Hanuman, The Divine Monkey (vanara), first appears in the great Indian epics, the Mahabharata ([War of the] Great Bharatas) and the Ramayana (Adventures of Rama). He served as the Monkey General who located and helped rescue Prince Rama’s wife, the kidnapped Princess Sita, from Ravana, the arrogant ten-headed demon-king of Lanka (probably modern Sri Lanka). Like Rama, Hanuman was also deified in later Indian culture. He is particularly honored for his staunch loyalty to Rama. See also M.85.291.1 and AC1996.169.1
Hanuman is represented making his idiosyncratic gesture of grasping his golden conical crown (kirita mukuta) to secure it before leaping into the air to fly over the ocean to Lanka. Although this gesture is not explicitly mentioned in Valmiki’s rendition of the Ramayana when Hanuman prepares to leap (5:1:35), it is implied in later commentaries, such as the 16th-century Govindaraja’s Ramayanabhushana or simply Bhushana (42).
A Brahmi inscription on the back of the relief sculpture, paleographically dated from the 13th–14th century, reads, Success! The respectful god, the lord of the universe. (Translation by Gouriswar Bhattacharya.)
A comparable sculpture of Hanuman grasping his crown, attributed to North India, 18th century, is in the National Museum, New Delhi (M.89.6).
