Pauranic · पौराणिकDhyana shloka

Yatra Yatra Raghunatha Kirtanam

Wherever Rama's name is sung, Hanuman is there — hands joined above his head and eyes full of tears.

Hanuman dhyana shloka, recited before a Ramayana reading the two-line verseedition

Sanskrit · संस्कृत

यत्र यत्र रघुनाथ कीर्तनं तत्र तत्र कृत मस्तकाञ्जलिम् । भाष्पवारि परिपूर्ण लोचनं मारुतिं नमत राक्षसान्तकम् ॥

yatra yatra raghunātha kīrtanaṃ tatra tatra kṛta mastakāñjalim । bhāṣpavāri paripūrṇa locanaṃ mārutiṃ namata rākṣasāntakam ॥

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

Wherever the praise of Rama is sung, there he stands with his hands joined above his head and his eyes brimming with tears — bow to Maruti, the ender of demons.

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

Two lines. Recited at the start of a Ramayana or Ramkatha reading, before the narration begins.

Time: Before a Ramayana reading

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 verse recited before a *Ramayana* or *Ramkatha* reading, and the reason a seat is traditionally left for Hanuman at one. It is doing something unusual for a praise verse: it describes him **listening**, not acting. The two details given are his folded hands and his wet eyes, which is a portrait of a devotee in the audience rather than a hero in a story. That inversion is why the verse is used as an invitation — it says he is already present wherever the recitation is, so the reciter is never performing alone.

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

Dhyana (meditation)Sankalpa (intention)

Classified as Pauranic — From the Puranas. Most widely recited deity mantras belong here. Basis for this classification.

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