The Ra­mayan is the great re­li­gious epic of Hin­dus across the world. It has a spe­cial place in the Hin­du pop­u­la­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go. There is not a sin­gle day when vers­es from the Ra­mayan are not sung at dozens of tem­ples and oth­er tem­po­rary al­tars con­struct­ed for Ra­mayan singing and ex­pla­na­tion of the vers­es.

This great re­li­gious mas­ter­piece has been a store­house of myths, leg­ends and moral teach­ings for thou­sands of years. The Ra­mayan has added colours and mean­ing to every as­pect of the lives of Hin­dus.

The Ra­mayan is es­sen­tial­ly the sto­ry of how Ram, the Hin­du God in­car­nate, was ban­ished from his king­dom of Ay­o­d­hya for 14 years. King Dhas­rath, the fa­ther of Ra­ma, had made a vow to a wife that she would be grant­ed any wish. She de­mand­ed that Ram be ban­ished to a for­est dweller’s life for 14 years and that her son, Bharat, be crowned king.

The sto­ry which un­folds has guid­ed the con­duct of Hin­dus from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion and con­tin­ues. The prob­lems and hard­ships en­coun­tered by this sev­enth in­car­na­tion of the great God Vish­nu, pro­vides in­sight in­to the in­ner mean­ing of Hin­du ethics and val­ues.

In a con­ver­sa­tion with his younger broth­er Bharat, Ram stat­ed, “Man is not free; time drags him hith­er and thith­er. All ob­jects per­ish; all in­di­vid­ual souls must de­part when their mer­it is ex­haust­ed. Sons, friends, wives and all who live must die one day.

“Hoard­ing and spend­ing, pros­per­i­ty and des­ti­na­tion, meet­ing and part­ing, life and death are akin. When the ripe fruit falls, we are not sur­prised, thus a man be­ing born should not fear when death claims him.”

In his 14 years of ex­ile, Ram in­tro­duces us to scores of re­li­gious char­ac­ters who have stirred the imag­i­na­tion of the fol­low­ers of Dhar­ma. The most loved of Ra­mayan char­ac­ters is Hanu­man or Hanu­mant. He is the pow­er­ful heavy-jawed mon­key.

Hanu­man, al­so known as Maru­ti Ba­jranga­bali and An­janeya, rep­re­sents the ide­al of brav­ery and ser­vice, a de­vot­ed com­pan­ion of Lord Ra­ma.

Hanu­man is of­ten de­scribed as hav­ing a short thick neck, a round face, sharp white fangs, a mane like ashoka flow­ers; a tail like In­dra’s ban­ner and able to ex­pand un­til he was as large as a moun­tain. He is the son of Vayu, the Wind god, and his moth­er is An­jana.

In the bat­tle against the forces of evil, King Ra­vana, Lak­sh­man, the broth­er of Ram, fell mor­tal­ly wound­ed. He was di­ag­nosed by the bat­tle­field physi­cian to die by day­break if cer­tain heal­ing herbs were not ad­min­is­tered. Hanu­man flew to the Hi­malaya and up­root­ed an en­tire moun­tain on which grew the heal­ing herbs and car­ried it back so that Lak­sh­man could re­cov­er.

Shri Ram re­ward­ed Hanu­man with the gift of per­pet­u­al life, ap­point­ing Hanu­man as the pre­sid­ing de­ity of plan­et Earth.

Among Hin­dus, Hanu­man re­mains very pop­u­lar. In cer­tain parts of In­dia, he pre­sides over every set­tle­ment and vil­lage and he is re­gard­ed as the pa­tron of ac­ro­bats and wrestlers. Hanu­man is a sym­bol of schol­ar­ship and the mas­tery of lan­guage, sci­ence and learn­ing.

In re­cent times, the rev­er­ence, re­spect of Hanu­man through wor­ship, has sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­creased. He epit­o­mis­es the fu­sion of strength, hero­ic ini­tia­tive and as­sertive ex­cel­lence with love and de­vo­tion, em­body­ing both Shak­ti and Bhak­ti.

Hanu­man’s un­wa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion to Lord Ra­ma is the cor­ner­stone of his char­ac­ter, ex­em­pli­fy­ing the ide­al of de­vo­tion. He is known for his im­mense phys­i­cal strength, sym­bol­is­ing the abil­i­ty to over­come ob­sta­cles.

De­spite his pow­er, Hanu­man re­mains hum­ble and self­less.

Hanu­man’s fear­less­ness, even in the face of in­sur­mount­able odds, is a pow­er­ful les­son in courage and re­silience, of­ten seen as a sym­bol of good tri­umph­ing over evil.

Hanu­man is al­so not­ed for his as­ceti­cism. Ra­ma and Lak­sh­man were very knowl­edge of the an­cient Vedic text which Hanu­man ex­pressed. It was said that Hanu­man knew every rule of syn­tax and pro­nun­ci­a­tion of San­skrit.

Hanu­man shows how we must re­spect those in au­thor­i­ty over us, who have trust­ed us to share the bur­den of the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. His main role is that of an al­ly and faith­ful ser­vant of Ra­ma in his war against Ra­vana, the de­mon King of Lan­ka. Hanu­man re­fused all ma­te­r­i­al re­wards of­fered by Lord Ra­ma for his self­less and de­vot­ed ser­vice.

All he want­ed, he said, was to do his du­ty, and begged Lord Ra­ma that he was al­lowed to serve him on­ly. This is Hanu­man’s ex­am­ple of Hin­du devo­tees’ self­less ded­i­ca­tion to the ser­vice of the Lord.

Hin­du devo­tees per­form reg­u­lar pu­ja to Hanu­man and plant a red/or­ange jhan­di (prayer flag) in his ho­n­our.

Hanu­man Jayan­ti (Hanu­man’s Birth­day) will be cel­e­brat­ed on April 12.