ONGOLE: The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD) Board is all set to announce that Lord Hanuman’s birth place is Anjanadri Hill, one of the seven hills on which the world-famous Lord Sri Venkateswara Swamy temple is situated. The TTD is going to make the announcement on the eve of Sri Rama Navami festival and release “evidence” from many ancient scripts such as Paraasara Samhita, Brahmanda Purana and Skanda Purana to prove the same.
In fact, the TTD initially thought of making the announcement on the Telugu New Year Ugadi. Later, it thought that it is suitable to make the announcement on the birthday of Lord Sri Ram, the one and only God worshiped by Hanuman. Dr Annadanam Chidambara Sastry from Prakasam district, who has done extensive research on the subject and with many references from various ancient devotional literature such as Valmiki Ramayana, he came to the conclusion that Lord Hanuman’s birth place is indeed Anjanadri hill. He also got his PhD on the thesis from the Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, four decades ago.
Sastry did his research from 1972 on ‘Andhra Vangmayam lo - Hanumath Katha’. For his research, he referred to hundreds of Tala Patra grandhams (palm-leaf books), old spiritual, devotional and mythological books at many libraries. After his research, Dr Sastry approached the TTD authorities and explained to them his research findings. He submitted his research papers to the TTD a few years back and requested them to pursue the matter. Further, he even published pamphlets on his own expenses, stating that Hanuman belongs to the Telugu cult.
“Anjana Devi, mother of Hanuman, was the daughter of Goutama Maharishi-Ahalya couple. Later, Goutama Maharishi gave his daughter to a monkey leader. Then she got married to Kesari. The couple went to Anjanadri hill and there Anjana did tapasya to get the blessings of Lord Siva for a kid. Later, with the blessings of Lord Siva, Anjana gave birth to Hanuman at Anjanadri,” Dr Sastry said. Further, he argued that there is evidence for this in Bhavishyottara Purana, Brahmanda Purana and Skanda Purana.
“In Valmiki Ramayana, there is a description that monkey king Sugreeva endorsed the Sita search operation duties to all mighty warriors of his kingdom and for this purpose, Sugreeva also deployed the mighty warriors battalion of Anjanadri. That means, the Anjanadri hill exists even during the Ramayana times,” Dr Sastry explained.
In fact, there are different opinions on the birth place of Hanuman. Swami Gopalananda Baba claims that Hanuman’s birth place is in present Jharkhand. Swami Govidananda Saraswathi opines that Kishkindha, near Hampi (Karnataka), is the birth place of Hanuman and some suggest that Gokarna is his birthplace. But, Sastry refutes all those claims.