalini Shakti which is trapped in the muladhara (root) chakra, he fly’s across the ocean the ‘abode of crocodiles’

 

He refused help from those who wanted him to rest for a while, since even taking rest was considered as an obstruction to him; on seeing hanuman flying in the sky Devas, gandharvas and danavas showered flowers on him, the sun did not scorch him, the wind served him with delightful breeze and all creatures praised him

 

He fought with the ones who blocked his path, surasa the mother of the nagas tested him too—the story of his encounter with surusa is explained in the sub-title—nature of women is written at the end

 

He reached the well protected city of lanka

 

He realized that only 4 beings on Earth could enter this forbidden City, it was not possible to overcome this city with strength alone. He encounters lankini—she said she herself is the city of lanka (the spirit of lanka)  he overcame her fulfilling the prophecy that when lankani the spirit of lanka falls down it was time for the end of the region, this is always the case when the spirituality is destroyed what follows is physical destruction

 

On entering the city; ravanas magnificent place appeared to hanuman like a turbulent ocean filled with crocodiles, sharks and whales and a variety of snakes even though what wealth possessed by vaishvakarma, kuber and indra—ravanas place had it all

 

 

The lesson for us in the episode when hanuman enters ravanas bedroom

 

After roaming the city of lanka, hanuman enters ravans palace, he enters his bedroom, there are chapters in the Ramayana which give describe the erotica of what hanuman saw

 

He saw the sensuous women sleeping, some of ravanas wifes in their intoxicated slumber got close to the mouths of other women thinking them to be ravanas, the others to out of their interest and love for ravana responded to such advances with love

 

Then there is a description of the various wines and meat kept, we wonder why such erotic description is given, the answer we get the answer from the thoughts in hanumans mind

 

The noble minded hanuman

 

Hanuman thought to himself that spying on the wifes of others in their inner chambers is definitely not as per dharma, further hanuman thinks—my graze towards these women, was not towards sensual pleasures and my intension was not to possess these women, another clever thought entered wise hanuman, which gave him clarity of vision towards the task ahead, all the loyal wifes of ravana were indeed seen by me but within my mind no ill intension towards them arose, it is indeed the mind which propels the sense organs to act either in auspicious or inauspicious ways and that the mind of mine is firmly established in righteousness

 

Such should be the character of a being as taught to us in the Ramayana

 

 

Never let despair (the state of having lost all hope) overcome you

 

Not finding sita in the inner chamber of ravana, hanuman begain to lose hope, but he soon overcame this, he told himself—freedom from despair is the root cause of prosperity, it is the cause of supreme bliss and it is definitely one which leads one on the path of attainment  

 

The freedom from despair is what makes human action fruitful and he continued his search

 

Hanuman finally finds sita in ashok vatika

 

Ashok is a type of tree and the meaning of ashok is without sorrow, yet sita was in a miserable plight in spite of being in ashok vatika, she was in a shabby physical state but having strength of character and rich only in her austerities

 

Hiding on a tree hanuman heard the conversation which sita had with ravana who had come there to persuade her to accept him willingly

 

Keeping a leaf as a border in front of ravan she gave him these wise teachings—there are no pious ones in this place neither you follow the righteous ones that is why your mind has become fickle and lacks proper conduct. In the hands of a king who is engaged in improper deeds even prosperous ad wealthy cities and kingdoms perish—bad behavior forebodes ill luck, man uses his good karma to enjoy but creates bad karma by evil deeds

 

Sita the entrapped kundalini will not give up her virtue in spite of surrounded by evil

Then Hanuman meets sita

 

 

The wise hanuman before leaving lanka wanted to collect all possible information of the strength of the enemy hence he started destructing ashok vatika

 

 

Like a sacrificial fire which cannot be destroyed by weapons he defeated most of the great warriors including the son of ravana as finally inderjit was sent after ravana briefed him on the tactics of war and assessing ones enemy, inderjit fired a Brahmastra to bound hanuman, even thogh hanuman who assesses before he acts had been blessed to overcome this he decided not to evoke the power given by Brahma so that he had the opportunity to see the demon king

 

He was brought in front of ravana, hanuman too gave some wise words to ravana—the fruit of dharma does not occur to one who has reached the culmination of adharma, unrighteousness will destroy the fruit of righteousness

