Chapter 49 - Hanuman’s astonishment on beholding Ravana

Pondering on the exploits of that one of exceeding prowess, Hanuman gazed with winder on the King of the Titans, whose eyes were red with anger and who was blazing with rare and dazzling gold, adorned with a splendid diadem studded with pearls and excellent ornaments of diamonds and precious stones created by the power of concentrated thought. Attired in costly linen, daubed with red sandalpaste painted with variegated devices, he looked splendid with his reddened eyes, fierce gaze, brilliant sharp teeth and protruding lips.

To that monkey, that Ten-Headed One, who was resplendent and of great energy, resembled the Mandara Mountain with its summits infested with innumerable snakes or a mass of blue antimony. A string of pearls gleaming on his breast, his countenance possessing the lustre of the full moon, he resembled a cloud illumined by the rising sun. With his great arms laden with bracelets, smeared with sandal paste, his fingers, like five-headed serpents covered with sparkling rings, he was seated on a superb and marvellously inlaid crystal throne studded with gems and covered with rich hangings. Women, sumptuously attired, surrounded him, chowries in their hands and he was attended by four experienced counsellors, Durdhara, Prahasta, Mahaparshva and the minister Nikumbha who stood round him like the four seas surrounding the earth; and other counsellors too waited upon him as do the Gods on their King.

Then Hanuman gazed on the Lord of the Titans, clothed in extreme splendour, resembling the peak of Mount Meru surrounded by thunder clouds and, though suffering at the hands of those titans of dreadful prowess, Hanuman experienced extreme astonishment at the sight of that monarch and beholding the effulgence of that Lord of the Titans, dazzled by his magnificence, he became absorbed in thought.

‘What splendour, what power, what glory, what majesty’, he reflected, ‘nothing is lacking! Were he not evil, this mighty monarch of the titans could be the protector of the celestial realm and Indra himself, but his cruel and ruthless deeds, abhorrent to all, render him the scourge of the worlds as also of the Gods and demons; in his anger he could make an ocean of the earth!’

Such were the diverse thoughts of that sagacious monkey on beholding the immeasurable power and might of the King of the Titans.