The story of Hanuman.

[elmec]

Hari Om,

It is believed that wherever Sri Rama is being worshipped his dhUta Sri
Anjaneya will also be present there. Infact, many devotees while
worshipping Rama spread a seperate aasana ( a seat ) inorder that
Anjaneya may come and sit there ! And at the end of Sri Rama's worship
it is obligatory to worship Hanumaan too. When such is the case I
thought it fit to present you all the story of Hanuman at the end of Sri
Ramanavami celebrations.

" punjikasthalaa " was a maid of devaguru  bR^ihaspati. Once she gets
cursed by the devaguru on an allegation that she fell in love with
Ravana and is made to be born on this earth as a she-monkey. She is the
anjanaadevi. When she begets a son who is an avataara of shiva, her
curse would come to an end - this was the boon bestowed upon her by
bR^ihaspati to revert the curse.

anjanaadevi marries the vaanara shreshhtha Kesari. But the couple follow
the brahmacharya vrata throughout. anjanaadevi goes to forest and sits
for penance meditating on shiva. Pleased with her penance shiva appears
and promises to give her whatever she wants. In order to get released
from the curse she begs shiva to be born as her son. Shiva agrees.

At the same time, king dasharatha would be performing the "
putrakaameshhti " yagna to beget a son. Pleased by the yagna the Fire
God (agnideva) gives him a cup full of ' paayasam ' ( a sweet porridge )
which was blessed by Maheshwara and asks the king to give it to his
wives to drink so that they would soon beget divine sons. A vulture
which was hovering above comes down and takes away a little of it in its
mouth and drops it inside the forest where anjanaadevi was sitting for
penance. This was carried by the Wind God and was dropped into the hands
of anjanaadevi. She considers this as a blessing given by shiva and
consumes it. She becomes pregnant and later on gives birth to aanjaneya.
Hence he is called " vaayu putra ", " kesari nandana " and " shiva suunu
". (suunu means son)

As soon as aanjaneya was born her curse ended. Before returning to
devaloka she blesses him to become a chiranjiivi ( blessed with a very
long life ), to become stronger than the Gods and demons and to lead his
life by eating fruits which resemble the sun. Hearing this he
immediately jumped to the sky to catch the sun thinking it to be a
fruit. When aanjaneya was still a thousand yojanaas away from the sun,
the planet Raahu sees him and feeling scared that aanjaneya would devour
what actually is his food ( because raahu graha is believed to devour
sun during solar eclipse ) he begs Lord Indra to prevent aanjaneya from
getting closer to the sun. Indra with his ' vajraayudha ' gives a blow
to his face and aanjaneya, unable to withstand the blow, falls down to
the earth. Because of this blow, his face gets reddened and his cheeks
get blown up too. Hence the name
" hanumaan " ( hanu means the portion between the tip of the nose and
that above the lips ).

( to be continued )

Regards,
Latha Vidyaranya

--
bhava shankara deshikame sharaNam

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