श्री हनुमान चालीसा
If there's one prayer that cuts across every region, language, and tradition in India, it's this one. Tulsidas wrote these forty verses in Awadhi, not Sanskrit, not for scholars, but for everyone. They tell the story of Hanuman: the one who leapt across the ocean, carried a mountain, and never once asked for anything in return. People chant the Chalisa when they're afraid, when they need courage, when nothing else works. Millions do it daily, especially on Tuesdays and Saturdays. There's a reason it's survived five centuries. These verses just work.
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Chant all 44 verses →The opening verses are below.
శ్రీ గురు చరణ సరోజ రజ నిజమన ముకుర సుధారి వరణౌ రఘువర విమల యశ జో దాయక ఫలచారి
బుద్ధిహీన తను జానికే సుమిరౌ పవనకుమార బల బుద్ధి విద్యా దేహు మోహి హరహు కలేశ వికార
జయ హనుమాన జ్ఞానగుణసాగర
జయ కపీశ తిహు లోక ఉజాగర
రామదూత అతులిత బలధామా
అంజనిపుత్ర పవనసుత నామా
మహావీర విక్రమ బజరంగీ
కుమతి నివార సుమతి కే సంగీ
బుద్ధిహీన తను జానికే సుమిరౌ పవనకుమార బల బుద్ధి విద్యా దేహు మోహి హరహు కలేశ వికార
Chanting the Chalisa in the Telugu tradition
The Hanuman Chalisa lives a particularly intense life in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where devotees observe a forty-one day Hanuman Deeksha each year from Chaitra Purnima through mid-May. Three temples carry much of this weight: Karmanghat in Hyderabad, built in the twelfth century by the Kakatiya king Prataparudra II and known for unbroken daily Chalisa recitation; Kondagattu in Jagtial district, which draws lakhs of devotees during the deeksha season; and Paritala Anjaneya near Vijayawada, where the one hundred and thirty five foot deity is one of the tallest Hanuman murtis anywhere. In the Smarta tradition that runs strong here, Hanuman is read as a Rudravatara, a form of Shiva, which is also how Tulsidas himself frames him when he writes Shankar Suvan in the Chalisa. The Telugu script handles the original Awadhi sounds with longer vowels than Devanagari, so the chant feels a little slower in Telugu than in Hindi.