Chasing the Sun
Chasing the Sun
Hanuman was born to Vayu and Anjana. Vayu was the mighty wind god, and Anjana was a celestial nymph. When Anjana was younger, she angered a sage, who cursed her to be born as a monkey. Anjana begged the sage to reconsider his curse and change the terms. The sage, taking some pity, said that Anjana's curse would be lifted as soon as her son achieved great renown. Enter Hanuman. Due to his mother's appearance, he is perceived as an anthropomorphic monkey with godly powers. However, it becomes apparent that godlike appearances and powers do not prevent a young Hanuman from being a normally curious child.
One day, when Hanuman was young, he woke up and saw the sun rising. From afar, Hanuman thought that it was a tasty fruit. As he was just waking up, his hunger hit him, so he decided to chase the sun. By doing this, he demonstrated his powers that he already possessed at such a young age. His journey was long, arduous, and covered millions of kilometers to the sun. Clearly Hanuman was unaffected by this great distance of travel and pursued his target, awaiting that first sweet and succulent bite out of the tasty fruit. He licked his lips in an eager fashion and carried on his journey.
When he was finally close to arriving at the sun, it was there that someone figured out Hanuman's tragic mistake. Indra, the king of the gods, noticed Hanuman pursuing his ridiculous venture. Indra knew, as did every other functioning adult, that the sun was indeed, not a fruit, and rather a ball of gas emitting deadly lasers towards the earth (and the embodiment of the Sun God, Surya). Indra knew that Hanuman would not able to tolerate the heat and that he would end up getting severely burned by the vicious ball of fire in the sky. Indra decided to fix this by getting Hanuman back to the ground. So he struck him with a mighty Vajra (lightning bolt) and caused the descent of Hanuman.
Hanuman was naturally hurt from this lightning bolt, and a few tears escaped from his eyes on his downward fall. He landed near his father, teary-eyed and with a puffy face, and proceeded to cry some more.
"WHO DARES TO HURT MY CHILD?!" Vayu screamed, enraged that someone (let alone a god), would dare to hurt his child. He immediately took action. He refused to provide the earth with his winds until justice was served. As bad as Hanuman's up-close encounter with the sun would have been, the scorching sun without any cooling winds was a rough treatment for others. The gods knew that they had to work with Vayu in order to appease him and apologize for their mistakes. They offered little Hanuman a series of boons, protecting him from variety of elements and harm.
Among these many boons included protection from Brahmanic weapons, the ability to change form at will and travel where he pleased, the protection from the Vajra (lightning bolts), protection from water, protection from fire, protection from all objects created by the architect god Vishwakarma, and a boon of good health and immortality. Armed with these generous and mighty boons, Hanuman was set to accomplish many great things in his life. However, the gods did not want a rambunctious child running around with these superpowers, so they cursed young Hanuman to forget his mighty powers.
Author's Note:
I love this story about Hanuman, as it goes into a detail about gods that is less storied: their childhood. It's funny to see how even though Hanuman is a powerful child (able to travel millions of kilometers to the sun), he doesn't always exhibit the most logical of decision making. As a small side note, some translations depict Hanuman mistaking the sun for a ball. I think that fruit makes for the better option, as hunger is a very... motivating experience.
This story also is mentioned briefly in the Hanuman Chalisa: "By following your advice, Vibhisana became the king of Lanka: everyone knows this. You grabbed the sun, millions of kilometers away in the sky, taking it for a ripe fruit." I think that it's really neat that even Hanuman's childish actions are enshrined in the Hanuman Chalisa. As another small side note, the distance that Hanuman traveled to the sun as estimated in the Hanuman Chalisa total to about 96,000,000 miles, (1 Yug x 1 Sahasra x 1 Yojana = 12,000 x 1,000 x 8 miles) which coverts to 1,536,000,000 km, the distance that NASA calculated as the distance from the Sun to the Earth. India is certainly a land that is not afraid of large numbers! This is a pretty interesting concept when you account that there weren't the same amount of scientific tools available for calculation then as there are now.
Musical Interpretation:
The Awadhi text in the Hanuman Chalisa that references this story is provided below:
Tumharo mantra Vibhisana mana
Lankesvara bhae saba jaga jana,
Yuga sahasra yojana para Bhanu,
Lilyo tahi madhura phala janun
An English translation is provided here:
"By following your advice, Vibhisana became the king of Lanka: everyone knows this.
You grabbed the sun, millions of kilometers away in the sky, taking it for a ripe fruit."
In this rendering of the Sanskrit text, this hymn sets the text of two couplets. Both of the Chalisa selections I am referencing do a good job of emphasizing the last word of each line to emphasize this rhyming scheme. However, Interpretation 2, does a bit of a better job emphasizing the words Vibhishana and Lankesvara with taala and melisma (the same syllable sung over multiple notes, like ornamentation). Vibhishana and Lankesvara, being the only proper nouns in the first couplet, are obviously the more important notes and deserve more emphasis than other words like articles and affirmative statements like "everyone knows this". The second interpretation does a good job of really emphasizing these proper nouns with length, thus using a change in rhythm to affect stress points. This follows in the second couplet when Bhanu (another name for Surya, the Sun God) is the last word and receives this accent.
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Image Credit: Hanuman Devouring the Sun - Full Image (it cropped weirdly for the cover and it cut out the artist's signature!)