Young Hanuman leaps toward the sun and is struck down by Indra

Young Hanuman leaps from a mountain toward the sun, and Indra strikes him with a thunderbolt, breaking his jaw and causing him to fall back onto the mountain. The episode is also read in the book’s appended commentary as a solar myth, in which Hanuman’s fall and re-emergence figure the sun’s passage into darkness and out again.

The Leap and the Blow

The commentary recounts that, while still a child, Hanuman threw himself into the air from a mountain in an attempt to arrest the sun’s course. The sun’s rays had no effect on him. Indra answered the leap with a thunderbolt: Hanuman’s jaw was broken, and he fell onto a mountain. The account links this injury to Hanuman’s name, explaining it through the broken jaw.

A Solar Reading

The episode is presented not only as an adventure from Hanuman’s childhood but as an image of the sun obscured and released. In the commentary’s interpretation, a cloud rises from the mountain and hides the sun; the ensuing tempest brings lightning and thunderbolts that tear the cloud apart. Hanuman’s movement toward the sun and his fall thus become part of a larger cycle of concealment and return: the sun enters cloud or darkness, then comes out of it.

Variants and Epic Context

The commentary notes that Hanuman’s parentage varies across accounts: he is said to be the son of the wind, of the elephant of the monkeys, or of Kesarin, whose name is associated there with a long-haired, maned sun. On this solar interpretation, Hanuman appears to be the brother of Sugríva, who is also described as the sun’s offspring. The episode therefore connects the child’s encounter with Indra to the commentary’s broader reading of the epic’s monkey figures as bearing mythic and solar significance.