The vānaras had reached the sea while searching for Sītā.
Across that water lay their task.
One by one they said how far they could jump.
Ten yojanas. Twenty. Thirty.
Others could manage more.
Old Jāmbavān said he could go ninety now.
Aṅgada said he could cross the hundred-yojana sea, but he was not sure he could return.
Jāmbavān would not send him.
This work will not fail, he said. I will call upon the one who can accomplish it.
A little apart sat Hanumān.
He had said nothing.
Jāmbavān turned to him.
Why are you sitting here silently?
Then he began telling Hanumān about Hanumān.
He spoke of his strength, intelligence and speed.
He told him that his arms were as powerful as Garuḍa's wings.
He reminded him that he was the son of Vāyu.
As a child, Hanumān had seen the rising sun and leapt towards it as though it were a fruit.
Indra struck him with the thunderbolt and broke his jaw.
When Vāyu stopped the wind in anger, the gods came and gave Hanumān extraordinary boons.
Jāmbavān finished.
I am old now. This is your time.
Rise. Cross the ocean.
The Rāmāyaṇa says that, urged by Jāmbavān, Hanumān made his body enormous.
The other vānaras praised him.
Hanumān stood up among them and began saying what he could do.
He could shake mountains.
He could disturb the sea.
He could travel immense distances through the sky.
Then he said the thing the others needed to hear.
I will see Sītā.
Jāmbavān told him that he had taken away their grief.
Hanumān climbed Mount Mahendra, choosing it as the place from which he would leap.
As he pressed his feet against the mountain, it shook beneath him.
The one who had been sitting silently stood up and said, I will see Sītā.