The Story of Lord Ram, Ram Charit Manas Kishkindha Kand, Canto 4 (ePub)

After leaving Lake Pampa, Lord Ram and Laxman moved ahead on their adventurous journey through the wild forest, and arrived at Mt. Rishymook where they meet Hanuman; on Hanuman's advice, Lord Ram befriends Sugriv who assures the Lord that he would do his best to find and free Sita from the clutches of her captors; Sugriv tells the Lord how injustice was done to him by his elder brother Baali; the Lord helped Sugriv to vanquish his tormentor Baali and regain his honour; Baali attains emancipation and salvation; at the time of death, he puts his son Angad in the custody of Lord Ram, making the Lord his guardian.

Sugriv is made the next king of Kishkindha, and Angad the crown prince; Lord Ram retires to the nearby Mt. Prabarshan to spend the next few months in quietude; description of the intrinsic charm and beauty of Mother Nature.

Lord Ram sends Laxman to summon Sugriv; the Lord reminds him of his promise to help in the search of Sita; countless monkeys and bears are dispatched in groups to different corners of the earth to find where Sita was; one such group consisted of chief advisors of Sugriv such as Hanuman, Angad, Jamvant, Nal and Neel etc., who are dispatched in the south direction; Lord Ram selects Hanuman as his personal messenger and gives him his finger ring to present it to Sita as a token of identification.

This group heads towards the south; they enter a cave in search of water and meet a hermitress who directs them towards the shore of the southern ocean.

Faced with the roaring ocean in the front which blocked their way, the monkeys and bears lost all hopes of ever finding Sita; a vulture named Sampati, the brother of Jatau, came down from his cave atop a hill and met the distraught group; they inform him how Jatau had sacrificed his life in the service of Lord Ram; Sampati did the last rites of his brother, and briefed the group about his earlier life; then flew high in the sky to see across the ocean, and found that Sita was confined in a garden in the island of Lanka, the capital city of the demon king Ravana.

The question that now arose was who amongst the monkeys and bears would be able to cross the vast expanse of the ocean to reach Lanka, meet Sita and come back with her news; all, including Angad, expressed their reservations and inability to accomplish this task successfully; finally Jamvant motivated Hanuman to be the hero of the occasion and accomplish this great feat as a service to Lord Ram, to which Hanuman cheerfully agreed; Jamvant advised Hanuman to meet Sita and bring back her news so that Lord Ram would himself lead a campaign to free her from the clutches of her captors.

With this we come to the end of Canto 4.

We shall continue with the reading of this magnificent Story in the next Canto no. 5, called the Sundar Kand, to read what happened next.