Devalok
From the epics · 2 tellings · North India, Pan-India

Hanuman carries the mountain of herbs

When Lakshmana lies dying on the battlefield of Lanka, Hanuman flies to the Himalaya for four healing herbs, cannot tell them apart, and brings back the whole peak. Tulsidas adds the false hermit Kalanemi and Bharata's arrow over Ayodhya.

Who is in it

Places: Lanka, Himalaya, Ayodhya, Dronagiri · Texts: Valmiki Ramayana, Ramcharitmanas

The story, beat by beat

  1. Rama's army lies struck down by a weapon of Ravana's side.
  2. The physician or the old bear Jambavan names the herbs of a Himalayan mountain that alone can heal them.
  3. Hanuman flies north; the herbs hide or he cannot tell them, so he lifts the whole peak.
  4. The smell of the herbs revives the wounded; the mountain is carried back.
  5. In Tulsidas the night is longer: Kalanemi delays him as a hermit, and Bharata shoots him down over Ayodhya and sends him on.

healing devotion mountain night

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Primary text (translation)

Valmiki Ramayana, Yuddha Kanda 74 and 101

Pan-India Vaishnava

After Indrajit's weapon lays out the army and both princes, Vibhishana and Hanuman go through the field at night with torches. They find the old bear Jambavan, almost blind, who asks first whether Hanuman lives, for while he lives the army does. He sends him to the Himalaya, to the mountain of herbs between Rishabha and Kailasa, for four herbs: one that brings back the dead, one that draws out arrows, one that restores the skin, one that joins bones. Hanuman reaches it, and the herbs hide from him; angry, he tears off the peak and carries it back through the sky like a second sun. The scent alone revives the army. Later, when Ravana's spear fells Lakshmana, the physician Sushena sends him north again and the peak comes a second time.

The Ramayan of Valmiki, tr. Ralph T. H. Griffith: Sundara Kanda and Yuddha Kanda 74 and 101

Popular retelling

Tulsidas, Ramcharitmanas, Lanka Kand

North India Vaishnava

Lakshmana is struck by Meghanada's spear, and Hanuman brings the physician Sushena from Lanka, house and all. Sushena names the herb, and it must come before dawn. Ravana sends Kalanemi to sit as a hermit by the road; Hanuman stops to drink, is warned by an apsara freed from a crocodile's body, and kills him. Unable to find the herb he lifts the mountain. Flying over Ayodhya by night he is shot down by Bharata, who takes him for a demon, and falls crying Rama's name. Bharata, ashamed, offers to send him to Lanka on his arrow; Hanuman flies on himself, and Lakshmana is healed before sunrise.

Hanuman, Wikipedia; Ramcharitmanas, Wikipedia

Sources: The Ramayan of Valmiki, tr. Ralph T. H. Griffith: Sundara Kanda and Yuddha Kanda 74 and 101; Hanuman, Wikipedia; Ramcharitmanas, Wikipedia

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