[ Transcribed from lectures given by Sri Atmatattva Das ]
Hanuman was flying over the ocean looking for lotus flowers. He came to an area where there were many lotuses, and he saw one particularly big lotus. “That must be the lotus,” he thought. He entered it, and he was thinking, “What are those sounds? I should have asked Vibhisana. Anyway, I can’t waste any time.”
He prayed to Vayu, and Vayu came in front of him. “What is the problem Hanuman?” Vayu asked.
Hanuman said, “The problem is that I have to go inside here, and some sound is supposed to be pronounced. I forgot.”
Vayu said, “Don’t worry. This is working by suction system. Suction system is by air, and I am that. You go.” The lotus opened, and Hanuman went through very quickly, and he landed on the bottom, and looked around. What he saw was a big tank which was known as kalpa, or the desire fulfilling tank. People were coming from the city, taking a little water from there to go and worship Kali.
Hanuman thought, “This is the outside of the city, and it looks so wonderful. The inside must be even more beautiful.” Then he was wondering how to enter, and there was a brick fort. On top of the brick fort there were two thousand lakhs of demon soldiers walking with their bows and arrows. Hanuman saw them and thought, “I want to finish all of them together and it is very good that they are all on the fort. If they are spread out it is very difficult, but they are all in one spot. This is good arrangement. Now what should I use to kill them?” and he was looking around.
Then he heard a sound. “Hanuman! I am here! Use me!” He looked back, and there was a big tall tree, very big and fat. The tree was talking.
Hanuman said, “Who are you, and how are you talking?”
The tree said, “I am a demigod. I was cursed by Narada Muni to become a tree. `Why will you make me a tree?’ I asked him. `I will become useless.’ He said, `No, I will make you a useful tree. You will grow in Mahipuri, and when Hanuman comes he will use you for the war.’ Please use me Hanuman, that is what I am here for.” So Hanuman took that whole tree, and then he held it up and brought it down upon the fort wall. Two thousand lakhs of soldiers were finished. Then he opened the door wide and went inside. He crossed a forest. That was the brick fort, and now there was a brass fort. So many more soldiers were there. He stood there and he slapped his shoulders, challenging them. They all jumped off and they formed themselves into an army. They were marching, left right left right. Hanuman increased his hands. His form was the same, but his hands increased. He went as much as the army was there, and he closed the hands and threw the soldiers to one side. He opened that door and went inside, and he went through a forest. Then he came to the copper fort. There was three times more soldiers there. There were eighteen thousand lakhs of soldiers. So he grew and took his visvarupa, a huge big form, and then he looked at them and he breathed. They were all finished. He opened that fort. Then he came to the white metal fort.
At that fort there was one demon who was leading all of them, and he had got mystic perfections. He produced a storm, and began producing rain. He produced stool rain, bone rain and all kinds of rain. Hanuman came there, and said, “This is very bad.” He looked at them, and they all disappeared. They were illusion. They couldn’t stand the gaze of Hanuman. Hanuman took that demon in his hand and said, “You create all this illusion. You are so vile that even your dead body shouldn’t remain here.” And he ate him up. Hanuman is no vegetarian.
When the soldiers saw this, they thought, “Oh, this is very difficult, we must run away.” But Hanuman did not let them run away. He took them all in groups and started eating them. He was hungry for a long time and had not eaten anything. He ate some, crushed some, threw some away. He finished all of them, and then he opened that gate. Then he came to the bell metal fort, and each one was whiter than the other. He came in there, and he thought, “What to do with all this?” And then he sat in one place, and he got so angry. He looked, and the fire came out of his eyes. The whole fort just melted. In that melting, all the soldiers died. This time he didn’t open any door, because it was all finished. He just climbed over. The white metal fort was finished, and he came to the golden gate. In front of the golden gate was a machine. It was a big meter, and it had a hand on a scale. When anyone passes that way, it would show whether they were a friend of Mahi Ravana, or they are inimical toward Mahi Ravana. According to your inimical feeling, it would show ten degrees, twenty, thirty degrees. It was very difficult. If it moved a little bit this way, the army was ready to come and finish you. Hanuman thought, “Now I have to do some lila,” and he was waiting outside.
