Hanuman is the monkey (vanara) hero of the Ramayana, son of the wind-god Vayu and devoted servant of Rama, whose cause he serves with a loyalty that has made him, for many Hindus, the very model of bhakti, single-minded devotion. When Rama’s wife Sita is abducted to the island fortress of Lanka, Hanuman is the one who finds her: he grows to enormous size and leaps the ocean strait in a single bound, scouts Ravana’s city in secret, and delivers Rama’s signet ring as proof that rescue is coming. Later, when Rama’s brother Lakshmana lies dying on the battlefield, Hanuman flies to the Himalayas and, unable to identify the single healing herb needed, carries back the entire mountain of Sanjeevani.
He commands the vanara army in the war against Ravana and, after Rama’s victory, refuses every reward but the chance to go on serving him; images show him tearing open his own chest to reveal Rama and Sita enshrined within his heart. Immensely strong, able to change size and fly at will, and a byword for celibate discipline, Hanuman is among the most widely and directly worshipped deities in living Hinduism, his shrines found in nearly every village, the Hanuman Chalisa recited daily by millions seeking his protection from harm.
“He ceased; and mustering his might / Sprang downward from the mountain height, / While, shattered by each mighty limb, / The trees unrooted followed him.” — The Rámáyan of Válmíki, Book V, Canto I (“Hanumán’s Leap”), tr. Ralph T. H. Griffith
