This section of reading had a lot of action in, definitely more than in the previous readings. We're also introduced to Hanuman, a follower of Rama who is arguably the most important character of this section.
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| 11th century statue of Hanuman; Source: wikimedia |
The first part that really stuck out to me from this set of readings was the description of the battle between the monkey king Sugriva and his brother Vali. Not only was the battle very dramatic and much longer than other fights/conflicts we've seen thus far in the texts, it also seemed to place a lot of emphasis on the role of Tara, the wife of Vali. Tara was trying to calm the two, and ultimately failed, but the text talks about her calm demeanor and wisdom. It's just striking to me that she is portrayed as such when it seems like most descriptions of female characters are almost non-existent or focus only on the beauty and grace of the character.
I also really enjoyed the adventures of Hanuman in Lanka, the kingdom of Ravana and the Rakshasa. Like all of the other named animal characters, he is very clearly portrayed as having human attributes and intelligence, but a lot of his actions seem to show the capriciousness one would associate with a monkey, such as running around and burning the whole city to the ground while his tail is on fire, and then realizing that he might have accidentally hurt or killed Sita. Another example of this would be when he jumped three thousand leagues into the sky because he thought the sun was a piece of fruit. I'd really like to hear more stories about Hanuman, because he seems like such an interesting character, and maybe a bit more nuanced than Rama (who is always the strongest/most righteous/most moral/etc)
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