Manojavam – Learn Sanskrit through Slokas

Welcome back to the series of learning Sanskrit through Slokas! As we can see, our Sanskrit vocabulary keeps building up as we learn more and more Slokas! And today we will see a sloka on Lord Hanuman  (‘manojavam..’) describing his powers and his good qualities.

Here is the sloka:

manojavam maaruthathulya vegam
jithendriyam buddhimathaam varishtam |
vaataatmajam vaanara yuthamukhyam
shriraama dutham shirasa namaami ||

Let’s discuss the word-by-word meaning of the above sloka.

manojavam maaruthathulya vegam

• manojavam – who is swift as the mind itself (mind is ‘mana‘ and ‘java‘ is speed)
• maaruta thulya vegam – maarutha is Vayu (Wind God), ‘thulya‘ is equivalent and ‘vegam’ is speed. The meaning would be ‘who speed matches that of the wind God. Hanuman being the son of Vayu/Maaruta, is also called Maaruthi.

jithendriyam buddhimathaam varishtam 

• jithendriyam – jita indriyam (the one who has won over his senses – ‘indriya’ is senses)
• buddhimathaam varishtam – varishta is excellent or best. buddhimathaam varishtam is, ‘the best among the wise/intelligent’

vaataatmajam vaanara yuthamukhyam

• vaataatmajam – vaata is air, Vayudeva. Aathmaja is son. Thus it denotes Lord Hanuman
• vaanara yuthamukhyam – yutha is band or group. vaanara yuthamukyam is ‘the chief person among the Vanara army’

shriraama dutham shirasa namaami

• shriraama dutham – dutha is messenger. Thus, ‘the messenger of Lord Rama’
• shirasa namaami – shiras is head. Shirasa namaami is, ‘to bow my head to the above-mentioned deity, Lord Hanuman’

The whole meaning of this shloka would be, “I bow my head (salute) to Sri Hanuman who is as swift as the mind, whose speed matches that of the wind, who is the master of the senses, who is the best among the intelligent, who is son of Lord Vaayu and chief among the Vaanaras and also the messenger of Sri Rama.”

Also, you can read the meaning of other slokas here.