Hanuman’s powers come from three principal sources, all of them narrated as childhood events in the Valmiki Ramayana (Kishkindha Kanda, Chapter 66, told by Jambavan) and elaborated in the Anand Ramayana, the Brahmanda Purana, and Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas. The three sources are: the divine boons given by the gods after the young Hanuman survived a strike from Indra’s vajra; the strength inherited as the son of Vayu; and the curse of forgetfulness laid on him by the sages, which had to be lifted by another person reminding him. This article walks through the childhood incident with the sun, the boons that followed, and the way the curse explains why Hanuman appears, at various points in the Ramayana, to forget what he can do.
The childhood incident with the sun
The Valmiki Ramayana’s Kishkindha Kanda, Chapter 66, has Jambavan (the bear king and senior counsellor of the vanara army) tell Hanuman the story of his own childhood to remind Hanuman of his powers. The account is also in the Anand Ramayana and in Tulsidas’s Sundara Kanda. As an infant Hanuman was hungry one morning. He saw the rising sun, mistook it for a ripe red fruit, and leaped up to eat it. The leap carried him from his mother’s lap on the ground to the celestial sphere where Surya (the sun god) was passing. At that moment Rahu, the eclipse-causing graha, was also approaching Surya for the day’s scheduled eclipse. Hanuman, finding Rahu in his path, swatted him aside.
Rahu, displaced, complained to Indra. Indra came to the sun’s defence and struck Hanuman with the vajra (his thunderbolt weapon). The blow hit Hanuman on the jaw and broke it; the name Hanuman (“the one with the [broken] jaw”) derives from this incident. Hanuman fell from the sky, struck the ground, and was unconscious or, in some accounts, dead.
Vayu’s anger and the gods’ boons
Vayu, the wind god and Hanuman’s divine father, took the fallen child into a cave and refused to move. Wind ceased to blow on earth. Without air, breathing stopped; without breathing, life stopped. The gods, alarmed, came to Vayu’s cave to ask him to release the air. Vayu would not move until Hanuman was restored. Brahma touched the child and Hanuman revived. The gods then each conferred a boon to make amends:
- Brahma: the power to induce fear in enemies and destroy it in friends; the ability to change form at will; the freedom to travel anywhere unimpeded.
- Indra: the vajra would never again wound Hanuman; his body would become harder than the vajra itself.
- Surya: two of the eight siddhis of yoga, namely laghima (the power to become the smallest) and garima (the power to become the largest). Surya later also gave Hanuman the gift of his shastric learning, taking him as a student.
- Varuna: protection from all water and water-borne weapons.
- Agni: immunity to fire.
- Yama: immunity from death; the danda (the staff of Yama, which kills by touch) would not work on Hanuman.
- Kubera: immunity from all weapons made of metal.
- Vishvakarma: indestructibility from all divine weapons crafted by the architect of the gods.
- Mahadeva (Shiva): long life and protection in all forms.
The boons together make Hanuman effectively invulnerable and capable of any feat of size or movement. The Sundara Kanda demonstrates the boons in operation: the leap across the ocean to Lanka (Brahma’s freedom-of-travel boon and Surya’s garima), the shrinking to enter Lanka unseen (Surya’s laghima), the surviving of multiple weapon strikes (Indra’s vajra-protection and the other immunities), and the burning of Lanka without himself being burned (Agni’s immunity).
The curse of forgetfulness
Hanuman, possessing all these powers, was as a child mischievous in the extreme. He tormented the rishis at their ashrams, scattered their ritual implements, drank their offerings, and disrupted their austerities. The sages eventually placed a curse: Hanuman would lose memory of his own powers and would only recover memory of them when another person reminded him. The curse is described in the Anand Ramayana and is the structural reason why, in the Valmiki Ramayana’s Kishkindha Kanda, Hanuman is sitting on the shore of the ocean unable to think how to cross until Jambavan reminds him.
For what it’s worth, the curse of forgetfulness is the most interesting feature of the Hanuman power-set. The standard reading of an avatar or a divine servant is that his powers are continuously available; Hanuman’s powers are continuously available but his consciousness of them is not. He needs reminding. The bhakti tradition reads this as a teaching: the devotee carries every divine quality necessary for the work, but cannot summon them by self-assertion; they have to be evoked by relationship. Jambavan’s reminder at the shore is the moment the curse temporarily lifts and Hanuman becomes fully himself.
