Hanuman's Tale: The Messages of a Divine Monkey

449 Pages·2007·8.11 MB·English

by  Philip Lutgendorf

Hanuman’s Tale
A Kannada-languageposter showsHanuman’s body inscribed withdevotional
poems;late twentiethcentury
Hanuman’s Tale
The Messages of a Divine Monkey
philip lutgendorf
1
2007
3
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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Lutgendorf,Philip.
Hanuman’stale:themessagesofadivinemonkey/PhilipLutgendorf.
p.cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN-13978-0-19-530921-8;978-0-19-530922-5(pbk.)
ISBN0-19-530921-9;0-19-530922-7(pbk.)
1. Hanuman(Hindudeity). 2. Hanuman(Hindudeity)inliterature.
3. Hinduliterature,Hindi—Historyandcriticism. I. Title.
BL1225.H3L872006
294.5'2113—dc22 2006045391
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
onacid-freepaper
In remembrance of
Eruch, disciple of Meher Baba;
and for Susan, Mira, and Claire
My heart, Lord, holds this conviction:
Greater than Rama is Rama’s servant.
——Tulsidas (R¯amcaritm¯anas 7.120.16)
Preface and Prashasti*
Thisbookproject,liketheposteriorappendageofitsbelovedsubject,
has grown longer andlonger and hashungaround for aconsider-
able time. Theinspiration forit first emergedduringmy research,
mainlyintheBanarasregionin1982–84,ontheperformanceofthe
R¯amcaritm¯anas, the popular Hindiretelling ofthe tale ofRama and
Sita by the sixteenth-century poet-saint Tulsidas. Thisresearch led
not only to my book TheLife ofa Text (1991) but to my growing
realization that, in the experience andpractice of many people, the
most vibrant and endearing characterin the story wasn’t Rama, but
ratherHanuman.Giventhat scholarly literatureseemed virtually
unawareof this (acircumstance I discussfurther in chapter 1), I
resolvedto write abook thatwould give Rama’s simian associate
the prominencehe had longachieved in everyday life.
Initial research was carried out under a senior research fellow-
shipfromtheAmericanInstituteofIndianStudiesin1989–90.
DuringthisyearIwasfrequentlyonthemove,collectingimages,
interviews,andpopularandscholarlypublicationsfromsitesinNorth,
central,andSouthIndia.ThematerialsIbroughtbacktotheUnited
Stateskeptmebusyforyears,andkeptgrowingasImadereturn
visitstoIndia(severalwithsupportfromtheUniversityofIowa)and
asfriendsaroundtheworldsentmebooks,newsclippings,posters,
and(morerecently)e-mailmessagesandWebsiteaddressesfeaturing
everyone’sfavoritemonkey.Imadesignificantprogressinorganiz-
ingandinterpretingmy‘‘Hanumanarchive’’duringsummervaca-
tionsandtwosemestersofdevelopmentalleavefundedbythe
* Pra(cid:1)ssasti(Sanskrit):theeulogizingofpatronsandbenefactors.
viii preface and prashasti
university,includingoneatitsObermannInstituteforAdvancedStudies.An
outlineforabookofsevenchapters(reflecting,byhappycoincidence,theusual
number of Ramayana subbooks) emerged early on, then it too unavoidably
grew: Hanuman, itbecame clear, would requireeight chapters, atleast—and
though much has been omitted, I had to stop somewhere! The project was
slowedbyseveraltermsasadepartmentchairmanandbymanyinvitationsto
write conference papers and essays. None of the half dozen articles on Ha-
numan that I have published during the past decade correspond exactly to
chapters in this book, and some of them contain additional material that is
beyonditsscope.However,portionsofseveralofthemareincorporatedhere,
andtherewassimplynootherwaytobeginchapter1thanwitharevisedand
updated version of the opening section of my first such essay (Lutgendorf
1994b),though I quickly depart from its content. I am grateful to the editors
ofContributionstoIndianSociology,HistoryofReligions,InternationalJournalof
HinduStudies,Manushi,andReligion,andtoOxfordUniversityPressandSage
Publications for their understanding regarding these edited excerpts. Com-
pletionofthefirstdraftofthemanuscriptduring2002–03wasmadepossible
throughthegenerosityoftheJohnSimonGuggenheimMemorialFoundation
andtheUniversityofIowa’sCollegeofLiberalArtsandSciences.Iespecially
thank Deans Linda Maxson and Rau´l Curto for their encouragement of my
researchduringaperiodwhenouruniversity(likemostpublicuniversitiesin
theUnitedStates)wassufferingseverebudgetreductions.Additionalsupport
from the university’s vice president for research has helped underwrite the
illustration of this volume. I also thank my editor, Theo Calderara of Oxford
University Press, for his enthusiasm for this project, and the press’s two
anonymous readers for their corrections and good advice on reigning in my
