Itihāsa / Rāmāyaṇa chronicle / Sundara · 33 of 50
33. The leap
Sundara (सुन्दर)
The Sundara-kāṇḍa is his. The leap has three interruptions, and each is a test of whether he will be delayed by wonder. Maināka, a mountain and an old friend of the wind, rises out of the sea to offer rest, a place to stand. Hanumān touches him, honors the friendship, and refuses the rest. Surasā, mother of serpents, opens a mouth he must enter. He becomes small, goes in, and comes out, and the test is satisfied without a fight. Siṃhikā takes hold of his shadow and pulls. He does not let her stop him. The page says she falls. It does not describe the killing.
He reaches the far shore and the city is a city, walled and awake and guarded by a spirit of the place, Laṅkā the goddess of her own gates. He strikes that guardianship aside and becomes small again. A minister's size is the right size for a search. The giant body was for the sea. The small body is for the streets.
Night is the element of this kāṇḍa. He enters as a visitor the city does not know it has. The devotion the previous sitting recovered is now a craft. He is going to look at an entire capital, room by room, for one woman, and he is going to do it without becoming the army.
नेपालीमा
सुन्दरकाण्ड उनको हो। मैनाक पर्वतले समुद्रबाट उठेर विश्राम प्रस्ताव गरे। हनुमानले उसलाई छोए, मित्रताको सम्मान गरे, र विश्राम अस्वीकार गरे। सुरसाको मुखमा सानो भएर छिरे र निस्के। सिंहिकाले छाया समातिन्। उनले रोकिन दिएनन्। यो पृष्ठले ढलिन् भन्छ। मारिने तरिका लेख्दैन। लङ्काको ढोकाको रक्षक देवीलाई हटाएर उनले सानो रूप लिए। ठूलो शरीर समुद्रका लागि थियो। सानो शरीर सडकका लागि।