Hanuman’s character has been related with Vrish-kapi of the Rigveda by some scholars. But his typical qualities of strength, courage, agility and the ability to take flight and shape-shift are more aligned with his descriptions in epic and puranic literature. His parentage from Anjani and the wind-god Vayu is well-known, and his association with Rudra-Siva is reported in the Puranas. His suggested affinities with yakshas (folk deities) sit well with his heroic (vira) and magical powers. This perhaps explains the presence of hero-stones (viragals) associated with him.
Known to the people of Karnataka over centuries by many names – Anuva, Anilatanaya, Anjaneya, Hanumantha, and more – he also registers a guest appearance in the 9th century Kavirajamarga, the earliest available text on Kannada poetics. From the 10th century, his divine status appears to have gained in prominence, as attested by epigraphs. The ancient sculptors of Karnataka lavished attention on him earlier, as part of Ramayan narratives carved on the base, walls and pillars of some 7th-8th century temples at Badami, Aihole and Pattadakal.
Togalu Gombeyatta, Linden Museum, Stuttgart
Of special interest is the portrayal in stone on the Durga temple at Aihole in northern Karnataka. There, the sculptor Mudyasili has chiselled multiple Hanumans in a continuous narrative of juxtaposed episodes from the Sundarakanda. Hanuman appears in different sizes, as a diminutive creature to escape notice of Lanka’s palace guards, and with grander proportions at other times, including his encounter with Indrajit, who leads him in ‘captivity’ for an audience with Ravan.
Although we have metal icons of Hanuman from an earlier period in south India, it is at Hampi of the Vijayanagara era in Karnataka that cultic worship of Ram and Hanuman assume grand proportions. When shown in association with Ram, his iconography is that of a monkey-faced devotee in the gesture of adoration. But there also exist numerous solitary sculptures of Hanuman at Hampi, where he is depicted walking purposefully with his typical, upturned tail encircling his torso and face, bearing a lotus in his left hand, and with his right palm raised in a gesture of fearlessness.
As at Hampi, elsewhere in the region, the cult of Hanuman gained great prominence from the 13th-14th century onwards. The reasons for this are to be found in the rising tides of Shaiva and Vaishnava bhakti traditions, and not in the presumption of a political ideology in opposition to Muslim rule, as veteran scholars like BD Chattopadhyaya and Philip Lutgendorf have so cogently argued. Lutgendorf’s research on Hanuman’s modern appropriations is especially remarkable.
In modern times, there has been an obsession with making monumental monstrosities in the shape of Hanuman statuary and temples, often under the auspices of influential religious leaders and patrons through collective donations. A related tendency has been the appropriation of public spaces that begin as modest wayside shrines for Hanuman worship. More recently, the picture of an ‘angry Hanuman’ in saffron-and-black has captured majoritarian imagination. In an alternative world of ideas, one can only surmise that Hanuman may not have been particularly enamoured by all this fuss and transgression surrounding his worship.
But there is also another kind of contemporary presence of Hanuman that more aptly represents and evokes him in Karnataka’s cultural continuum. It belongs to the artistic genre of living theatre practices such as Yakshagana and puppetry traditions like Togalu Gombeyatta and Yakshagana Gombeyatta (see photos).
There, the aspirations and preoccupations of the people find greater resonance, both in the planned and impromptu performative improvisations of the artists and the spectators’ responses. Hanuman certainly looks more comfortable with them.