Hanuman and the Demon Kalanemi

At a Glance

Central figures: Hanuman, the devoted son of the wind god and greatest ally of Rama; Kalanemi, a rakshasa sent by Ravana to stop him; and the apsara cursed to live as a crocodile.
Setting: The great war between Rama and Ravana; the route to Mount Dronagiri in the Himalayas and the enchanted hermitage Kalanemi constructs along the way. From the Ramayana.
The turn: Kalanemi disguises himself as a sage and lures Hanuman to a cursed pond, hoping to trap or kill him before he can retrieve the life-restoring Sanjeevani herb.
The outcome: Hanuman kills the crocodile in the pond - freeing the cursed apsara, who then exposes Kalanemi - defeats the rakshasa, reaches Mount Dronagiri, and carries the entire mountain back to the battlefield in time to revive Lakshmana.
The legacy: Lakshmana’s revival allowed Rama’s army to continue fighting, and the war against Ravana went forward - this episode stands as one of the defining demonstrations of Hanuman’s bhakti and his role as Rama’s indispensable servant.

Lakshmana lay on the battlefield with Indrajit’s arrow still in him, unconscious and fading. Rama knelt beside his brother and could do nothing. The physicians said only one thing could draw him back: the Sanjeevani, a herb that grew on the distant Mount Dronagiri deep in the Himalayas, hundreds of yojanas to the north. Every moment the arrow stayed in Lakshmana was a moment closer to the end. Hanuman said he would go, and he went.

Across Lanka, Ravana heard the news and understood what it meant. If Lakshmana lived, the war continued. If the war continued, Ravana had already seen enough to fear the outcome. He called for Kalanemi.

Ravana’s Order

Kalanemi was not glad to be summoned. He had watched what happened to the rakshasas Ravana sent against Hanuman - Jambumali, Aksha, Virupaksha, a long list of the dead and broken. Kalanemi said as much. He told Ravana plainly that no force could stop this particular creature, that Hanuman moved under Rama’s protection and there was no winning a direct fight. Ravana heard this and was unmoved. He threatened Kalanemi with worse consequences than Hanuman, and Kalanemi, calculating his odds, chose the mission.

He would not fight Hanuman. He would misdirect him.

The Hermitage in the Path

Kalanemi reached the northern route before Hanuman and built what looked like an ashram - a small, orderly hermitage, fire laid and burning, the smell of sandalwood, the sound of a man at prayer. He put on the knotted hair and the bark cloth and the stillness of a long-practicing ascetic and waited.

When Hanuman came through, the hermitage stopped him. A sage sitting in meditation, radiating apparent peace, was not something to pass without a word. Hanuman descended. The disguised Kalanemi received him graciously, offered him rest, told him that the Sanjeevani grew on the far slope of Dronagiri and that he would point Hanuman in the right direction. First, he said, Hanuman should drink from the pond nearby. The journey had been long. The water would restore him.

Hanuman went to the pond.

The Crocodile and the Apsara

The moment he bent toward the water, something rose from the depths - massive, ancient, with jaws wide enough to take a man whole. The crocodile lunged.

Hanuman seized it. He was not the kind of creature that could be taken by surprise in a fight; what he lacked in wariness he more than compensated for in strength. He killed the crocodile in the shallows, and as it died the form dissolved. A woman stood where the animal had been - an apsara, a heavenly being, her own shape restored after an age of confinement. She had been cursed into that body long before Kalanemi arrived. Hanuman had broken the curse.

She did not leave without speaking. She told Hanuman that the sage on the bank was no sage. She told him the name Kalanemi and told him what Kalanemi had come to do.

The Confrontation

Hanuman turned back to the hermitage. Kalanemi was still sitting by the fire in his borrowed disguise, waiting to hear that the crocodile had done its work. He saw Hanuman’s face and understood immediately that it had not.

There was no more reason for performance. Kalanemi dropped the bark cloth and the matted hair and stood in his true form, which was considerable - a great rakshasa warrior, the kind Ravana kept for difficult work. It made no difference. The fight was brief and entirely in Hanuman’s favor. Kalanemi had been right the first time: there was no winning this one. Hanuman killed him and continued north.

Mount Dronagiri

Dronagiri was blanketed in plants and herbs growing so thickly that no individual specimen could be picked out from another. Hanuman searched for the Sanjeevani and could not find it. The mountain refused to yield the right plant. He stood there for a moment, considered his choices, then gripped the flank of the mountain - the entire mountain - and tore it free from the earth.

He carried it south, back across the sky, and set it down at the battlefield. The physicians found the Sanjeevani, prepared it, and brought Lakshmana out of his unconsciousness. Lakshmana opened his eyes. Rama’s grief lifted. The army held its ground.

The mountain was returned to the Himalayas afterward. The war went on.