The account in the epic
The older and shorter account of Hanumān's birth is given by Jāmbavān in the fourth book. Añjanā was the apsaras Puñjikasthalā, born by a curse as a vānara woman able to take any shape she wished, and married to the chieftain Kesarī. Walking on a mountain top in human form, she was embraced by Vāyu, the wind, who promised her a son equal to himself in strength and in speed. She bore Hanumān.
The child, seeing the rising sun and taking it for fruit, leapt at it; Indra struck him with the thunderbolt and broke his jaw — the hanu that gives him his name — and Vāyu, in fury, withdrew from the world until the gods had granted the boy a series of boons. The seventh book tells this at greater length and adds the sages' curse that made Hanumān forget his own powers until reminded of them.
Kesarī himself is barely present in the epic. He is named as Añjanā's husband and Hanumān's father, and the poem calls Hanumān both Kesarī's son and the wind's without treating the two as a contradiction.
Later tradition
Añjanā has acquired a substantial cult of her own, particularly in central and western India, and several places claim to be Hanumān's birthplace on the strength of a local Añjanā shrine — Anjaneri in Maharashtra and Anjanadri in Karnataka among them. Hanumān's patronymic Āñjaneya, son of Añjanā, is one of his commonest names in the south.
Kesarī's exploits, including the killing of a demon that troubled the sages, are elaborated chiefly in later Hanumān literature rather than in the epic.
Two accounts
The epic tells Hanumān's birth twice, and the versions differ. The Kiṣkindhā Kāṇḍa's is short: Añjanā was an apsaras born a vānara by a curse, married to Kesarī, embraced by the wind on a mountain top, and bore a son promised to equal his father in strength and speed. The Uttara Kāṇḍa's is long, and adds the sages' curse of forgetfulness and a catalogue of boons.
This site follows the shorter and older account and marks the later material as later.
The leap at the sun
The infant, seeing the rising sun and taking it for fruit, jumped for it. Indra struck him with the thunderbolt and broke his jaw — hanu, the jaw, giving him his name — and Vāyu, in fury at his son's injury, withdrew the wind from the world until the gods had made amends with a series of boons.
It is one of the few childhood stories in Sanskrit epic, and everything characteristic of the adult Hanumān is in it: the impossible distance, the misjudgement, the injury, and the enormous consequences of a small being's ambition.
Añjanā's shrines
Añjanā has an independent cult, particularly in Maharashtra and Karnataka, and several places claim Hanumān's birth on the strength of a local shrine to her — Anjaneri near Nashik and Anjanadri near Hampi among them. Hanumān's commonest name in the south, Āñjaneya, is a patronymic from her.
Kesarī remains almost entirely a name. His exploits belong to later Hanumān literature rather than to the epic.
Further reading
- Bose, Mandakranta. The Ramayana Revisited. Oxford University Press, 2004
- Goldman, Robert P. The Ramayana of Valmiki: An Epic of Ancient India. Princeton University Press, 1984
- Nagar, Shanti Lal. Genesis and Evolution of the Rama Katha in Indian Art, Thought, Literature and Culture. B.R. Publishing, 2005
- Ramanujan, A. K. The Collected Essays of A. K. Ramanujan. Oxford University Press, 1999
- Richman, Paula. Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia. University of California Press, 1991
See also
- Hanumān — Hanumān is the vānara minister of Sugrīva in the Rāmāyaṇa who leaps the ocean to find Sītā in Laṅkā and burns the city, and who became in later devotion the model of service and one of the most widely worshipped deities in India.
- Kiṣkindhā Kāṇḍa — The Kiṣkindhā Kāṇḍa is the fourth book of the Rāmāyaṇa, in which Rāma allies with the exiled monkey king Sugrīva, kills his brother Vālī from concealment, and the search parties are sent out to find Sītā.
- Uttara Kāṇḍa — The Uttara Kāṇḍa is the seventh book of the Rāmāyaṇa, covering Rāvaṇa's ancestry, the banishment of the pregnant Sītā, the birth of Lava and Kuśa and Sītā's return into the earth — generally held with the first book to be a later addition.
- Hanumān worship and the Hanumān Cālīsā — Hanumān is among the most widely worshipped deities in India, approached for strength, courage and protection, and the forty verses of the Hanumān Cālīsā are among the most recited texts in the country.
- Kiṣkindhā — Kiṣkindhā is the vānara kingdom of the Rāmāyaṇa, ruled by Vālī and then by Sugrīva, where Rāma made the alliance that won him the war.
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.