Hanuman’s birthplace, needless fight

While the battle over the birthplace of Lord Rama was in the name of two communities, the fight for the birthplace of his ardent devotee and follower Hanuman is between two states in the country. Though the latest flare-up of the dispute is between two states, there are contending claims from other states too, like Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand. There are places which are considered to be the birthplace of the god in all these states, and even within Karnataka, Gokarna is in contention. The controversy got a fresh boost recently when the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) claimed that the Anjanadri hills where Hanuman, according to legends, was born, is one of the seven hills where the Venkateswara temple is situated. A committee appointed by the TTD has claimed that there is literary, mythological, epigraphical, scientific and geological evidence to prove that Hanuman was born there.

But the proponents of the Hampi theory cannot be expected to accept the TTD claim. Kannada lore, scriptures, literature and legends have for centuries considered the Anjanadri hills at Anegundi near Hampi as Hanuman’s birthplace. The idea is deeply etched in the popular mind. But isn’t it unnecessary and even ridiculous to fight over the origins and domicile of a god who is worshipped everywhere in the country and is even present in other countries? Gods exist in the collective mind and are real because they are universal, without being tied down to a place and to a point in time. It does not make sense to look for Hanuman’s nationality and for evidence to prove it, just as it is wrong to take Lord Rama or Lord Krishna back to Ayodhya or Mathura and locate them there.

No god is exclusive to a place, and is limited by it. It is because he belongs to and is owned by Hampi, Tirupati, Nashik and all other places across the country that he made his leap to godhood, and is everyone’s god. Hampi’s Hanuman, Tirupati’s Hanuman, Nashik’s Hanuman and other Hanumans are all equally genuine and real, and can co-exist. It is his devotees who find it difficult to accept each other’s Hanuman, and fight over him. It is senseless to fix his birthplace with its latitude and longitude on the map, because his birth is actually in the unmapped regions of the mind which are common to all humans. Hampi, Tirupati, Ayodhya, Mathura and all other nativities are in that region and to look for them on the map is to deny the divinity of gods. There is many a Hanuman, like Rama’s devotee, warrior, speed king, yogi, grammarian and musician. Let him be from many places too so that he is everyone’s.