About the Chalisa
If there's one prayer that cuts across every region, language, and tradition in India, it's this one. Tulsidas wrote these forty verses in Awadhi, not Sanskrit, not for scholars, but for everyone. They tell the story of Hanuman: the one who leapt across the ocean, carried a mountain, and never once asked for anything in return. People chant the Chalisa when they're afraid, when they need courage, when nothing else works. Millions do it daily, especially on Tuesdays and Saturdays. There's a reason it's survived five centuries. These verses just work.
Dōhā
1
śrī guru caraṇa saroja raja nijamana mukura sudhāri varaṇau raghuvara vimala yaśa jo dāyaka phalacāri
2
buddhihīna tanu jānike sumirau pavanakumāra bala buddhi vidyā dehu mohi harahu kaleśa vikāra
Caupāī
3
jaya hanumāna jñānaguṇasāgara
jaya kapīśa tihu loka ujāgara
4
rāmadūta atulita baladhāmā
aṁjaniputra pavanasuta nāmā
5
mahāvīra vikrama bajaraṁgī
kumati nivāra sumati ke saṁgī
Dōhā
44
buddhihīna tanu jānike sumirau pavanakumāra bala buddhi vidyā dehu mohi harahu kaleśa vikāra
About this transliteration
This English rendering of the Hanuman Chalisa uses IAST diacritics to preserve the original Awadhi sounds as closely as Roman script allows. The long ā in 'Hanumāna' is held twice as long as a short a, the ṣ in 'Tulsīdās' has a slight retroflex hiss, and the ḥ at the end of phrases marks an aspirated release that vanishes in casual transliteration. If you have studied Sanskrit or worked through formal pronunciation guides for any Indian classical tradition, these markings will look familiar. The result is a chant that reads like the original would sound to a Hindi or Awadhi speaker, not like an Anglicised approximation. For first-time readers who find the diacritics daunting, the english-simple version drops them and uses plain Roman letters instead.