About the Hanuman Chalisa
The Hanuman Chalisa is a hymn to Hanuman, the devoted friend and servant of Rama. Goswami Tulsidas wrote it in the sixteenth century in Awadhi, the language of his Ramcharitmanas. Chalisa means forty: forty chaupais sit at its heart, with two dohas to open the hymn and one to close it.
Its verses remember Hanuman as both strong and gentle: the leap across the sea to Lanka, the ring carried to Sita, the mountain of herbs that brought Lakshmana back, and a devotion so complete that Rama called him as dear as a brother. Many families sing it every day, and many people learn it by heart as children, long before they know what each word means.
The text here is the one Gita Press, Gorakhpur prints. Every verse is below in Devanagari, in English letters and with its meaning, and each one opens on a page of its own with its words one by one, the story behind it and what it has meant to the people who sing it.