Virtually everyone familiar with Hindu tradition knows Hanuman. Yet, when pressed, few scholars (or devotees) could recount all of the narratives about him or visit all of his temples in places as far flung as Sidhabari (Himachal Pradesh), Menhdipur (by the Agra-Jaipur highway), Varanasi, Belgaum, and Marutvamalai (near Kanyakumari). The range of Hanuman's powers and the diversity of his manifestations demand a study that attends to the complexity and scope of the topic, so scholars and general readers will welcome Hanuman's Tale. Not only does it contribute to ethnographic knowledge about forms of Hindu devotion, it also analyzes a strikingly heterogeneous corpus of Hanuman stories. Philip Lutgendorf has set for himself the ambitious task of investigating popular literature about, and visual images of, Hanuman to explore what kinds of messages the deity has embodied and delivered in the past and today.
The first three chapters set out the volume's scope, survey the history and historiography of Hanuman worship, and analyze him in Hindi popular literature. The heart of the book is the two middle chapters: “The Hanumayana,” a retelling of forty tales, followed by a chapter analyzing the tales. The last three chapters are organized around visual images and temple sites, gender, and the theme of Hanuman as a mediating figure. An added treat (in the appendix) is an English translation of the Hanuman Chalisa, a set of verses so beloved by Hindi-speaking devotees that some temples sponsor competitions among rival troupes who sing it. The argument draws primarily on interviews and fieldwork conducted in Hindi or English in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh and on printed Hindi material, using, when appropriate, some comparative evidence from Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and Karnataka.
The book abounds in well-organized information, but the reader will find even more valuable the perspectives within which Lutgendorf places the topic. Using a textual framework, he shows how devotion to Hanuman as ishtadeva (chosen deity) started more than 1,000 years after the earliest full literary telling of Rama's story by Valmiki; the intensity of bhakti to Hanuman, Lutgendorf contends, increases alongside vernacularization, which is defined as “the increasing development in the second millennium ce, of diverse voices in regional languages, often indicative of the aspirations of non-elite communities and their religious preceptors” (p. 88). From the perspective of Indian print culture, Lutgendorf documents, from the nineteenth century to the present, the proliferation of genres such manuals for taking vows to Hanuman, instructional pamphlets on tantric worship to him, guidebooks to his shrines across India, and even Hanuman autobiography. Lutgendorf also critiques past classifications of Hanuman by some historians of religion as a “lesser” deity, proposing instead that he belongs among Hindu “second-generation deities,” as an offspring of other gods.
“The Hanumayana” and its “Reader's Guide” could easily be a book in themselves. In these two chapters, Lutgendorf substantiates his claim that the Hanumayana is “an emerging ‘epic’ in its own right” (p. 28) that brings together, in edited form, some incidents from Rama's story with other tales that focus primarily on the deeds of Hanuman. Lutgendorf incorporates forty key incidents that star Hanuman into a narrative that begins with his birth and ends with events from his old age. The saga includes episodes from when young Hanuman arrives in Ayodhya as a organ grinder's dancing monkey and Rama adopts him for a pet. Also included are renditions of how Hanuman composed the first Ramayana and what occurred when, as an elderly monkey, he crossed paths with Bhima (from the Mahabharata). For readers who want to savor this corpus without interruption, Lutgendorf has assigned each thematic motif a number and each variant of it a letter, which are keyed to the annotations, analysis, and textual details in the next chapter.
The last third of the book considers Hanuman's role in the cultural landscape. Lutgendorf traces the geographic locations of Hanuman temples and murtis (images), legends about his immortality and continued presence in the Himalayas, and reflections on those said to be his avatars (such as the philosopher Madhva). One chapter explores Hanuman's relations to females such as Sita, Surasa, Lankini, and Vaishno Devi. The final chapter investigates the affinity between Hanuman and the Indian middle-class groups and critically assesses the claims by some scholars that Hanuman has been appropriated by Hindutva ideologues.
Some readers may find the length of the book daunting, but each chapter is so cogently written that one can easily skim a few sections here and there and still follow the overall argument. Almost everyone who reads it will learn a great deal, and most will appreciate that Lutgendorf applies his multiple perspectives (social history, history of religions, communication theory, and more) without ever letting theory obscure his lively analysis of the material. Furthermore, he grounds his analysis of Hanuman in overall historical trends in Indian history, connecting it to broader patterns such as the development of warrior ascetics, the urbanization of South India, and the spread of vernacular print culture. This book will serve as a major reference work and inspiration for Ramayana scholars for a long time to come.
