Angada

Angada was a great Vanara (monkey) in the Hindu epic Ramayana, who helped Rama to search his wife Sita along with Sugriva and other monkeys. Angada was the son of monkey king Vali and his wife Tara. He was the nephew as well as stepson of Sugriva.

Vali at the time of his death requested Sugriva to take care of his son Angada and to protect him everyway, as Sugriva would have done in case of his own son. Vali stated that Angada was dearer than life to him and asked Sugriva to be his refuge in dangers and father, donor and protector to him.

Sugriva consecrated Angada as the prince of Kiskindhya and groomed him in such a manner that he was able to successfully execute any duty of higher responsibility. When Vanara task was formed for the search of Sita, Angada was assigned the post of assistant to Nila, one of the senior most deputies of Sugriva. Sugriva ordered Angada to approach the senior monkeys with his command. Sugriva made Angada the assistant of Nila to accomplish his training under an able hand. Once the youngster Angada learnt the intricate details of his job he was assigned with a more important duty that was heavy for a Vanara of his age. He was given the task to find Sita in every possible places of South India, as it was known that Sita was hidden in some place of South, either in mainland or in the island. Angada scoured every city of South up to the seashore, Rameshwaram, to fulfill his duty. When the battalion was formed to proceed further south, Angada was made the head of the team.

Angada led the Vanara team comprising of senior monkeys like Hanuman, Jambavan very efficiently. As a prince, Angada got loyalty and respect from other monkeys. But in some cases Vanaras gave in under stress and angada charged them up as the part of his duty.

When Sita was found in Lanka, Rama wanted to find out some peaceful solution of rescuing Sita and averting the war. The messengers sent to Ravana were again led by Angada. Angada explained Ravana what was Rama`s desire and said that if he released Sita the war could be avoided. Angada tried by every means to convince Ravana, but Ravana was firm at his resolution to face a battle instead of returning Sita peacefully.

At one point of the conversation Angada placed his foot firmly on the ground and threw a challenge that if anybody in the Ravana`s court was able to uproot his foot Rama would lose the battle and return without Sita. All the Rakshasa courtier of Ravana`s army and even his son Indrajit tried to lift Angada`s left foot but nobody succeeded. Ravana was angered as he felt humiliated and started insulting Rama with abusive words.

Angada was so furious that he hit the ground with enormous force with both his hands and it caused a minor tremor in earth. All the courtiers were frightened and flew away. Ravana fell down from his throne and his crowns rolled off from his heads. Before he could put them back on his heads Angada grabbed four of those and threw them towards the direction where rama was waiting with his brother Lakshmana. When Vanaras saw the flying crowns approaching them they got panicked. But Rama knew that those were crowns of Ravana. Hanuman caught the flying crowns and placed them in front of Rama.

Ravana ordered his men to catch and kill Angada but he laughed aloud and escaped. In the great war of Ramayana, Angada killed Ravana`s son Devantak.