Chapter One — Agastya’s Salutation and Question

Tulsidas says that Hanuman towers over every warrior’s brilliance and strength, scatters the demon host, and shatters their ranks; none can say where a hero equal to him exists.

“Wholly absorbed in the two feet of Rama” means wholly devoted to the paired lotus feet of the Divine Couple, Sita and Rama. Victory to Hanuman, their exclusive worshipper.

Kumbhodbhavāya viśuddha-vijñāna-śubha-pradāya,
Śrī-Rāma-pāda-dvaya-niścitāya śoṣaṇāya mahā-munīndrāya te namo namaḥ. (2)

Again and again I bow to Agastya, foremost among great sages: born from the jar; bestower of the supreme blessing of pure knowledge; firmly established at the two feet of Sita and Rama; and the one who drank the unfathomable ocean dry.

Agastya is supremely pure because he arose from the contemplative absorption of the sage Angiras, yet—being born in a jar from the combined seed-essence of Mitra and Varuna—he also stands at the boundary of impurity. He marks the boundary between knowledge and ignorance, divine and demonic endowments. He is leader of the great sages. Through the force of worshipping Sita and Rama he drank the boundless ocean, laid the Vindhya mountain upon the earth, and worked for the welfare of the universe. From the primal guru Hanuman he received pure knowledge.

Agastya said:

Śrotuṃ Rāmasya māhātmyaṃ tava vaktrān mahākape,
Aiśvaryam atulaṃ tejaḥ prabhāvaṃ paramātmanaḥ. (3)

O great monkey, from your lotus mouth I have heard the glory of Rama—the Supreme Self—his incomparable sovereignty, radiance, and power.