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Hanumdn

as an Imaginary

Companion*

For those familiar with manifestations of Hinduism, ancient or modern, Hanuman requires no introduction. His importance and pervasive influence is abundantly clear to everybody. There are innumerable articles with titles such as: Who were the Vanaras, or Who were the Raksasas? But such a question is never asked of Hanuman himself. There is an enormous literature about Hanuman, most of it bizarre, but as far as I know there is no article with the title "Who was Hanuman?" I believe that the reason for this is a simple one: Nobody asks who Hanuman is because he is now, and has always been recognised as an imaginary companion. If any character of the "Ramayana" can make us aware that the world it depicts is essentially a child's world, that is Hanuman. For Hanuman is more purely a creature of the imagination than is any other figure in the "Ramayana." In saying this I do not of course wish to diminish the importance of Hanuman in the least. The pond of "The Wind in the Willows" cannot be visited by any naturalist, but children go there every day, and discern, below the water's surface, a world teeming with wonders. Does the text of the "Ramayana" lend any support to my contention? I believe it does. For one thing, the choice of a monkey as a hero is surprising. It is one of those "tours de force" that Indian literature delights in, for the later tradition will forever regard Hanuman as a hero. I need only point to the title of Bhavabhdti's drama, the MahdvTracarita,as an example. The commentators argue over what kind of a compound this title is: MahdvTrasva caritam or mahdvLrdndm caritiini. If the former, commentators point out that the great exploits of the hero Hanuman are not recognised! In the Sundarakdnda, when Slta sees Hanuman for the first time, she says (34:22): ndharm svapnam imamn manye svapne drstv& hi vdnaram na sakyo 'bhyudayahprdptum prdptas cdbhyudayo mama I don't think this is a dream, for if you see a monkey in a dream, you would certainly not be happy, yet I do feel happy.
* This paper was delivered as a lecture at the Annual

Sita at first thinks that Hanuman is only a mdydkapi, a magic monkey, or the hallucination of a monkey. The Tilaka on 5.35.86 says that: hamumantam kapim vyaktam manyate nanyatheti sd. "She finally realised that Hanuman really was a monkey, and not a phantom." Still, Sita tells Hanuman, in a famous passage at 36.9: na hi tvam prdkrtam manye vdnaram vdnararsabha yasya te ndsti samtrdso rivanin naipi sambhramah I don't consider you to be an ordinary monkey since you neither fear nor tremble at the thought of Ravana. Many times in Kiskhindhakanda and Sundarakanda, however, an action of Hanumrn's is explained as kapitvdt. When Hanuman offers to take Sita back to Rama on his back she answers as follows (37.31): tad eva khalu te manye kapitvam hariyzthapa katharmcdlpasarTrastvam mdm ito netum icchasi This is no more than proof of your monkeyhood. How can you, with your tiny little, puny little monkey body carry me away? When Hanuman wants to swear, he does so by the roots and fruits he eats and by the mountains he loves to frisk about upon (36.38): mandarena ca te devi sape mulaphalena ca I swear, my queen, on the Mandara mountain, and on the roots and fruits I eat. In chapter 57 of the Sundarakanda, after Hanuman has returned from Lahka, great emphasis is placed on the young Angada, almost as if he were the child whose imaginary companion Hanuman is.' Hanuman takes Angada's hand and

Ramayana conference at the University of California, Berkeley, May, 1978.

The emphasis on Angada is interesting from another aspect as well: he is the son of the murdered Valin. I have argued that the epic is distinctly ambivalent in its characterization of SugrIva and Valin. See my "Fratricide and the monkeys: psychoanalytic observations on an episode in the 'Valmlkiramayana."' JAOS, 95:672-678, 1975.

