Hanuman Bhajan

हनुमान भजन

Stotras and bhajans to Shri Hanuman — Mahavira, Anjaneya, Pawanputra — above all the Hanuman Chalisa of Tulsidas. These are stotras and bhajans, not a single codified raga; the melodic material varies by singer, so no thaat, aaroha, vadi or prahar is claimed here. Tuesday and Saturday are both firmly his, but on different grounds: Mangalavara for Mangala, whose vigour he shares as Bajrangbali and against whose affliction he is invoked; Shanivara on the Ramayana episode in which Hanuman freed Shani from Ravana's captivity, after which Shani pledged to spare his devotees. His birth nakshatra is genuinely disputed between regional traditions rather than uncertain within any one of them: the North Indian reckoning places his birth at Chaitra Purnima just after sunrise on a Tuesday, in Chitra nakshatra with Mesha lagna, while Tamil Nadu and Kerala hold that he was born in Mula nakshatra at the Margazhi amavasya. Both are pinned. Chitra sits a little ahead only because that reckoning is the more widely observed and is internally consistent with the Tuesday association — not because the southern tradition carries less authority. Chaitra Purnima takes the tithi pin for the same reason. Rama's own marks are carried at reduced weight — Sunday, Navami and Punarvasu — because the Chalisa is Rama-saturated and is sung on his days, but those are Rama's marks and not Hanuman's.