The eight siddhis and nine niddhis
The Hanuman Chalisa, the 40-verse devotional poem composed by Tulsidas in the 16th century, refers to Hanuman in verse 31 as “ashta siddhi nava nidhi ke data” (the giver of the eight siddhis and the nine treasures). The eight siddhis are the yogic powers enumerated in the Patanjali Yoga Sutras Chapter 3 and elaborated in subsequent yoga texts:
- Anima: becoming infinitely small
- Mahima: becoming infinitely large
- Laghima: becoming weightless
- Garima: becoming infinitely heavy
- Prapti: the power to reach any place or object
- Prakamya: the power to fulfil any desire
- Ishitva: sovereignty over all
- Vashitva: control over the elements and other beings
The nine niddhis are the nine treasures, listed in the Vishnu Purana and the Mahabharata: Padma, Mahapadma, Shankha, Makara, Kachchhapa, Mukunda, Kunda, Nila, and Kharva. Hanuman, in the Tulsidas tradition, is the giver of these siddhis and niddhis to his devotees who approach him properly.
The Brahmastra immunity (and its workaround)
Among the boons granted at the time of Hanuman’s recovery, Brahma included immunity from the Brahmastra (the weapon of Brahma, the most powerful divine weapon). The Valmiki Ramayana Sundara Kanda 48 narrates how Indrajit (Ravana’s son, also called Meghanada) used the Brahmastra against Hanuman during the burning of Lanka. The weapon should have had no effect on Hanuman. Hanuman, however, chose to allow himself to be bound by it, out of respect for Brahma whose weapon it was. He could have escaped the binding at any time; the entire capture-and-bringing-to-Ravana sequence works because Hanuman accepts capture in order to gain audience with the asura king and deliver Rama’s message. The Brahmastra in this narrative is more a courtesy than a constraint.
Hanuman as the eternal Chiranjivi
Yama’s boon that Hanuman would not die makes him one of the seven Chiranjivis (the immortal beings) of Hindu tradition, alongside Ashwatthama, Bali, Vyasa, Vibhishana, Kripa, and Parashurama. Tradition holds that Hanuman is still alive in the present Kali Yuga and is available to devotees who call on him. The Hanuman Chalisa, which is recited daily by millions of households, is the principal mode of contemporary contact with him. The bhakti tradition treats his continuing presence not as folk belief but as the canonical reading of Yama’s boon.
Common questions
Did Hanuman really swallow the sun?
The standard accounts (Valmiki Ramayana Kishkindha Kanda 66, Anand Ramayana, Tulsidas Sundara Kanda) say Hanuman leaped to seize the sun and was struck before he could swallow it. He did not consume the sun; the leap and Indra’s strike are the action. Some regional retellings include a swallowing-and-spitting-out episode, but the canonical Valmiki account stops at the strike with the vajra and the broken jaw.
Why does Hanuman need reminding before he leaps across the ocean?
The sages’ curse of forgetfulness. Hanuman has the powers but cannot remember them at will. In the Valmiki Ramayana Kishkindha Kanda, the vanara army has reached the southern coast and is debating how to cross to Lanka. None of them, including Hanuman, can think of a way. Jambavan then approaches Hanuman and reminds him of his childhood, the sun leap, and the boons. Hanuman regains awareness of his own powers, grows in size, and leaps.
Is the Hanuman Chalisa the main source of his powers in devotional practice?
The Hanuman Chalisa (40 verses by Tulsidas, 16th century) is the principal contemporary text invoking Hanuman’s powers. It enumerates the boons, the siddhis, and the niddhis; it asks Hanuman to grant strength, intelligence, and freedom from fear; and it is recited daily as a protective and motivating practice. The Sundara Kanda of the Valmiki Ramayana (or of Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas) is the longer text recited in extended parayana for the same purposes.
One limitation worth noting
The enumeration of Hanuman’s boons varies slightly across the sources, and not every list includes the same set of gods. The Valmiki Ramayana mentions some of the boons in Kishkindha Kanda 66 but leaves others to be supplied by later texts (Anand Ramayana, Brahmanda Purana). The list above is composite. Tulsidas’s Hanuman Chalisa does not enumerate the boons but treats them as known; the household practice generally accepts the composite list.
For deeper textual treatment, see the Wikipedia entry on Hanuman and on the Hanuman Chalisa.