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sitting in silence, apart from everybody else? Why don't you say anything? Such descriptions are charming, simple and obvious in their origin; they are the finely wrought boastings of children, neither alarming nor pathognomonic. But is there any other aspect to the descriptions of Hanuman, any other, slightly less cheery side, a darker tone? I think there is, though it is not obvious. Already in the descriptions of Hanuman's ancestry, a peculiar tone creeps into the narrative. This irreproachable monkey has two characteristics that one often finds in the ambivalently loved hero: he is illegitimate and he is deformed. As is well known, the father of Hanuman is the wind. Less well known is the verse which gives him a monkey father (4.66.8): apsard Psarasdm sresthd vikhydtd pufijikasthald anjaneti parikhvdtd patnT kesarino hareh There was a well known Apsaras, Pufljikasthald, the very best of the Apsaras. She was [also] known as Aijana, the wife of the monkey Kesarin. When Hanuman, in childish play, leapt into the sky and seized the sun, Indra, angry with him, hurled his thunderbolt and broke his left jaw, which gave him the name of "Jaw" (Hanuman) (4.66.24): tada saildgrasikhare vdmo hanur abhajvata tato 'bhindmadheyam te hanzmdn iti klrtitam Then on the very tip of the mountain, your left jaw (hanu) was broken and so you became known as Hanuman. But of course such darker concerns are not limited to children, and when I said that the universe of the Ramayana is a children's universe, I did not mean to restrict it, but only wished to account for its intensity. In the case of the descriptions of Hanuman, I believe there is a double voice: as an imaginary companion he is addressed, as it were, to children. But this voice, the one that is most certain of itself, sometimes lapses. This is because, I believe, there is an ambiguity in the narration of the Ramayana and this becomes most obvious when the narration is about Hanuman. Often we must ask ourselves, who is speaking? Sometimes it is quite clear: Hanuman is telling us a story. Or, somebody, presumably Valmliki, is telling us a story. When Hanuman is an imaginary companion, these narrators are not confused. But as one would expect with an imaginary companion, he sometimes breaks away from the confines of the literary imagination and we get a direct insight into the workings of the mind beset with anxiety.

they sit down together (57.37: nisasada ca hastena grhTtvd v'dlinahsutam). The monkeys get large, flat stones and sit on them in order to hear about Hanuman's adventures: tasthau tatrdrigadlah (rTrndnvanarair hahuhhir vrtah upasyamdno vividhair divi devapatir vathd Angada was adoringly encircled by the monkeys like the moon in heaven by all the stars. With what qualities does one expect a child to endow an imaginary companion? With all those which it lacks. A child, when punished at a certain age does not want to cry, he does not even wish to appear hurt (53.16): kdarnm badhnantu me bhavah pacchasyoddipanena capfddm kurvanti raksamsi na me 'tI Pmanasall .ramnahi Those creeps can tie me up and burn my tail and it will hurt my body, but in my mind I will feel nothing. At the same time that Hanuman is described, like all characters of the Ramayana, exclusively in hyperbole, there is a certain confusion, particularly characteristic of Hanuman that seems another betrayal of his human origin. How much can he actually accomplish? At 5.30.28, he himself wonders: saknavdm na tu sampriiptumpdramparam mahodadeh But can I really reach the other shore of the ocean? At other places he is very much the comic-book hero, the quiet, unassuming shy man who sits apart, but all along has secret powers. And so, at the end of the Kiskhindhakanda, when all the monkeys are boasting of their ability to jump, some as far as Lafika, but none to Lahka and back, Jambavan suddenly perceives that Hanuman is sitting by himself, saying nothing (4.65.35): tatah pratitarmplavatdm varistham ekdntam diritva sukhopavistam samcodaya-m a-sa haripraviro haripraviram hanumantam eva Then the great bear (monkey?) hero called upon Hanuman, the great monkey hero, the best of the leaping monkeys, who was happily sitting alone, confident of himself. Jambavan tells him: vlra vanaralokasya sarvasdstravidam.vara tz7,snTm ekdntam dasrityahanuman kim na jalpasi Hero of all the monkeys, you who know more than anyone about all the sciences, Hanuman, why are you

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As an illustration, it is notable that Hanuman is endowed with so many excellent qualities by the epic that one gets the feeling that he can do anything. But not quite anything. It is true that he is kUmar7pin,2but he is not able to do everything he wants to do. His powers too are limited. He finds Sita by perseverance, not by magic. The Uttarakanda, some hundreds of years later, finds itself embarrassed by the limitations of reality to which even Hanuman must conform and it invents a story to show that Hanuman forgets his immense powers from time to time. This recognition of Hanuman's limitations proceeds, it seems to me, from considerations aimed at the child-audience. The child knows that he himself is limitedwhatever grandiose fantasies he constructs for himself in his mind, he generally also takes cognizance of the obstacles to omnipotence, at least by a certain age. The enemy, however, has no such obstacles, not at least until the very end, where he meets the ultimate obstacle, his own destruction. The reason for this is, I believe, the oedipal nature of these fantasies. The first great obstructors, in anybody's world, are his parents, and for the little boy, particularly his father. He is the one who closes the gate to the sexual pleasure-palace which he himself enters night after night. We see this in the Sundarakanda when Hanuman, awe-stricken, describes Ravana's Puspaka. This magic instrument, which defies gravity by rising and falling, is clearly built on an older awe over another instrument which rises and falls as if by magic.' We are not surprised therefore to find Hanuman entering the harem of Ravana. But it is upon entering the harem that a shift in voice takes place. Hanuman stops talking, and somebody else takes

