ॐ हनुमते दुःख भंजन
I posted the following article five months ago:
Now I'm getting addicted to the following mantra (मंत्र), which sounds very entertaining to me:
The following is shorter:
One transcription in Hindi is as follows:
ॐ हनुमते दुख भंजन अंजनी सुत केसरी नंदन
राम दूत संकट मोचन शत शत चंदन कोटि नमन
Transliteration into English is as follows:
Om Hanumate Dukh Bhanjan Anjani Sut Kesari Nandan
Ram Dut Sankat Mochan, Shat Shat Vandan Koti Naman
Using Google translation from Hindi to English, the mantra chants:
Om Hanumate the destroyer of sorrows, Anjani's son and Kesari's son
Ram's messenger the savior of troubles, hundred hundreds of salutations and millions of salutations
Hanumate means "to Hanuman". According to Wikipedia for Hanuman
Proper nouns in this mantra according to Wikipedia:
Anjana (Sanskrit: अञ्जना), also known as Anjani and Anjali, is the mother of Hanuman, one of the protagonists of the Hindu epic the Ramayana.
Kesari is a male vanara, and a figure in Hindu mythology. He is the father of Hanuman and the husband of Anjana. In Hinduism, Vanara (Sanskrit: वानर) are either monkeys, apes, or a race of forest-dwelling people.
Ram does not require annotation in the context of Ramayana.
Other Hindi words according to Oxford Hindi-English dictionary:
दुख : grief, sorrow
भंजन : destruction, destroyer
सुत : a son
केसरी : (adj.) maned, (noun) a lion
नंदन : (adj.) delighting, (noun) a son
दूत : an envoy, a messenger, an ambassador
संकट : danger, crisis
मोचन : riddance, releasing, liberating
शत : (adj.) a hundred
शत-शत : (adj.) hundred hundreds, countless
(NOTE: Another text uses सत सत.)
वंदन : homage, greeting, adoration
कोटि : ten million
(NOTE: In Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary कोटि means top or end. Ten million in Hindi करोड़ comes from the Prakrit word kroḍi, which in turn comes from the Sanskrit koṭi (कोटि) according to Wikipedia. Another transcription uses कोटी, which means ten million in Marathi, a classical Indo-Aryan language predominantly spoken by Marathi people in the Indian state of Maharashtra.)
नमन : salutation, greetings, bowing, praying
On Sarutahiko Ōkami (猿田彦大神)
As an aside, let me explain about Sarutahiko Ōkami (猿田彦大神), a deity of the Japanese religion of Shintō. The string "saru" written as 猿 in Japanese in the components of this proper noun means a monkey.
It's highly unlikely that no fragment of Ramayana had been conveyed to Japan, considering its nontrivial influence to Asian countries.
One can find monkey motifs in Hie Shrine (日枝神社) in Tōkyō:
Kumagusu Minakata (南方熊楠 1867-1941) makes a definitive statement in "Jūnishikō"『十二支考』 (A Study of Twelve Animals of Chinese Zodiac) that Sarutahiko must have been a god of a monkey.
However, I have no idea whether "saru" really means monkey for this deity since there are several opinions... and I'm not a researcher.
Here are excerpts from Wikipedia:
Anthropologist Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney lists three factors that identify Sarutahiko as a monkey deity: saru means "monkey", his features "include red buttocks, which are a prominent characteristic of Japanese macaques", and as macaques gather shellfish at low tide, the Kojiki says his hand got caught in a shell while fishing and "a monkey with one hand caught in a shell is a frequent theme of Japanese folktales".
Sarutahiko Ōkami is considered to be the original model of Konoha-Tengu (a supernatural creature with a red face and long nose), which today is widely considered the Tengu's defining characteristic in the popular imagination. He is the Shinto monkey deity who is said to shed light on Heaven and Earth. Some experts theorize that Sarutahiko was a sun god worshiped in the Ise region prior to the popularization of Amaterasu.
Some Japanese scholars have speculated that the tengu's image derives from that of the Hindu eagle deity Garuda, who was pluralized in Buddhist scripture as one of the major races of non-human beings. Like the tengu, the garuda are often portrayed in a human-like form with wings and a bird's beak.
Here is a wingless statue of Garuda or Karura (迦楼羅) in Kōfukuji Temple (興福寺), Nara:
Whether or not Sarutahiko has inherited fragments of Hanuman from Hindu mythology, the following scene is nonexistent relative to Sarutahiko:
Credit for header image : Alyona Malyona via Pinterest