In the meantime, Mahi Ravana was sitting in his room, and he called his sister. There is a story that his sister, who was married to another demon, they had a son. When the son was gone there was an ashariri from the sky who told them, “This son will become king when Mahi Ravana dies.” Mahi Ravana did not want to die, and he did not want anyone else to become king, so he put that family in the jail, just as Kamsa did. So her name was Duratandi. This Duratandi and her son Nilamega were both in jail. But this Duratandi had a very auspicious power that any abhiseka or puja that had to be done, if you ask her to bring water then the puja was always successful. Now they had to do a very important puja, sacrificing Rama, so that is why he gave her a release. He only released her legs from the chain, her hands were still bound up. Servants would go with her and only at the water tank would the chains be opened. She would collect the water, and the chains would be locked again, and she had to bring back the water. This was the plan of Mahi Ravana, and he was telling Duratandi to do that.
So Duratandi was coming to the water tank, close to which Hanuman was standing. He was behind a tree and thinking how to get in the gate. She came and while taking water she was lamenting, openly cursing Mahi Ravana. “What a brother I have! He wants to kill Rama and Laksmana.”
When Hanuman heard that he jumped up and came in front of her. “What did you say? You know where Rama and Laksmana are? I am looking for them!”
She said, “Who are you? Are you Ravana, taking another form?”
“No, no, I am Hanuman, the servant of Ramacandra.”
She said, “Oh, you must help me!”
She gave a whole story, and he said, “Don’t worry. If you help me I will help you.”
She said, “How will I help you?”
He said, “I will become small, and I will enter a leaf. You put the leaf in your water pot and carry me inside. I want to trick these people.”
She said, “What happens if they find out? They have got a scale there, and if you don’t like Mahi Ravana, it will show.”
He said, “All right, I like Mahi Ravana.”
“No, no, no. How can you like Mahi Ravana and Rama? It’s not possible.”
Hanuman said, “Anyway, why don’t you do it? I like a thrill, and I want to trick them.” So he became very small and entered into a mango leaf. When you bring water for bathing, you put a mango leaf in it. She put mango leaves in there with Hanuman. And then very peacefully she was bringing it. The meter was there, and she was slowly coming, and she was shivering.
Some demons were saying, “Hey! Why are you shivering? What is that you are bringing?”
She said, “No, no. This is abhiseka water, we are going to kill Rama today.” As soon as she came in front of the meter, it went right over the other side and there was no more numbers it could go to.
They said, “Hey, stop! You are hating Mahi Ravana so much. You used to hate him before, but it was only thirty degrees. Now it’s coming out of the meter.”
She said, “No, I have become friendly now, otherwise how has my brother let me out?”
So then they said, “There must be someone inside the water!” And they looked in the water. Hanuman was there in the leaf. They couldn’t see anything, so they concluded, “There is something wrong with this machine. You walk past, and let us check again.”
So she went back and then came past the machine again. “Boing!” and it broke. “Who is this who does not like Mahi Ravana?” they asked. Hanuman jumped out of the pot and said,
“It is me!” and he became huge and took everyone and began to make a big mess, he couldn’t wait to see Rama. He was smashing some people, crushing some people, biting some, walking on them, throwing a bunch and another bunch another way. He took a group and another group and smashed them against each other. In this way he finished them all.
Then she said, “There are ten houses around Mahi Ravana’s house. These are his great corporals and generals. You must kill them.”
“No problem,” Hanuman said. He went there and stood in the middle and put his tail slowly inside each house. First one house, where one general was sitting with his wife telling her, “You look like the moon.” And she was saying, “You look like the sun.” In the meantime the tail came and bound both of them, pulled them out of them house and started flapping them on the floor. In the same way he went to every house and smashed them all. All the houses were finished. Then the news reached Mahi Ravana. Mahi Ravana came out in front of Hanuman and said, “Hey! I will kill you!” And he got on his chariot. Hanuman flew up and fell on the chariot. He crushed the chariot. Mahi Ravana was smashed.