his place. Who? Somebody is perceiving for Hanuman, and what he perceives, I think, is the underlying fantasy of the primal scene: in effect, Hanuman is inside that most secretly desired place, his father's bedroom. The description given of the harem is, interestingly, primarily homosexual (leakage or defence?) (5.9.57): ca rawvandnanasankiayk ki'cicd rawnaiosiiah mukhani ca sapatnTndmupd/ighran punah punah uirupdrsvakatiprstham anvonvasva samdgritdh parasparaniYi.tafngvoinadasnehavasanugah atvartham saktamanaso raivane td varastrivah asvatantrdh sapatnTndrm privam evdcararmstadd Some of the women passionately kissed the lips of other women, over and over, thinking it was Rdvana's lips they were kissing. Under the influence of sexual passion and of wine, the women had their bodies all entangled: some put their heads on the laps of other women, or their breasts, or their thighs, or their buttocks. Giving delight to one another, all the beautiful women there, with limb touching limb, like one large body, slept. Those lovely women were so passionately in love with Ravana that they lost all restraint and gratified each other. When he finally sees Mandodarl, Ravana's favourite wife, he takes her for Sita. The audience of course knows betterthe mother cannot be with the father in such explicitly sexual scenes--and Hanuman is slyly insulted by the narrator in what is, in my opinion, the most charming verse of the Ramayana. It is found at 5.10.54, where Hanuman displays his joy at finding Sita: dsphotavdmdsa cucumba puccham nananda cikrTda jagau jagdma stambhin arohan nipapdta bhiimau nidarsavpan svdm prakrtim kapindm He clapped his hands, he kissed his tail, he jumped up and down, he played, he sang, he leapt onto the pillars and jumped down to the ground, showing his real nature as a monkey. But shortly after this, Hanuman becomes somewhat alarmed, afraid that he has committed a sin in looking at the wives of another man (5.11.37): ' Of the commentators, only G. takes this last comment rather differently: svdm prakrtim svdsddhdranam cdpalvam, i.e., his own unique boyishness.

Little is known of the origins of this power of transformation. As far as I know, humans are rarely kdrmar -pin, only gods are and, by extension, animals and demons. The Tilaka on 4.66.9 says that this ability to transform oneself on the part of the monkeys is devatdsvabhdvdnuvrtti, i.e., it conforms to what is the essential nature of a god (his ability to do anything he likes including change forms). I have written about the psychological origins of the belief that one has magic powers in an essay entitled "Yogic powers and symptom formation" in my book The Oceanic Feeling (D. Reidel. Holland). ' See Phyllis Greenacre: "Experiences of awe in childhood." PsyvchoanalvticStudv of the Child, 11: 9-30, 1956. 4 It is noteworthy that nowhere in the Ramayana are the monkey women described as monkeys. Male monkeys have tails, etc., but as far as I know there is no adjective or description of the female which would allow one to infer her animal nature. The drawings in any popular edition of the Ramayana are always of human women, never of female monkeys. I have no explanation for this fact.

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niriksamdnas ca tatas tdh strivah sa mahdkapih itah jaga-ma mahatinm.sahkdni dharmasddhvasa.sahk paraddravarodhasya prasuptasya niriksanam idam khalu mamdti'artham dharmalopam karisyati Then that great monkey, in looking at those women feared he had sinned against Dharma and was greatly disturbed. This will reflect badly on my righteous conduct, the fact that I have looked upon the women of another man as they lay sleeping.6 the sexual nature of his tale, it would not only explain the ambivalence I have pointed to, but would also allow us at least a glimpse into the future ambivalence to which almost all characters in the Ramayana are to be consigned by history. Not only will the chaste Hanuman surface in other countries as lecherous and lewd, married both to Ravana's daughter, and also to Laksmana's, but we will expect to find the same treatment meted out to Ravana in reverse, so that Ravana will emerge as the covert hero of the epic.' If my thesis is correct, then Hanuman is imaginary in the deepest sense of this word-he points to an inner world of the imagination in his creators that is intimately familiar to all of us: Hanuman is a creature out of dreams and reminds us of the beauty and terror of the night we all lead.
MASSON J. MOUSSAIEFF BERKELEY

