Hanuman Reveals His Identity and Story
Bhima asks the ape to reveal his true identity. The ape speaks: he was born from Kesari and Vayu, the wind god — the same wind that gave Bhima his own strength. He is Hanuman, the monkey who served Rama, who leaped across the ocean to find Sita, who burned Lanka and returned. He tells Bhima that he asked Rama for a single boon: to live as long as Rama's deeds were sung on earth. Rama agreed. And so Hanuman is still here.
The ape looked at Bhima with eyes that held no malice. "Since you are curious to know everything about me, O destroyer of enemies, I will tell you everything in detail. Listen, O descendant of the Pandava lineage."
He began with his birth. "I was born in Kesari's field from Vayu, who gives life to the universe. I am the monkey named Hanuman."
Bhima's breath caught. Vayu. The same wind god who had fathered him. This ape was his half-brother.
Hanuman continued. "All the chiefs of the monkeys waited upon the two kings of the apes — Sugriva, the son of the sun, and Vali, the son of Indra. I was a friend to the immensely brave Sugriva, like wind to fire. For some reason, Sugriva was driven out by his brother and lived with me, for a long time, in Rishyamukha."
Then he spoke of Rama.
"At that time, the immensely strong hero Dasharathi Rama, who was Vishnu in human form, roamed on this earth. In order to please his father, that greatest of archers resorted to Dandakaranya with his wife, with his younger brother, and with his bow. Ravana abducted his wife forcibly from Janasthana, having deceived the immensely wise Raghava in the form of a deer."
Hanuman's voice did not rise. He was not telling a story he had learned. He was telling a story he had lived.
"Having lost his wife, together with his brother, Raghava searched for the path she had taken and met Sugriva on the peak of a mountain. The great-souled Raghava became his friend. Having killed Vali, he instated Sugriva in the kingdom. He sent monkeys to search for Sita. We and crores of monkeys left in one direction, and a vulture gave us news about Sita."
Then came the leap.
"To complete the task given by Rama, the performer of unblemished deeds, I swiftly jumped over the ocean that extended for one hundred yojanas. I saw the goddess in Ravana's abode and, after having told her my name, returned."
Rama killed the rakshasas. He regained his wife, who had been lost like the knowledge of the Vedas. And when Rama was instated as king, Hanuman asked him for a single boon.
"I asked him that as long as the deeds of that enemy-destroying hero were recounted on earth, I should be alive that long. He agreed. Rama ruled over his kingdom for eleven thousand years and then went to heaven. Since then, apsaras and gandharvas sing of the deeds of that great hero and bring me pleasure here."
He looked at Bhima directly.
"O unblemished one. O son. This road is inaccessible to mortals. That is the reason I have restrained you from travelling along this road, frequented by the gods. O descendant of the Kuru lineage! I do not wish you to be oppressed or cursed. This is the celestial path of the gods, and humans cannot travel along it."
Then his voice softened.
"But the lake that you came in search of is not far away." Aranyaka Parva, Chapter 444