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“HANUMAN” – NAME MEANING

Verse 18 of Hanuman Chalisa says, Juga sahastra jojana para bhanu. Lilyo tahi madhur phala janu .. 18.. This verse talks about a story from Hanuman‘s childhood. The story narrates how Hanuman got his name and so many powers. The story is described in Kishkinda Kanda of Ramayana as well. Hanuman was a naughty kid. One day, he was vey hungry. As he saw the sun in the sky, he thought it to be a big mango. He wanted to eat it. Hanuman was fascinated by the Sun (Surya Dev) even as a kid. Once he saw the Sun in the sky and thought it to be a high-growing, juicy mango.  Pushing off from the earth with his powerful legs and stretching up through his arms, he soared to seize the sun – and succeeded. He popped the sun into his mouth and began to eat it, causing the universe to go dark. When the universe suddenly went dark, the gods realized that something was wrong. The sun scalded Hanuman’s mouth, but he held on until Indra Dev hurled his diamond thunderbolt (vajra) straight at Hanuman’s jaw. That made Hanuman open his mouth and drop the Sun, and the universe’s light returned to normal. But that vajra hurt him and broke his jaw. This gave him the name “Hanuman“. In Sanskrit, “Hanu” means jaw and “man” means disfigured. So, Hanuman means – “the one with the disfigured/ broken jaw.” Out of anger, the gods took away Hanuman‘s powers in that instant. But later felt sorry, as Hanuman was just a kid and the incident had lead to him having a broken jaw. So, they gave him special powers of strength, speed, shape-shifting and the qualities of devotion, courage and service.

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