The Terrible Envoy

The son whom Rāvaṇa now sent against Hanumān was Indrajit, and he was the greatest of all the demon warriors, greater even than his father in the arts of war, and his very name told his stature, for Indrajit meant Conqueror of Indra, and he had earned it by defeating Indra himself, the king of the gods, in battle, a feat that placed him among the mightiest beings in all creation. He was a master of sorcery and of the celestial weapons, able to fight from concealment, wrapped in illusion, wielding powers that few in any world could withstand.

Against such a foe, even Hanumān faced a true and formidable test.

They fought, and the combat was tremendous, the greatest that Hanumān had yet faced, for Indrajit was no mere warrior to be overpowered but a master of the deepest arts of war, and the two of them, the son of the wind and the conqueror of Indra, contended with a fury that shook the city. And for all Hanumān’s power, Indrajit could not be easily overcome, nor could he easily overcome Hanumān, and the battle raged on, neither able to master the other by ordinary force.

And so Indrajit turned to the ultimate weapon, the Brahmāstra, the mightiest of all the celestial missiles, the weapon named for Brahmā the creator himself, against which there was no defence in all the worlds, the supreme astra whose power nothing could withstand. He invoked it, and he loosed it at Hanumān, and the Brahmāstra took hold of the son of the wind and bound him.

Now here the story does a subtle and important thing, and it turns on Hanumān’s own choice, and we must understand it rightly. The Brahmāstra was irresistible; nothing could withstand it; when it bound Hanumān, he was held. But the tellers are careful to say that Hanumān, who through his father the wind-god and his own great power had a measure of protection even against the Brahmāstra, could perhaps have resisted or broken free of it, or at least that he was not held wholly against his will. Rather, Hanumān chose to submit to it.

He recognized the Brahmāstra for what it was, the weapon of Brahmā, a sacred and supreme power, and out of reverence for Brahmā, out of respect for the sanctity of that highest of weapons, he chose not to defy it but to honour it by submitting, allowing himself to be bound.

And there was strategy in his choice as well as reverence, for Hanumān saw that being captured and brought before Rāvaṇa would give him something he could not otherwise obtain: an audience with the demon king himself, a chance to see the enemy face to face, to gauge him, and to deliver to him, in his own court, a warning and a challenge from Rāma.

So Hanumān allowed himself to be bound by the Brahmāstra, submitting where he might have resisted, and this is worth pausing on, for it shows a quality in him beyond mere power: the wisdom to yield at the right moment, the reverence to honour a sacred weapon even from an enemy’s hand, and the strategic vision to turn his own capture into an opportunity. A lesser warrior would have measured his greatness only by his refusal to be taken; Hanumān measured his by knowing when to submit, and to what, and to what end.

His submission to the Brahmāstra was not weakness but a higher kind of strength, the strength that serves a purpose larger than the display of its own power, that accepts even capture when capture serves the cause better than resistance would.

But then a curious thing happened, and it is characteristic of the way the world treats even its sacred things carelessly once the first moment has passed. When Hanumān had been bound by the Brahmāstra and taken by the demons, they were not content with the binding of the sacred weapon alone; not understanding, or not trusting, the completeness of the Brahmāstra’s hold, they bound him further with ordinary ropes, coarse material bonds, heaping physical cords upon the captive to make doubly sure of him.

And the moment they did so, the moment they added their ordinary ropes to the sacred binding, the Brahmāstra’s power was released, for such was the nature of that weapon, that it would not share its hold with lesser bonds, and would depart the moment cruder cords were added. So by their own clumsy overcaution the demons freed Hanumān from the one binding that truly held him, leaving him held only by ordinary ropes that his strength could break at any moment he chose.

But Hanumān did not break them, not yet, for the ropes served his purpose: they would carry him, as a bound captive, into the presence of Rāvaṇa, into the very court of the demon king, which was exactly where Hanumān now wished to go.

He let himself be led, bound and seemingly helpless, though he could have freed himself in an instant, through the streets of Lankā and into the great assembly-hall of Rāvaṇa, playing the part of the captured intruder, biding his time, so that he might stand before the lord of the demons and look upon him and speak to him the warning he had come, in part, to deliver.

The terrible envoy of Rāma, mightiest of the vānaras, slayer of Aksha, wrecker of the royal garden, was brought bound before the throne of Rāvaṇa, and the demon king and the servant of Rāma at last faced one another, and the confrontation that followed would show Rāvaṇa, in the person of a single bound captive, the spirit of the enemy that was coming to destroy him.