A Crocodile Seizes Hanuman's Foot and Rises Liberated From the Lake
Lanka Kanda, Doha 57
Doha 57 · Movement 2 of 2
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Hanuman enters the lake, and the still surface closes around his urgent body. From below, a crocodile rushes upon him and locks its jaws around his foot.
The son of the Wind answers the attack and kills the creature. At death, the animal shape falls away. A radiant celestial form emerges where the crocodile had struggled and rises from the water toward the sky.
The ambush meant to delay Hanuman becomes another liberation upon his road. Kalanemi arranged water as deception, yet grace was waiting inside it for a cursed being whose release required the touch of Rama's servant. Hanuman loses no purpose in the encounter. The lake reveals its hidden truth, and the freed figure ascends carrying the knowledge that will expose the false sage upon the shore.
A jaw closes around Hanuman's foot beneath the lake, and a celestial being opens into freedom above it.
Read the passage from the Manas
सर पैठत कपि पद गहा मकरीं तब अकुलान। मारी सो धरि दिव्य तनु चली गगन चढ़ि जान।।57।।
When the arrow pierced deep, the monkey grasped her feet in distress. Then she died, but taking divine form, rose up and departed through the heavens.