It seems to me that here it is not Hanumdn who is fearful that he has committed a sexual sin, but the narrator who awakens to the sexual nature of his description. Prior to his awakening, the women were described as supremely beautiful. Hanuman excuses his behavior by observing that although it is true he has seen all of Ravana's women, yet his mind remained unaffected and he did not find it sexually stimulating (5.11.41): kdmam drst&may' sarvd viivastd rdvanastriyah na tu manasd kimcid vaikrtyam upapadvate It is true that I gazed upon all of Ravana's women who were confident [that nobody could see them], but my mind was not the least bit affected. (Of course we have only his word for it and he cannot speak for the narrator!) Now, suddenly, in 5.12, the women are described as hideously deformed: viruparupd vikrta vivarcaso mahdnand di-rghaviruparsanah samiksVa ta rdksardjavosito bhavdd vinastd janakesvaratmajd Sdta probably died of terror when she saw the women of Ravana, for they are all deformed, twisted, without splendour, with enormous mouths and long ill-shapen eyes. If I am correct, and the narrator has become, in some obscure way not within the path of consciousness, aware of

' I believe that the seeds of this ambivalence are to be found in the Valmikiramayana, though the passage has not been noted in this context. At 5.7.68 of the critical edition (Sundarakdnda) there is an interesting series of verses about the women in Ravana's antahpuram: na tatra kdcit pramada prasahva vartopapannena gunena labdhd na canvakdmdpi na cdny'apurvavind vardrhamJanakatmajam tu na cdkulind na ca hinaruzpdnddaksind ninupacdravuktabhdr'dbhavat tasva na hTnasattva na cdpi kantasva na kamanl l . These are fairly straightforward, the essence being that all the women Ravana had taken as his wives were in love with him and had come to him of their own accord, without the use of force. But these verses are followed by a different and important verse: babhfuva buddhis tu harT<6'ara.sia'adtldr.<Trdi-havadharmapatnT va-h ima vatha raksasarajabhdr sujdtam as leti hi sddhubuddheh The verse has given all the commentators much trouble. Here is a literal translation: The well-intentioned lord of the monkeys had this thought: it would be a good thing for him [her?] if such a devoted wife as Sita were to be like these wives of the great king of the demons.

6 The 'F. observes: anena nagnaprdvatvam suicitam tatsamaye vasandnam viparvdsdt: "It is suggested that they were almost naked, since at that time their clothes were in disarray." 7 I may be incorrect here, for G. claims that these are the women who do the bidding of Ravana (rdvanasvydjfidkdrinvaahstriyah), obviously looking ahead to the Mokavana scenes. He may be right.