prolixity. Production editor Gwen Colvin and copyeditor Norma McClemore
providedfurthervaluedassistance.
I can never adequately thank, or even properly catalog, all the friends,
colleagues, and devotees of Hanuman (the latter category not excluding the
former two) who helped me in my work over the years. But I cannot fail to
mention, in Banaras, Ramji Pandey of Ramnagar, Chandradharprasad Nara-
yan Singh (‘‘Bhanuji’’) of Nagwa, and Ramnarayan Shukla and Veerbhadra
MishraoftheSankatMochantemple;RatneshPathakguidedmeonawalking
tourofHanumanshrinesinseveralneighborhoods.InAyodhya,NrityaGopal
Das provided hospitality, and I greatly benefited from the insights of Pandit
RamkumarDasand(afterhisdeath)thoseofhisdiscipleSacchidanandDasof
ManiParvat.ItwasalsoinAyodhyathatIfirstmetthegreatRamayanascholar
Bhagavati Prasad Singh of Gorakhpur University, whose work I have long
admired.Webecamefriends,andIwasfortunatetorecordalastinterviewwith
him only a few days before his death in Vrindaban in January 1994. Also in
Vrindaban,IwasaccommodatedandassistedbyShrivatsGoswamiandthelate
Asim Krishna Das. In Rewa, Madhya Pradesh, I was hosted and guided by
Gokaran and Urmila Shrivastava. In Pune, I was given a memorable tour of
Maruti shrines by Sudhir Wagmare and further assisted by Jeffrey Brackett
and Anne Feldhaus. In Bangalore, Girish Karnad and Saraswati Ganapathy
preface and prashasti ix
providedextraordinaryhospitalitytomyfamilyforamonth,andmyresearchin
Mysore and elsewhere in Karnataka State owed much to the energetic assis-
tance of M. S. Nagaraja Rao, former director general of the Archaeological
SurveyofIndia.AtHampi,Iwasguidedto(whatmanyconsider)Hanuman’s
birthplace and other important sites by archeologists John Fritz and John
(‘‘Kim’’) Malville. Whenever I passed through Delhi I was warmly welcomed
and assisted by the staff of the American Institute of Indian Studies and by
its director general, Pradeep Mehendiratta, and I also received help from
Jagannath Das of the Connaught Place Hanuman temple and from the re-
sourcefulKailashJha.JyotindraJain,whoisnowdeanoftheSchoolofArtand
Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University but was previously director of the
National Handlooms and Handicrafts Museum, gave me much appreciated
help. I spent two pleasant afternoons in the Hanuman Museum at Gurgaon
created by K. C. Aryan and his children, Subhashini and B. N. Aryan, who
continuedtoassistmeaftertheirfather’sdeath.OnseveralvisitstoTaos,New
Mexico, I was warmly received by Dwarka Bonner, Patrick Finn, and other
membersoftheNeemKaroliBabaAshramcommunity.
Ithasbeenmygoodfortunetodomuchofthefinalwritingandeditingof
this book in a peaceful cabin on the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. I
thankthefriendsinBoulder,Colorado,andenvironswhohavewelcomedme
andmyfamilytothisarea:DorothyTerner,SusanOsborne,AlanBoles,Dennis
andBethMcGilvray,CraigCameron,StanleyandConnieHeginbotham,Tom
Coburn,andJimandAudreyBenedict.Thenearby(and,forme,aptlynamed)
Indian Peaks, with their majestic pinnacles and shining snowfields, have in-
spired me and reminded me of my happy sojourns in the Himalayas and of
Hanuman’sabidingpresencethere.
Toattempttocitealltheacademiccolleagueswhohaveguided,chided,and
encouragedmeovertheyearsconcerningthisseeminglyendlessprojectwould
easilyresultinanotherHanum¯ayana(seechapter3foranexplanationofthis
neologism),aswellassomethingofacatalogofSouthAsiascholarsworldwide;
the publications of some of those who are noted here are of course cited at
appropriate places. I apologize in advance to those whose names, for reasons
of space or faulty memory, I do not list here. But I cannot fail to mention
JosephAlter,MandakrantaBose,JeffreyBrackett,WinandCallewaert,Mathieu
Claveyrolas, Paul Courtright, Wendy Doniger, Daniel Gold, Robert Gold-
man and Sally Sutherland Goldman, Linda Hess, Istva´n Keul, Nita Kumar,
Kirin Narayan, Antti Pakaslahti, William Pinch, Sheldon Pollock, Sumathy
Ramaswami, V. Narayana Rao, Peter van der Veer, Anila Verghese, Susan S.
Wadley,PhillipWagoner,andDavidGordonWhite.H.DanielSmith,profes-
soremeritusatSyracuseUniversity,generouslygavemeaccesstohiscollection
ofHanumanposters,asdidPatriciaUberoiofDelhiUniversity.Photographer
andHanumandevoteeMartinBradingsharedpicturesoftemplemurtis,and
Carroll Molton and Charles Southwick shared their research on Indian pri-
mates. I especially thank Ann Grodzins Gold, David Haberman, and John
StrattonHawley,who(inadditiontootherassistance)wroteinsupportofmy
applicationtotheGuggenheimFoundation.