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my HANUMAN CHALISA

If there is one book that brings positivity and smile to millions of people its undoubtedly Hanuman Chalisa. 

Composed by Shree Tulsidas four centuries ago in the Gangetic plains in avadhi language, it is composed of 43 chaupai and 3 dohas, it has an appeal across the economic strata and the length and breadth of the country.

The author takes the reader through the chaupais of hanuman chalisa sequentially and explains the literal meanings of the chaupais and he also elaborates on the subtle and hidden meanings of the chaupais. The way Devdutt elaborates the chaupais it resembles the ancient Indian tradition of guru explaining the hidden meaning of chaupais, shlokas, etc.

In the book Devdutt cites an example where through the rebirth cycles of life and death, Hanuman as a kid narrated the story of Ramayan to his mother Anjana about how they created the bridge and defeated Ravana she was not impressed and asked why he didn't just swing his tail and destroyed Lanka instead of going through all the hula hoop of bridge building. He replied because "Ram didn't ask him to".

Hanuman understood that Ramayan was Ram's story, not his.

While explaining one of the verses the author brings out a beautiful point wherein he says It is not by accident that the word for ghosts, “bhoot”, also means the past in hindi.

There are so many other incidents and analogies which the author brings out that one can say the scope of the book is not limited to explaining the meaning of Hanuman Chalisa but goes beyond to examine the relationship a God (Ram) and his biggest Devotee (Hanuman).

This book is a good read for anyone wanting to know the meaning of chaupai's in Hanuman Chalisa or if someone wants to examine the relationship between Ram and Hanuman.


Author :  Devdutt Patnaik
Published : 2017
Publisher : Rupa Publications Pvt Ltd

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Comments

  1. Yasin Bhojawala13 April 2018 at 21:28

    Thanks for sharing the deep insights and your opinions on the book.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown28 October 2019 at 23:47

    Good analysis and presenting balanced view, review is interesting in itself as talking about warriors.

    ReplyDelete

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