The Wind-Sons: Bhīma and Hanumān

High in the Himalayan heights, a fragrant and beautiful flower was carried on the north-east breeze to Draupadī, and she was captivated by its celestial scent and begged Bhīma to find the plant it came from, that they might have it in their forest home. And Bhīma, eager as always to please his beloved, strode off to the north-east, following the fragrance, giving no thought to the wild beasts that crossed his path, for his strength feared nothing.

Deep in a grove of banana trees, Bhīma found a huge old monkey lying directly across his path, and shouted at it to move; and the monkey drawled that it was old and unwell, and asked why it had been woken, and said that if Bhīma had scruples about jumping over it, he might simply push its tail aside and pass. And Bhīma, proud of his immense strength, the strength that had torn demons apart, reached down to fling the old monkey's tail out of his way.

And he could not move it. He could not shift the tail a hair's breadth. He set his jaws and strained every muscle in his mighty body until the sweat poured off him, and the tail lay as immovable as a mountain root. And Bhīma, his pride broken, understood that this was no ordinary monkey, and bowed down in humility and asked who this being was, and begged forgiveness for his arrogance.

And the monkey smiled and revealed himself: he was Hanumān, the great devotee of Rāma from the elder age, and he was Bhīma's own brother, for both were sons of the Wind God, Vāyu. And Hanumān blessed his younger brother, and promised that in the great war to come he would sit upon the flag atop Arjuna's chariot, to strike terror into the enemy.

The meeting of the two wind-sons carries a plain and useful lesson, and it is a lesson in humility for the strong. Bhīma was perhaps the mightiest man of his age, and his strength had never met its match, and that unbroken strength had made him proud. And here, in a single old monkey's immovable tail, his whole pride was humbled, and he was taught that however great his strength, there was strength beyond it, and that the truly great, like Hanumān, wear their power not with arrogance but with a gentle, drawling ease.

It is good for the strong to meet, now and then, a strength they cannot move; for strength without humility is only arrogance waiting to fall, and Bhīma was the better, and the wiser, for having strained with all his might against a tail he could not lift.