Hanuman and the nine planets

 

Hanuman and the nine planets

 We had talked about Hanuman and Kali in one of our earlier stories. (https://bharatiyastories.blogspot.com/2025/04/hanuman-and-kali.html).

In that story we saw how Hanuman cleverly planned the death of Mahiravana. Mahiravana was a great warrior and his death was a big loss for Ravana’s side. Ravana was now getting worried about the outcome of the war. He consulted his palace astrologers. They consulted their palm leaves and told their king “Lord, there is a problem for you currently due to the alignment of the planets. If you can do some parihara or prayers, the effects can be reduced.”

 This advice would have satisfied normal people. But Ravana was not happy. He thought “I am the lord of the universe. Why should I try to appease the planets. I will realign the planets to go to a place where they can be in my favour.” Since he was a man of action, he decided to take action immediately.

 If anything, Ravana was not doing anything in half measures. He got into his chariot, tied all the planets and started dragging them towards his palace. The planets, who were ordained by nature to do a particular job, were helpless and had to follow him. Ravana brought the planets to his capital. Then he consulted his astrologers and started the process of literally putting them in their right place. His astrologer told him to perform certain rituals to make this process effective. So Ravana started the process.

 Hanuman heard about this ritual and realised that this could lead to problems. He realised this can weaken Rama’s side. He took some of his trusted aides and went to check for himself. He found Ravana sitting in deep meditation in front of fire and doing the chanting.

 Hanuman and his group of monkeys shrieked, pulled everything, pushed the vessels and furniture and created a lot of noise. They cleared all the puja utensils, flowers and all other ingredients.

 Ravana was a devout person. Once he starts a puja and sits in meditation he did not get disturbed. After all the noise and disturbance of the monkeys, nothing happened. Hanuman realised that this will not work. He thought for some time and decided that he would need to step it up.

 He told his friends to create more confusion. So the monkeys started going to all parts of the palace. They went into the women’s quarters. They tore the clothes that were drying, threw the jewellery and plucked the flowers and destroyed the gardens. The various queens of Ravana and their servants were unable to control the monkeys with sticks and stones. They ran around scared and shouting as the monkeys started chasing them. The shouts and noise was heard everywhere including the puja room where Ravana was doing his puja.

 Unfortunately for them, Ravana was unmoved. Finally, Hanuman decided to attack Mandodari, the main queen of Ravana. Hanuman knew that Mandodari was Ravana’s favourite queen and he loved her a lot. So Hanuman and his monkeys surrounded Mandodari. They bared their teeth, screeched and beat their chests.

 Mandodari initially tried to ignore them as she did not want to disturb her husband. Slowly, they started going closer and closer. Mandodari started panicking. She said “Despite being married to the bravest man in all three worlds, I am subjected to such humiliation.” Saying so, she stared sobbing.

 Ravana heard his favourite wife crying, deep in his meditative state. He reluctantly opened his eyes to see what all the excitement was about. He got up from his puja and was shocked to see the whole set up all messed up. He went to the women’s quarters to find out the reason for the noise.

 Moment he got up and moved the monkeys reached the yagna hall through another entrance. Hanuman quickly went and untied the planets. The planets were very grateful to be rescued from the asura and go back and do the activities they were assigned by Lord Brahma.

 Before leaving the planets bestowed a boon on Hanuman. They said that they will not forget his timely help. In return, they said that will not trouble those who were bhaktas of Hanuman. Even if they have to do their job as per a person’s destiny, if a person was a devotee of Hanuman, they would reduce the impact.