Mantra · The forty verses. The most recited devotional text in India.
Hanuman Chalisa
श्रीगुरु चरन सरोज रज निज मनु मुकुरु सुधारि। बरनउँ रघुबर बिमल जसु जो दायकु फल चारि॥ बुद्धिहीन तनु जानिके सुमिरौं पवनकुमार। बल बुधि बिद्या देहु मोहिं हरहु कलेस बिकार॥ जय हनुमान ज्ञान गुन सागर। जय कपीस तिहुँ लोक उजागर॥
In Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and English — with the meaning of every word, and the one syllable most people pronounce wrongly.
Who Hanuman Chalisa is
Hanuman, celebrated throughout the forty chaupais of Tulsidas’s Chalisa, is the devotee whose strength is measured only by his remembrance of Rama. The poem never separates the servant from the master: every feat—the burning of Lanka, the carrying of the mountain, the tearing open of his own chest—is narrated as an act performed inside Rama’s service. Composed in Awadhi rather than Sanskrit, the Chalisa belongs to the vernacular bhakti stream that made Hanuman the accessible guardian of ordinary households across North India. Its Hanuman is not the abstract Vāyuputra of the Gayatri alone, nor the fierce archer of the Bajrang Baan; he is the living presence who remains wherever Rama’s name is spoken, the one whose grace is described as constantly near the tongue that repeats the Lord’s story. The text itself becomes the meeting-place between the vanara of the epic and the household deity of later centuries.
Tulsidas and the Forty Verses
Tradition held inside the Ramanandi sampradaya and recorded in the Bhaktamal commentaries states that Tulsidas composed the Hanuman Chalisa during a period of confinement at the court of the Mughal emperor or, in another strand, during an imprisonment at Fatehpur Sikri. The poet, already the author of the Ramcharitmanas, turned to Hanuman as the swift messenger who could carry his appeal to Rama. The forty chaupais plus the opening and closing dohas were written in the same Awadhi register as the Manas, so that the language of village and court alike could hold the praise. Internal evidence links the poem to the Sundara Kanda episodes: the search for Sita, the confrontation with Ravana, the leap with the mountain Dronagiri. Yet the Chalisa is not a simple retelling; it compresses those deeds into a continuous address that moves from Hanuman’s childhood through his service to his present power to dwell where Rama’s fame is sung. After Tulsidas, the text spread through oral recitation in Hanuman temples from Ayodhya to Kashi, becoming the single most widely memorised devotional poem addressed to the son of Anjana in the Hindi-speaking world.
The mantra, in six scripts
The seed mantra, and the form most devotees chant daily. No initiation is required — it is open to anyone, including a parent chanting for a child.
DevanagariSanskrit & Hindiश्रीगुरु चरन सरोज रज निज मनु मुकुरु सुधारि। बरनउँ रघुबर बिमल जसु जो दायकु फल चारि॥ बुद्धिहीन तनु जानिके सुमिरौं पवनकुमार। बल बुधि बिद्या देहु मोहिं हरहु कलेस बिकार॥ जय हनुमान ज्ञान गुन सागर। जय कपीस तिहुँ लोक उजागर॥
Tamilஶ்ரீகுரு சரந ஸரோஜ ரஜ நிஜ மநு முகுரு ஸுதாரி। பரநஉँ ரகுபர பிமல ஜஸு ஜோ தாயகு பல சாரி॥ புத்திஹீந தநு ஜாநிகே ஸுமிரௌம் பவநகுமார। பல புதி பித்யா தேஹு மோஹிம் ஹரஹு கலேஸ பிகார॥ ஜய ஹநுமாந ஜ்ஞாந குந ஸாகர। ஜய கபீஸ திஹுँ லோக உஜாகர॥
“After polishing the mirror of the mind with the dust of the guru’s lotus feet, I narrate the pure fame of Raghubar that bestows the four fruits; knowing this body to be without wisdom I remember the son of the wind—give strength, wisdom and knowledge, remove affliction and distortion; victory to Hanuman, ocean of knowledge and virtue; victory to the lord of monkeys who illumines the three worlds.”
