Hanuman Searches Lanka by Night

When the sun had set, Hanuman made his body as small as a cat's and went towards the city gate. The Ramcharitmanas says he entered the city holding Ram in his heart:

Prabisi nagar kije sab kaja, hriday rakhi Kosalpur raja.

"Enter the city and do all your work, keeping the king of Kosala in your heart."

Lankini

At the gate stood the guardian spirit of Lanka herself, in the form of a rakshasi. She roared, "Vanara, who are you? I protect this city. No one enters without defeating me." And she slapped him.

Hanuman thought: she is a woman. So he did not let his anger rise, and struck her only one blow with his left fist. She fell to the ground. Then she folded her hands. "Hero, have mercy. Brahma once told me that on the day a vanara overcame me by force, I should know that the time of the rakshasas' destruction had come. That day is today. Go, and do what you will in the city."

The city of gold

Hanuman did not enter by the gate; one does not walk into an enemy's house by the front door. He leapt the wall and set his left foot down first.

The moon had risen, as if it had come out to help him. In its light Lanka looked like heaven: mansions of seven and eight storeys, gateways of gold, courtyards set with gems. In one place the Vedas were being chanted, in another a veena played, in another warriors were polishing weapons. Hanuman leapt from roof to roof.

He looked into the house of Prahasta, of Mahaparshva, of Kumbhakarna, of Vibhishana, of Indrajit. He searched them all. Sita was nowhere.

Ravana's palace

At last he came to the palace of Ravana. There he saw the Pushpaka Vimana, which Ravana had seized from Kubera. It moved at the speed of thought and was worked with birds and flowers of gold.

Inside was a vast bedchamber. Lamps burned, and hundreds of women, worn out after dance and song, lay asleep where they had fallen. In the middle, on a couch of crystal, slept Ravana, dark as a rain cloud, his arms scarred by the thunderbolt of Indra. For a moment Hanuman drew back.

Then his eye fell on a very beautiful woman asleep on a separate couch. She was fair and covered in jewels. Hanuman was overjoyed. "This is Sita!" He climbed a pillar, kissed his own tail and leapt about.

The next moment he stopped. "What a fool I am. Parted from Ram, Sita could neither sleep nor eat nor wear ornaments. And she would never be in another man's chamber. This is someone else." It was Mandodari, Ravana's chief queen.

A scruple

Outside, something troubled him. "I have looked at other men's wives as they slept. Have I broken my dharma?" Then he found the answer himself. "Sin is in the mind. Mine did not waver for an instant. And a woman must be looked for among women, not among deer."

Despair

The night was passing. Hanuman searched the gardens, the cellars, the picture galleries. He did not find Sita. Now the fear he had been holding down rose in him.

"What if Sita is dead? She may have slipped from Ravana's grasp and fallen into the sea. The rakshasis may have eaten her. What shall I say when I return? If I say she is not found, Ram will give up his life. Lakshmana will not live without him, then Bharata, then the queens. Sugriva will die. The whole vanara race will perish. Better that I never return, that I stay here as an ascetic, or drown myself."

He sat for a long time with his head in his hands. Then he said to himself, "There are many faults in dying. If I live, good may yet come. It is resolve that brings every task to success. I have not yet looked everywhere."

He raised his head. Ahead, beyond a wall, he saw a large grove of tall trees. "That is the Ashoka grove. I have not been there." He bowed to Ram, Lakshmana and Sita, and prayed to all the gods. Then with one leap he was on its wall.