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Here is what the Tilaka has to say on this verse (5.9.62 of the Vulgate, p. 1759 of the Gujarati Printing Press ed.): sddhubuddher harfsvarasveti buddhir bubhiva imd yathd tadbhuktadh rdghavamahdrdksasardjabhdrydh, dharmapatny apfdr!Jatadantargataitad bhuktd ca yadi svdt tat taddsya ra-vanasyasujdtam bhadram eva bhavati. ravanabhukteti mava nivedite sati sTtdydm mrtaydm iva rdghavasvopeksanid rdvanavadhayatndprasakter iti bhdvah. This thought occurred to the intelligent lord of the monkeys: If this lawful wife of Rama were to be enjoyed the way these wives of the great Raksasa king are enjoyed, that is [if] she were inside [the harem], then it would be a good thing for Ravana. For were I to convey the news to Rama that she had been enjoyed (made love to) by Ravana, then it would be as if Sita were dead, and Rama would take no further interest in her and would not make any efforts to kill Ravana. The point of course is that if Sita had been sexually 'enjoyed," willingly or unwillingly, Rama would become "indifferent"to her. The R. observes: imah raksasarajabhdrya~h vatha svapatismaranddisu niratah i-driT tathd rdmasmaranadiniratdyadi raghavadharmapatnf tatsmaranddindm vighno na krtah sydd itl' arthah tadd asia rdvanasya sujdtarmkalydnam evetiV arthah. "Should the lawful wedded wife of Rama lose interest in remembering Rama the way these wives of the king of the Raksasas have lost interest in remembering their own husbands, then the obstacle of her thinking about him, etc., would be removed and that would be a good thing for Ravana." The point here is that Sita would then be more willing to hear Ravana's entreaties and proposals. G., generally more reliable and sensible than the other commentators, writes: rdghavadharmapatnTTdr?T adi sva,armvardt pu-rvam evasya dharmapatnT cet asiya sujdtam am d(lvT bu(dhih kdp)ei'atvapramnz-lakrta- tu na su1krtam in sva iaamtasiva buddhir iti dvlotavitumsddhubuddher itp uktam. "Were the lawful wife of Rama to have become his [i.e., Ravana's] lawful wife before her Svayamvara, that would have been a good thing, i.e., he would have acted well. The words 'good mind' are used to indicate that he did not think this way naturally, but rather such a thought was the product of the kinds of errors that monkeys make." (This last sentence is obscure to me. I cannot see how sddhubuddhi indicates this.) G. follows with another interpretation to the effect that if SRtacould be as happy as these women, that is, if she could be returned to the happiness of being with her husband, then Ravana's birth would be a fine one, i.e., he would have fulfilled his mission in life. G. ends this by saying: avam

rdvanah rdghavadharmapatnT yadi pratvarpayet taddspa sobhanam janma sydd iti buddhir jdta. "Were Ravana to hand back the lawful wife of Rama, then his birth would be beautiful, this is what Hanuman thought." Jhala, in his critical notes to this verse, on p. 479 of the critical edition, writes: "Commentators have found this stanza, especially the last pada, difficult to interpret. Cg. has a long inventory of alternate explanations. The meaning appears to be: Hanuman thought that if Sita were like those other wives of Ravana who, as stated in st. 66 and 67, were not brought by him by force and were devoted to him, it would be good (sujatam) indeed for Ravana who in that case would be a person of a good faith or intention. In the following stanza, however, Hanuman is convinced that Sita was a virtuous lady and that Ravana, though noble in spirit, had committed an ignoble act in abducting her." The last verse of the sarga is easier to interpret, but is also intriguing, and sheds some light on the interpretation of the preceding verse: punas ca so 'cintamad drtar-po dhruvarm visistd gunato hi sitaathdyam asidm krtavdn mahatma larike.varah kastham andrvakarma Then, pained, he thought again: surely Sita is well endowed with qualities. And so this great man, this lord of Lahka, has done an ignoble mean act upon her. The Tilaka observes: l'adj e~s aisvari~ddau svdt tadd sardgasvarasata eva nayanarm svat, na cad tad asti asma-bhistadvikrosandd eva rdvanena klekapu-rvamr navanasia canubhavdd item daavah. "The meaning is, had Sita fallen in love with him for his qualities, i.e., his majesty, etc., then his taking her away would have been to her liking, but that was not the case, because we had the experience of hearing her scream in agony as she was being taken away by Ravana." G. explains that Hanuman had pa.scdtta-pa,i.e., he felt shame at the thought that occurred to him in the previous verse, and this is why, G. explains, the word drtarapa ("pained") occurs. In his commentary on the last verse, G. adds: maid hTnopamaiva k~rtd,"I made a nasty analogy" (when comparing Sita to Ravana's wives). All of the interpretations he gives for the former verse (which only appear under 5.9.73 however) he has Hanuman regret in this final verse of the saga. A final interpretation, given by G. again, is: imd rdksasardjabhdrydh vathd rdvanendnuraktdh Td~rsl rdghavadharmapatni ladi evam anurakta cet asia sujatam: "It would be a good thing for him if Sita were as much in love with him as these other women are." G. adds that this thought occurred to Hanuman because he was so overwhelmed at the sight of his great majesty (aisvar-vdtisavadarsanavismav-dt).What

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becomes clear from these various interpretations, in spite of G.'s attempts to explain this thought of Hanuman on the basis of his monkey nature, is that the verse is the expression of a

certain degree of admiration for Ravana and a wish, however ambiguously stated, that Sita be his, a wish for whose origins only an oedipal reading of this scene can account.