The Vanar Sena Sets into Action

At a Glance

Central figures: Rama, prince of Ayodhya seeking to rescue Sita; Sugreeva, king of Kishkindha and commander of the vanara army; Hanuman, chief among the vanaras and Rama’s most devoted ally; Angada, Jambavan, Nala, and Neela, commanders of the army.
Setting: The events take place across Kishkindha, the southern ocean, and Lanka, drawn from the Ramayana tradition.
The turn: Hanuman leaps the ocean to Lanka, finds Sita imprisoned in Ashoka Vatika, and returns with her location - after which the vanara army builds a stone bridge across the sea and marches to war.
The outcome: The Vanar Sena crosses to Lanka, fights through Ravana’s forces, and Rama kills Ravana with a divine weapon, freeing Sita and ending Ravana’s reign.
The legacy: The bridge built by the vanaras - known as Rama Setu - stretching from the mainland to Lanka, stands as the enduring mark of the army’s effort and the campaign’s scale.

Sugreeva owed Rama a debt. Rama had killed Vali, who had driven Sugreeva from Kishkindha and stolen his kingdom and his wife. With Vali dead and Sugreeva restored to his throne, the oath Sugreeva had sworn came due: every vanara under his command would march at Rama’s side to bring Sita home from Lanka. Sugreeva sent the summons out in all directions. From forests and mountain passes, from riverbanks and distant valleys, the vanaras came - thousands of them, fighters who could tear trees from the ground, who moved through terrain no human army could navigate, who were fierce not out of cruelty but out of loyalty.

This was the Vanar Sena - the monkey army - and what followed its assembly was one of the decisive campaigns of the age.

Sugreeva’s Commanders

Not every vanara was equal in this army. Sugreeva had generals worth naming. Hanuman stood foremost among them - devoted to Rama past any calculation of personal cost, physically capable of feats no other vanara could match, and sharp enough to move through an enemy city alone and come out alive. Angada was the son of the slain king Vali, fighting now in the army of the man who had killed his father, which says something about where Angada understood his dharma to lie. Jambavan was old - older than most - a bear king whose counsel carried the weight of long experience. Nala and Neela were builders, vanaras with a particular gift for working stone and timber into structures, and that gift would matter more than anyone anticipated.

Together they formed the command around which the full army organized itself. Sugreeva reviewed his forces and declared them ready.

Hanuman in Lanka

Before the army could march, someone had to confirm where Sita was being held. Sugreeva divided his forces and sent groups to search every direction. Hanuman’s party was assigned the south - the direction that mattered, because it was toward Lanka, and Lanka was where everyone believed Ravana had taken her.

The journey south led Hanuman’s group to the edge of the ocean. A hundred yojanas of open water lay between the mainland and Lanka. No vanara could swim it. Hanuman could leap it.

He did. He landed in Lanka, moved through the city, and found Sita in the Ashoka Vatika - a garden where Ravana had her kept under guard by rakshasas. She was thin and worn and had refused every demand Ravana made. Hanuman gave her Rama’s ring and his assurance that the army was coming. He caused considerable damage on his way out - burned a section of the city, fought past Ravana’s soldiers, and crossed back over the ocean carrying news.

The army now had a destination.

The Ocean and Rama Setu

Knowing where Sita was held only made the next problem sharper. The ocean was still there. Rama went to its shore and prayed to the ocean god for three days. No answer came. On the third day Rama raised his bow and prepared to dry the sea entirely with a divine weapon - and the ocean god appeared, concerned, and offered another way. Build a bridge, the god said, and I will hold the stones.

Nala and Neela took charge of the construction. The vanaras went into the forests and along the cliffsides and pulled out boulders, hauled trees, carried rocks to the water’s edge in chains of workers stretching back into the jungle. They inscribed Rama’s name on the stones before setting them in the water. The stones floated. Within a few days the bridge - Rama Setu - extended the full distance from the southern coast to the shores of Lanka. The vanaras had built a causeway across a hundred yojanas of open ocean.

Rama, Lakshmana, Sugreeva, and the whole army crossed.

Angada Before the Gates

Rama did not begin the assault immediately. He sent Angada into Lanka first, alone, as an envoy - a final offer to Ravana to return Sita without battle. This was dharma also: the chance given before the killing starts.

Ravana did not take it well. He insulted Angada, dismissed the message, and made clear that nothing would be surrendered. Angada told Ravana plainly what was coming and walked out. There are accounts that Angada also demonstrated, in that court, just enough physical strength to make certain Ravana understood this was not an army of ordinary opponents. Whether Ravana believed it is another question.

He did not return Sita. The battle began.

The Battle for Lanka

The Vanar Sena hit the walls and the fighting was enormous. Ravana’s forces were well-armed and experienced, and the rakshasas possessed abilities that made them difficult opponents in the dark or in transformed shapes. The vanaras fought with what they had - their strength, their speed, and their refusal to break. They uprooted trees to use as weapons. They hurled boulders. They outmaneuvered infantry that was heavier and slower. Sugreeva commanded the field and engaged powerful demons directly, and the army held together under pressure that would have scattered a less devoted force.

The hardest moment came when Lakshmana fell in battle, wounded by a weapon that left him near death. Jambavan knew what herb could save him - the Sanjeevani, growing in the Himalayas. He told Hanuman. Hanuman flew north, reached the mountain, and when he could not identify the specific plant in the dark he simply tore out the entire peak and carried it back. Lakshmana revived. The army continued.

Ravana had no shortage of powerful allies. Each time one of his great commanders fell - Kumbhakarna, Indrajit, the demon generals who had fought for Lanka through decades of conquest - the losses thinned his forces and deepened whatever understanding he might have reached. He reached none. He fought.

The Death of Ravana

Rama and Ravana met in single combat at last. It was a duel that went on, Ravana’s heads growing back as Rama cut them down, until the sage Agastya appeared and told Rama the secret: strike the chest, where Ravana’s life was stored, with the Brahmastra - the divine weapon that the god Brahma had placed in his keeping. Rama drew the arrow, which carried the wind in its fletching and fire at its tip, and loosed it.

Ravana fell.

With his death the war ended. The rakshasas scattered or surrendered. Sita was brought out of the Ashoka Vatika. The Vanar Sena - Hanuman who had found her, Angada who had warned the king who would not listen, Jambavan whose counsel had kept them whole at their worst hour, Nala and Neela whose bridge had made the crossing possible, Sugreeva who had kept his oath - stood on Lankan ground in the quiet after the battle. Rama honored each of them by name. The bridge behind them still lay across the water, stone on stone, Rama’s name written on every rock, holding.