श्रीगुरु
śrīguru — the revered guru
चरन
carana — feet
सरोज
saroja — lotus
रज
raja — dust
निज
nija — one’s own
मनु
manu — mind
मुकुरु
mukuru — mirror
सुधारि
sudhāri — having cleansed
बरनउँ
baranauṃ — I describe
रघुबर
raghubara — the best of Raghus (Rama)
बिमल
bimala — pure
जसु
jasu — fame
जो
jo — which
दायकु
dāyaku — giver
फल
phala — fruits
चारि
cāri — four
बुद्धिहीन
buddhihīna — without wisdom
तनु
tanu — body
जानिके
jānike — having known
सुमिरौं
sumirauṃ — I remember
पवनकुमार
pavanakumāra — son of the wind
बल
bala — strength
बुधि
budhi — wisdom
बिद्या
bidyā — knowledge
देहु
dehu — give
मोहिं
mohiṃ — to me
हरहु
harahu — remove
कलेस
kalesa — afflictions
बिकार
bikāra — distortions
जय
jaya — victory
हनुमान
hanumāna — Hanuman
ज्ञान
jñāna — knowledge
गुन
guna — virtue
सागर
sāgara — ocean
कपीस
kapīsa — lord of monkeys
तिहुँ
tihũ — three
लोक
loka — worlds
उजागर
ujāgara — illuminator
Aim is the mantra, in a sense. The rest is address and salutation; the seed syllable carries the goddess. Where a practitioner has been given a very short practice, it is often Aim alone.
The syllable people get wrong
In pavanakumāra the medial va of pava must remain a lightly touched labial glide; many reciters harden it into a full stop “pabana,” splitting the wind-god’s name into an unrecognisable shape and losing the continuous breath implied by Vayu’s own presence inside the compound.
When Hanuman Chalisa is chanted
Weekday. Tuesday
Festival. Hanuman Jayanti
Questions
Tulsidas had already chosen Awadhi for the Ramcharitmanas so that the story of Rama could move among speakers who did not command Sanskrit. The Chalisa continues that decision. Its vocabulary—words such as baranauṃ, sumirauṃ, kalesa, bikāra—belongs to the living speech of the Gangetic plain in the sixteenth century. By keeping Hanuman’s praise inside that register, the poem made the son of the wind a figure who could be addressed in the same language used for ordinary affection and distress. Sanskrit stotras to Hanuman existed and continue to be recited, yet they remained largely within temple and scholarly circles. The Chalisa’s Awadhi opened the devotion to households, to women who maintained domestic shrines, and to travellers who carried the verses in memory alone. The linguistic choice is therefore inseparable from the social reach that later made the forty verses the most commonly recited Hanuman text in North India. The poem’s own opening, which speaks of polishing the mind’s mirror, assumes a listener who may have little formal learning yet possesses the capacity for remembrance.
Valmiki’s epic presents Hanuman as the exemplary servant whose deeds advance Rama’s search and war; the emotional centre remains Rama’s exile and Sita’s captivity. The Chalisa shifts the centre. Rama’s pure fame is the object of the opening doha, yet the body of the poem addresses Hanuman directly and at length, cataloguing his virtues, his forms, and his continuing presence. Verses describe him as the ocean of knowledge, the destroyer of demons, the one who brings healing herbs, and—crucially—the one who remains near wherever Rama’s name is uttered. That last claim moves Hanuman out of epic time into the present of the reciter. The Ramayana ends with the return to Ayodhya and the later departure of the principal figures; the Chalisa insists that Hanuman’s service did not end. In this sense the poem belongs to the bhakti re-reading of the epic, in which the devotee’s accessibility becomes as important as the hero’s historical deeds. Hanuman is still the same vanara who leapt the ocean, yet he is now also the companion who can be called upon in the language of the home.
The final doha of the Chalisa states that the eight siddhis and nine nidhis remain in the hand of one who holds Hanuman’s affection, and that Rama himself is ever near such a person. Within the poem’s own theology this is not a catalogue of rewards to be pursued; it is a description of the completeness that tradition attributes to Hanuman’s grace. The eight siddhis are the classical yogic perfections; the nine nidhis are the treasures associated with Kubera. By placing them in Hanuman’s gift, Tulsidas aligns the vernacular poem with older Sanskrit assertions that Hanuman is master of both power and prosperity, yet he immediately anchors that mastery in relationship to Rama. The doha therefore functions as a seal: whatever capacities are ascribed to Hanuman are held inside his unbroken service. Reciters in the Ramanandi tradition often understand the verse as a reminder that the true fruit named in the opening doha—the four purusharthas—arises only when Hanuman’s mind and Rama’s presence are kept together. The list of siddhis and nidhis is thus subordinated to the same bhakti logic that governs every chaupai before it.
Not sure a mantra is enough?
Have your chart read before you decide
Chanting is yours to do, and free. But which deity your situation calls for — and whether a mantra alone is the right response — depends on your chart. Sometimes it is; sometimes it is not.
Brahmashree Shivaaya
Guru, Head of Astrological & Spiritual Solutions
Over 30 years in the Guru–Sishya Parampara, from the age of five
He reads every chart himself — 60 minutes, one to one, never delegated
Charts are read only between sunrise and sunset, following tradition
Chanting is yours to do. Some things are performed for you.
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