 

The words of righteous conduct had no effect on ravana, he ordered that the tail of hanuman be lit up and he paraded in the city since he could not be given a death sentence because he was a messenger (on advice of vibishan, ravanas righteous brother)

 

Hanuman destroys lanka

 

His tail on fire, hanuman takes a gigantic form once again increasing in size, he destroys and burns down the city and kills the army of lanka, the only place which is not destroyed and which stands intact amidst destruction is the house of vibishan the devotee of Ram

 

Sita prays for hanuman and the fire on his tail does him no harm it stays cool

 

Hanuman returns from the south to the north, crumpling the hill he leapt from

 

The good news is conveyed to Ram

 

Hanuman approaches the shore screaming in excitement, on hearing the happy sounds the monkeys get the message that sita is alive and found, the monkeys in their great joy climb up the trees and shake the tree branches just like clothes and welcome him with folded hands  

 

The army of forest dwellers, monkeys march happily to convey the good news to Ram on their way they shatter the honey collecting garden of king sugreev, but they are forgiven, because once you are on a path of doing good deeds towards the lord, ones small mistakes are easily forgiven

 

On reaching the place where Ram stayed, the monkeys wanted to come close as near as possible to see the face of Ram

 

The nature of women

 

With the story of surusa (the mother of nagas) who tested hanuman by blocking his path and wanting to consume him; at first hanuman grows in size and to counter this every time surusa grows double in size to the form hanuman had taken, finally hanuman reduces to a tiny size enters the mouth of surusa and exits out, signifying that one cannot directly defeat the feminine energy but sometimes one has to bow down

 

Sita

 

She had the lord with her; it is written in the ramayan

 

जनकसुता जग जननि जानकी । अतिसय प्रिय करुनानिधान की ॥

ताके जुग पद कमल मनावउँ ॐ जासु कृपा निरमल मति पावउँ ॥

 

janakasuta jag janani janaki. atisay priy karunanidhan ki॥

take jug pad kamal manavun. jasu kripan niramal mati pavun

 

Meaning that she is the one who is the universal creator, the mother of all beings and with her mercy ones intellect (the power to discriminate between right and wrong) is cultivated

 

yet on seeing a magical golden deer she wishes to possess it, even lakshman on hearing her request goes chasing after the deer not realizing that golden deer’s do not exist, now when lakshman is away ravana kidnaps her and takes her to lanka the magical city of gold and promises all the wealth in the world, rejecting all this, now she longs for ram

 

When she had ram she wanted the magical golden deer and when she was taken to a full magical golden city she was miserable without Ram

 

One story she told hanuman so that he could convey to Ram that he had meet the real sita was that once a celestial crow was disturbing her and he hurt her in the breast, seeing this Rama took out a straw from the mattress and uttered the magical mantra and fired a Brahmastra at the crow (astra means a weapon and Shastra means a weapon which is activated by the power of prayer). Brahmastra is a powerful weapon yet on seeing a womans plight that a man loves he loses all control and takes such a drastic step

 

First time when sita met hanuman he told her that he can carry her across the ocean to her husband, she refused and told him Ram will not send anyone specially to me without testing him or his valor yet she had doubt that he would not be able to overcome the army who would be unleashed to prevent her from fleeing, later when Hanuman proved his worth by destroying lanka and defeating an entire army she told him that he was indeed capable of taking her but again refused to go away with him, since she wanted her husband to come and avenge her insult of abduction which would be the ultimate disgrace of ravana—such is the character of a woman who is not capable of forgiving, she is ready to suffer more waiting for the revenge

 

Hanuman told ravan that you do not realize that by abducting sita you are keeping a five hooded female serpant in your home—such is the dangerous state of a man lusting for others wife

 

 

After many months of studying I have written this article; note this that the Ramayan was written in treta yug where there was one ram versus one ravan a 1:1 ratio of good to evil, the mahabharat was written in dwapar yug where there were 5 righteous pandavas  against 100 evil kaurav brothers, a good to evil ratio of 5:100

 

Let us learn from these great epics

To read other interesting stories from the ramayan, you may click on the topic ramayan on the right hand side

 

To understand the Sanskrit translation I have referred the below youtube video