Hanuman Leaps for the Sun

On Mount Sumeru, which the Sun had turned to gold, lived Kesari with his wife Anjana. The god of the Wind had given Anjana a son, and the child was the colour of ripe grain.

One morning Anjana went into the forest to gather fruit and left the baby alone. He was hungry, and he cried, and nobody came.

Then the sun rose, red as a bunch of hibiscus flowers.

The baby had never seen a fruit so fine. He jumped for it.

He went up and up. Gods and demons stopped to watch. "Not the Wind, not Garuda, not thought itself is as fast as this," they said to one another. "What will he be when he is grown?"

His father the Wind flew close behind him, blowing cool air around him so that he would not burn. And the Sun looked at what was coming and understood.

"This little one does not know what he is doing," thought the Sun. And he held back his fire and did not burn him.

Now it happened that this was a day of eclipse. Rahu, the head without a body who swallows the Sun, was on his way to do so. He reached the Sun's chariot, found the child already there, and fled.

He went straight to Indra, scowling.

"You gave me the Sun and the Moon to ease my hunger. Now you have given them to someone else. I went to take the Sun today, and another Rahu had him."

Indra was astonished. He mounted his elephant Airavata, four-tusked and tall as a hill, with golden bells ringing, and rode out with Rahu going ahead.

The child saw Rahu coming back. Another fruit! He let go of the Sun and sprang at Rahu, and Rahu screamed, "Indra! Indra!"

Then the child saw the great elephant. That was the best fruit yet. He flew at Airavata.

Indra was not very angry. But he let the thunderbolt go from his hand.

It struck the child, and he fell out of the sky onto a mountain, and his jaw broke in the fall. He lay still.

The Wind gathered up his son and carried him into a cave. And then, in his anger and grief, he stopped moving.

Nothing in the three worlds could breathe. Creatures stiffened like blocks of wood. Prayer stopped. Gods and men together ran to Brahma, and Brahma led them all to the cave.

He touched the child with his hand, and the child revived, like a seedling when it is watered. The Wind began to move again, and everything breathed.

"Give this child your gifts," Brahma told the gods. "He will do your work one day."

Indra took off his garland of lotuses. "My bolt broke his jaw, his hanu. Let him be called Hanuman. From today my thunderbolt cannot hurt him."

The Sun spoke next. "I give him a hundredth part of my own brightness. And when he is able to study, I will give him the gift of speech."

Varuna, Yama, Kubera, Shiva and Vishvakarma each gave a protection of their own, and Brahma last of all.

The Sun kept his word. When Hanuman was older, the Ramayana says, he went to the Sun to learn grammar. Book in hand, asking his questions, he travelled from the mountain where the Sun rises to the mountain where he sets, and no one was his equal in learning.

Valmiki gives the schooling of Hanuman only a few lines. Later storytellers could not leave it there.

The Shiva Purana adds a mother's push. After the leap and the gifts of the gods, it says, the boy went home and told Anjana everything. At her bidding he went to the Sun every day and learned all the sciences from him without strain. And when the learning was done, it was at the Sun's bidding that he went to Sugriva, the monkey prince who was born of the Sun, and became his minister.

From those few lines the tellers have made a scene that is now told everywhere.

Hanuman flew up and bowed. "Teach me."

"I cannot stop," said the Sun. "My chariot is always moving. A pupil must face his teacher. How will you do that?"

"I will fly in front of you with my face towards you," said Hanuman, "and go backwards as fast as you go forwards."

So that is how he studied, the tellers say. He flew backwards across the sky with the glare of the Sun full in his eyes, and he did not miss a word.

When it was over he asked what fee he owed, and the Sun asked him to stand by his son Sugriva. That is why, when Rama comes to the forest years later, he finds Hanuman at Sugriva's side.

In the south there is one more turn. A text called the Parashara Samhita says that the nine grammars could be taught in full only to a married man, and Hanuman was a lifelong celibate. So a maiden named Suvarchala was formed out of the Sun's own rays, herself vowed to a life of prayer, and the two were wed so that the lessons could be finished without his vow being broken. Some temples show Hanuman with Suvarchala beside him.