Hanuman said, “Jaya Ramacandra Bhagavan ki jaya!” And then Mahi Ravana came up again. Hanuman gave him a big punch on the chest, making him unconscious. Hanuman said, “Jaya Ramacandra Bhagavan ki jaya!” Again he got up. Hanuman thought, “Every time I say Jaya he gets up. Next time I’m not going to say it.” So he took Mahi Ravana in his hands and tore him to pieces, and he threw the pieces everywhere. He sat down, and they all joined together and Mahi Ravana got up. He used his special martial arts techniques. He locked Mahi Ravana, and got him in a hold so he couldn’t breath. Then Mahi Ravana disappeared. Hanuman said, “No-one can get out of my locking system!” Then he looked around and he saw a silver mountain, a rock.
Duratandi told him, “This is not a silver rock, this is Mahi Ravana. He can take any form.”
Hanuman sat on it and crushed it. Again Mahi Ravana came out, and he started running. This time he was so fast that Hanuman couldn’t catch him. Hanuman went to Duratandi and said, “Now what? Where has he gone?”
She said, “He is performing a yajna for killing you.” Mahi Ravana went inside a cave and he was quickly performing some yajna, and from the yajna, a big brahma-rakshasa came. He was saying, “Who? Who? Whom should I eat?” Mahi Ravana said, “Hanuman, over there!” So he jumped up and came to Hanuman.
Hanuman got ready to fight the bhuta, but Duratandi said, “Don’t fight with the bhuta, it’s a waste of time. Go and spoil the yajna. Automatically the bhuta will die.” Hanuman said, “Oh, that’s good.” So he went there and spoiled the yajna by passing urine on the fire. The yajna became contaminated, and the brahma-rakshasa disappeared. Again Mahi Ravana disappeared.
Hanuman came back to Duratandi and said, “I am confused. What should I do?”
Duratandi said, “Even if you crush him he won’t die, because his life is in three places.” She told a secret. So he came to the Kali temple and saw Ramacandra dressed up with turmeric powder, sindhu, flower garland. He was going to be sacrificed, so he had to look good.
He came to Rama and said, “My Lord, You must help. I did everything that I know. This man is invincible.”
Ramacandra said, “No problem. At midnight he will kill Me. At that time, I will make some trick and I will shoot the arrow. At the same time, you must go and finish those lamps. I will get Laksmana to crush the diamond.” Rama was the Supreme intelligence. So Laksmana got Duratandi to find out where the diamond was, and he reached that place and was waiting for midnight. The midnight was slowly coming. Hanuman was flying and flying. He was going very, very fast. Finally he landed there. He saw this cave, and he saw five entrances. They all connected inside, and there were five lamps burning. He came in there, and he blew one out. He came to the next, and he put that one out. He looked back, and the other one had again lighted up automatically. He put one off, and another lighted, back and forth. Then he said, “I will do everything at once.” So he turned his head while blowing. They all went out, but all came on again. In the meantime the snakes had come out spitting poison. The poison was not doing anything to him, but they were coming and moving mystically, and Hanuman came out and said, “Oh, what am I going to do?”
Again he thought of Vayu. Vayu came and said, “Hanuman, what’s the problem now? You don’t have much time, only three minutes left!”
Hanuman said, “Well what can I do? This lamp goes out and another one starts. This lamp that lamp, back and forth. I am confused.”
Vayu said, “Ahh! You forgot who your father is!” Hanuman said, “I didn’t forget. You are my father.”
Vayu said, “You know that only because of me is any light burning?”
And Vayu withdrew from there. As soon as Vayu withdrew from that cave, it became a vacuum. And at that point, they all went out at once. Immediately Hanuman remembered Brahma, and he prayed to him, “I want to use that benediction, that special benediction. I want to reach Mahipuri right now.” Next moment he was in Mahipuri. At the same time Laksmana crushed the diamond.
Just before that, Mahi Ravana had come and told Rama, “Pay obeisances! And then I will offer you to Kali!”
Rama said, “I don’t know how to pay obeisances. I forgot. I was in shock. Can you teach Me how to pay obeisances?”
So Mahi Ravana said, “All right, I will show you. This is how you pay obeisances.”
As soon as he bent down, Rama took his arrow and shot him. All these things happened at the same time, crushing the diamond, putting the lights out, and Ramacandra’s arrow went inside Mahi Ravana’s chest. And then he started dying. When he started dying, everything began to cave in. The jewels became powerless, the roads were cracking, the buildings were crumbling. And then Hanuman came and said, “Rama and Laksmana, sit on my shoulder!” And he broke everything and flew off. He came back to Sri Lanka. And then the war started.
