Stotra · स्तोत्रStotra

Hanuman Chalisa — opening doha

The first couplet of the Hanuman Chalisa: the poet cleans the mirror of his mind with the dust of his guru's feet before he begins.

Hanuman Chalisa, Tulsidas opening doha (1 of 2)edition

Hanuman ·

Sanskrit · संस्कृत

श्रीगुरु चरन सरोज रज निज मनु मुकुरु सुधारि । बरनऊँ रघुबर बिमल जसु जो दायकु फल चारि ॥

śrīguru carana saroja raja nija manu mukuru sudhāri । baranaūm̐ raghubara bimala jasu jo dāyaku phala cāri ॥

Read in another script

No verified recitation yet. We publish audio only with a named reciter and a recorded licence, rather than files of unknown provenance.

Meaning

Having polished the mirror of my mind with the dust of my guru's lotus feet, I tell the unblemished glory of Rama, which bestows the four fruits of life.

This rendering is by a DharmSetu editor, not a quotation from a published translation. Compare with the public-domain translation.

A Hindi meaning has not been written for this mantra yet. Hindi is authored by a named editor rather than machine-translated, so it arrives more slowly.

How to recite

A *doha* — two half-lines of twenty-four instants each. Awadhi, not Sanskrit: बरनऊँ is *baranaūm̐*, with the candrabindu nasalised and no final consonant.

Time: Tuesday, Saturday

Pronunciation key — sounds commonly got wrong

ट ठ ड ढ ण · ṭ ṭh ḍ ḍh ṇ: Retroflex — the tongue curls back and touches the roof of the mouth. Distinct from the dental त थ द ध न, where the tongue touches the teeth.
श ष स · ś ṣ s: Three different sounds: ś as in “shy”, ṣ retroflex and further back, s plain. Collapsing them changes words.
ः · ḥ (visarga): A soft outward breath echoing the preceding vowel — not a hard “ha”.
ं · ṃ (anusvara): Nasalises the vowel; the closing sound follows the consonant that comes next.
Long vs short vowels — a / ā, i / ī, u / ū: Vowel length is meaningful in Sanskrit. Hold the macron vowels roughly twice as long.
Aspirated consonants — kh, gh, ch, th, dh, ph, bh: A distinct puff of breath. ph is an aspirated p, never an English “f”.

Context

The Chalisa opens not with Hanuman but with a **guru**, and not with praise but with cleaning — the mind is a mirror, and the dust of the guru's feet is what polishes it. Tulsidas puts the qualification before the composition. The four fruits are *dharma*, *artha*, *kāma* and *mokṣa*. Note that the glory named in the second line is **Rama's**, not Hanuman's: the hymn to Hanuman begins by pointing away from him, which is the relationship the whole text is about. This record is the opening couplet only. The complete forty-three verses, with meanings, are at `/mantras/hanuman-chalisa`.

Shadanga — the six limbs

The traditional analytic frame for a mantra. Blank limbs are simply not recorded for this text.

devata: Hanuman

Recited at / traditionally recited for

Honouring the teacher Dhyana (meditation)

Classified as Stotra — Devotional hymn literature — praise poetry rather than a Vedic formula. Basis for this classification.

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