Doubts & Discussions about Hanuman Mythology

This topic is inspired by a similar one in the NDTV Ramayan forum, created by Vibhishna. The idea is to have one place for all doubts and questions we might have regarding Lord Hanuman instead of opening new threads for every random question. This will make it easier to keep track of all these queries rather than have them spread all over the forum.

The original topic in the Ramayan forum was extremely successful: it ran up to 150 pages and a second thread had to be created to continue the discussions! Hopefully we will get the same level of participation here.

Hanuman's stories extend beyond the Treta Yuga and the Ramayana: being a Chiranjivi, he shows up in Dwapara Yuga/Mahabharata stories as well as in many legends in Kali Yuga. So there is a vast wealth of stories of Hanuman that we can discuss.

Let the discussions begin! 😊

I have a suggestion also to make it even easier for members to keep up with the updated queries...members can either pm you, Kal El, or wut not and let you know they have a new doubt or discussion and you can put that page number in the title thread!!!!!

Thanks for opening this topic kal el, I hope it goes as successful as previous D&D in RF😊

thanks for this thread & i am happy that finally ADMIN MODS listened to ur requests & opened a forum for this show

Yes, Kal El...even i have to thank you for letting me know bout the forum!!!!

Wow sita, so lalitha tried too.....i dint know that....i think she will be very happy to know once she sees this....dont worry i think it will be a great surprise to her!!!! It def was for all of us wasnt it?!!😊

oh yes !!!! suniti dear ,its surely a nice surprise for all of us !!!

Thanks a lot Kal El 😊

I'll surely participate as much as I can.

To begin the D&D here. First question which came in my mind is how exaclty the vaanars look like. Do there face are like monkey as they show in most of the TV shows or they are just a class of human. i.e human with different physical feature are a class of tribes who came to be known as vaanar. I am sure monkey and vaanar are different. but the question is then who are those vaanar?.
                    One more thing I din't understood in all TV shows the male vaanar are shown with monkey face but female vaanar with human face. Isn't it a blooper?

Originally posted by: Rajnish_Kumar

To begin the D&D here. First question which came in my mind is how exaclty the vaanars look like. Do there face are like monkey as they show in most of the TV shows or they are just a class of human. i.e human with different physical feature are a class of tribes who came to be known as vaanar. I am sure monkey and vaanar are different. but the question is then who are those vaanar?.
                    One more thing I din't understood in all TV shows the male vaanar are shown with monkey face but female vaanar with human face. Isn't it a blooper?

Good question . . .

I know for sure the Vanars were not humans but in many versions they are said to be capable of assuming human forms.

I am not sure if they were the same size of the monkeys now but I think it is unlikely and they must have been much bigger.

I agree with your last point. It never made sense to me either. In the serial Jai Hanuman, not only Kesari and Anjana but also Sugreev and Angad were shown to have human faces most of the time. At times they assumed Vanar forms (in the serial it was shown as if when they were in a fight and wanted to increase their strength, thhey took up their true Vanar forms).

I tend to believe the vanars looked like Hanuman in this picture - all of them maybe not so majestic as he was but they must have resembled him to a great extent.

Originally posted by: Vibhishna

Good question . . .

I know for sure the Vanars were not humans but in many versions they are said to be capable of assuming human forms.

I am not sure if they were the same size of the monkeys now but I think it is unlikely and they must have been much bigger.

I agree with your last point. It never made sense to me either. In the serial Jai Hanuman, not only Kesari and Anjana but also Sugreev and Angad were shown to have human faces most of the time. At times they assumed Vanar forms (in the serial it was shown as if when they were in a fight and wanted to increase their strength, thhey took up their true Vanar forms).

I tend to believe the vanars looked like Hanuman in this picture - all of them maybe not so majestic as he was but they must have resembled him to a great extent.

Ones I was reading Ramcharitramanas book of gita press gorakhpur where the author in the preface section written that Vannars were not Monkey but an earlier tribes of human probably inferiar to human in brain but more powerful in strength capable of having some majestic powers. they can change there forms but in look they are like human. I don't remember what authors exactly want to explain i read it long back nether I have that book right now but i will try to find out what was given there. And yes I too remember that serial jai Hanuman where they remain in human form and at times take vaanar form. there is something like that was explained there. On what basis the author has written those i have no idea