Among the lesser-told chapters of the broader Ramayana tradition – drawn largely from regional and later retellings rather than Valmiki’s original text – is the story of Ahiravana, a sorcerer-king of Patala who very nearly ended Rama’s story permanently, and the extraordinary form Hanuman had to assume to prevent it.
An abduction carried out through illusion, not force
Ahiravana, ruler of the underworld realm of Patala and, in most versions, connected by blood or allegiance to Ravana’s side, infiltrated Rama’s camp during the war using sorcery and disguise, ultimately abducting both Rama and Lakshmana and carrying them down into his own subterranean kingdom to be offered as a sacrifice to the goddess Kali.
A puzzle designed to be unsolvable
When Hanuman pursued them into Patala, he discovered that Ahiravana had deliberately protected his own life through an unusual arrangement: his life force was tied to five lamps, positioned in five different directions, all of which had to be extinguished at the exact same instant for him to be killed – a single lamp left burning would undo the effort entirely and restore him instantly.
Becoming five to solve a problem built for one
With no ordinary approach capable of extinguishing five simultaneous, separated flames at once, Hanuman is described manifesting an extraordinary five-faced form – Panchamukha Hanuman – combining his own face with those of four other divine or symbolic beings, granting him five mouths capable of blowing out all five lamps in the same instant. The maneuver worked exactly as needed, Ahiravana was defeated, and Rama and Lakshmana were freed from Patala before any lasting harm could be done. The five-faced form Hanuman assumed for this single desperate rescue became, in later devotional practice, one of the most powerful and widely worshipped depictions of him in his own right.