HANUMAN:.........................................................................................................
Hanuman, together with Ganesha and Garuda , is one of the three major Hindu deities with animalistic physical features. He is loved all over India as the monkey-god who so faithfully served Rama , Vishnu 's seventh avatar (incarnation), in his war against Ravana , the demon king. Hanuman is a major deity in North India where he is regarded as a propitiator against all evil. Temples to him have been erected all over that part of the country each small villages and towns having their own "Hanuman" shrine to keep the populace within the ambit of his able and benign prowess.
Myth has it that Hanuman was one of the many creatures the gods created to assist Vishnu in his incarnation as Rama. The monkey god is the son of Vayu , the wind god, and Anjana, an apsara who was turned into a monkey by a curse. Dasaratha, the king of Ayodhya, a kingdom in the north of India at that time, did not have a son and was advised by the holy men to perform a ceremony with which he would ask the gods to favor him with one. He did so, with great pomp and piety, and was bequeathed with a cake of divine origin that he was instructed to share among his three queens. He did so but his second queen, Kaikeyi, was allotted her share last and took affront at this late treatment. She threw the cake away and a crow flew away with. Kaikeya repented and later became the mother of Bharata, the second of the four sons which Dasaratha was blessed with as a result of the ceremony. His first son Rama, born of his first wife Kaushalla, is the seventh incarnation of Vishnu and the epic battle he conducted to rid the universe of Ravana, the tyrannous demon king of Lanka, is well-depicted in the Indian epic Ramayana .
Dasaratha's youngest wife Sumitra, bore him the twins Lakshman and Satrughna. They were the youngest and Lakshman was inseparable from Rama, his eldest brother, and his devotion to his eldest brother throughout their strife against the demon-king is still considered as symbol of fraternal devotion in India.
Going back to the birth of Hanuman, it is found that the crow who stole the cake after Kaikeyi threw it away flew with it into the forest. There it came upon Anjana, in her cursed monkey form, performing worship. Vayu, the wind god, was also fortuitously there at that moment and, seeing the crow flying past with the piece of cake in its beak, he blew hard and a strong wind immediately swept the piece of cake out of the crow's beak and into Anjana's hands. Vayu went away but was immediately replaced by Shiva, who instructed Anjana to eat the cake. She did so and conceived Hanuman, who is thus considered to be the son of Vayu.
From when he was born Hanuman proved to be such a voracious eater that is mother was beyond herself feeding him. He even attempted to eat the sun, an attempt foiled by Indra , the king of the gods, who threw his thunderbolt at the tremendous baby to discourage him from devouring the only source of light to the earth. This created a slight commotion in the heavens with Vayu coming to the rescue of his son but the gods intervened and persuaded Indra to apologize to Vayu. Peace returned and the gormandizing baby was returned to the safe folds of his mother while Surya , the sun god, was spared a horrible fate.
Nevertheless, there was always enough foodstuff for Hanuman and he grew up to become a warrior of immense strength and agility. He could move, both run and fly, at the speed of the wind, an attribute bequeathed by his father. He could also change his size at will – he could become so tiny that he could get into any room through the keyhole and he could expand into such an enormous figure that he could carry a whole mountain on his back. These abilities stood in good stead in the war he assisted Rama in against Ravana. Ravana, the evil demon king of Lanka, was such a terrible despot that people, gods and all other creatures of the three Hindu realms prayed to the gods to save them from him. After Rama grew to marriageable age he became betrothed to Sita , daughter of king Janak. Subsequently, Ravana, being the despot he was, was presented with a chance to get to Sita alone while her husband Rama was away on a hunt and he forced her to leave her husband's hut in the forest and go with him to his kingdom across the sea. When Rama came back from his hunt he was overcome with grief and immediately set out after the demon king.