The Ramayana

Book I - Bala Kanda

Canto XVI - The Vanaras

The divine race of the Vanaras was created by various Hindu deities and endowed with monkey-like forms and great physical strength. The Vanaras are to come to the aid of Vishnu in his incarnation as Rama to fight evil in the world.

The Vanaras

When Vishnu thus had gone on earth.
From the great king to take his birth.
The self-existent Lord of all
Addressed the Gods who heard his call:
'For Vishnu's sake, the strong and true.
Who seeks the good of all of you,
Make helps, in war to lend him aid,
In forms that change at will, arrayed,
Of wizard skill and hero might,
Out-strippers of the wind in flight,
Skilled in the arts of counsel, wise,
And Vishnu's peers in bold emprise;
With heavenly arts and prudence fraught,
By no devices to be caught;
Skilled in all weapon's lore and use
As they who drink the immortal juice.^{The Amrita, the nectar of the Hindu Gods.}
And let the nymphs supreme in grace,
And maidens of the minstrel race,
Monkeys and snakes, and those who rove
Free spirits of the hill and grove,
And wandering Daughters of the Air,
In monkey form brave children bear.
So erst the lord of bears I shaped,
Born from my mouth as wide I gaped.'

Thus by the mighty Sire addressed
They all obeyed his high behest,
And thus begot in countless swarms
Brave sons disguised in sylvan forms.
Each God, each sage became a sire,
Each minstrel of the heavenly choir,^{Gandharvas are celestial musicians inhabiting Indra's heaven and forming the orchestra at all the banquets of the principal Hindu deities.}
Each faun,^{Yakshas, demigods attendant especially on Hindu god Kubera, and employed by him in the care of his garden and treasures.} of children strong and good
Whose feet should roam the hill and wood.
Snakes, bards,^{Kimpurushas, Hindu demigods attached also to the service of Kubera, celestial musicians, represented like centaurs reversed with human figures and horses' heads.} and spirits,^{Siddhas, demigods or spirits of undefined attributes, occupying with the Vidyadharas, the middle air of the Hindu universe, or the region between the earth and the sun.} serpents bold
Had sons too numerous to be told.
Bali, the woodland hosts who led,
High as Mahendra's^{A mountain in the south of India.} lofty head,
Was Indra's child. That noblest fire,
The Sun, was great Sugriva's sire,
Tara, the mighty monkey, he
Was offspring of Vrihaspati:^{The preceptor of the Hindu Gods and regent of the planet Jupiter.}
Tara the matchless chieftain, boast
For wisdom of the Vanara host.
Of Gandhamadan brave and bold
The father was the Lord of Gold.
Nala the mighty, dear to fame,
Of skilful Visvakarma^{The celestial architect in Hinduism, the Indian Hephaestus, Mulciber, or Vulcan.} came.
From Agni,^{The Hindu God of Fire.} Nila bright as flame,
Who in his splendor, might, and worth,
Surpassed the sire who gave him birth.

The heavenly Ashvins,^{Twin children of the Sun, the physicians of Svarga or the Hindu heaven.} swift and fair,
Were fathers of a noble pair,
Who, Dwivida and Mainda named,
For beauty like their sires were famed,
Varuna^{The Hindu deity of the waters.} was father of Sushen,
Of Sarabh, he who sends the rain,^{Parjanya, sometimes confounded with Indra.}
Hanuman, best of monkey kind,
Was son of him who breathes the wind:
Like thunderbolt in frame was he,
And swift as Garuda's^{The divine bird in Hinduism and vehicle of Vishnu. He is generally represented as a being something between a man and a bird and considered as the sovereign of the feathered race. He may be compared with the Simurgh of the Persians, the 'Anka of the Arabs, the Griffin of chivalry, the Phoenix of Egypt, and the bird that sits upon the ash Yggdrasil of the Edda.} self could flee.
These thousands did the Gods create
Endowed with might that none could mate,
In monkey forms that changed at will;
So strong their wish the fiend to kill.
In mountain size, like lions thewed,
Up sprang the wondrous multitude,
Auxiliar hosts in every shape,
Monkey and bear and highland ape.
In each the strength, the might, the mien
Of his own parent God were seen.
Some chiefs of Vanara mothers came,
Some of she-bear and minstrel dame,
Skilled in all arms in battle's shock;
The brandished tree, the loosened rock;
And prompt, should other weapons fail,
To fight and slay with tooth and nail.
Their strength could shake the hills amain,
And rend the rooted trees in twain,
Disturb with their impetuous sweep
The Rivers' Lord, the Ocean deep,
Rend with their feet the seated ground,
And pass wide floods with airy bound,
Or forcing through the sky their way
The very clouds by force could stay.
Mad elephants that wander through
The forest wilds, could they subdue,
And with their furious shout could scare
Dead upon earth the birds of air.
So were the sylvan chieftains formed;
Thousands on thousands still they swarmed.
These were the leaders honored most,
The captains of the Vanara host,
And to each lord and chief and guide
Was monkey offspring born beside.
Then by the bears' great monarch stood
The other roamers of the wood,
And turned, their pathless homes to seek,
To forest and to mountain peak.
The leaders of the monkey band
By the two brothers took their stand,
Sugriva, offspring of the Sun.
And Bali, Indra's mighty one.
They both endowed with Garuda's might,
And skilled in all the arts of fight,
Wandered in arms the forest through,
And lions, snakes, and tigers, slew.
But every monkey, ape, and bear
Ever was Bali's special care;
With his vast strength and mighty arm
He kept them from all scathe and harm.
And so the earth with hill, wood, seas,
Was filled with mighty ones like these,
Of various shape and race and kind,
With proper homes to each assigned,
With Rama's champions fierce and strong
The earth was overspread,
High as the hills and clouds, a throng
With bodies vast and dread.^{This Canto will appear ridiculous to the European reader. But it should be remembered that the monkeys of an Indian forest, the 'bough-deer' as the poets call them, are very different animals from the 'turpissima bestia' that accompanies the itinerant organ-grinder or grins in the Zoological Gardens of London. Milton has made his hero, Satan, assume the forms of a cormorant, a toad, and a serpent, and I cannot see that this creation of semi-divine Vanaras, or monkeys, is more ridiculous or undignified.}

Footnotes