Hanuman's Tale: The Messages of a Divine Monkey (Book Review)

Hanuman's Tale: The Messages of a Divine Monkey. By PHILIP LUTGENDORE. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp. 450. $125 (cloth); $24.95 (paper). Philip Lutgendorf begins his work, on Hanuman by introducing his audience to a colorful sampling of the plethora of encounters that even a "casual visitor to India" (p. 10) might experience of the well-known and beloved simian hero. He then contrasts this poetic chaos with some of the responses that the "West" has had from the time of the early Orientalists. The tactic works and the reader is engaged. Carefully situating himself within an academic tradition that "has been characterized by a willingness to look beyond the ancient authoritative texts and elite practices privileged by earlier Orientalists" (p. 11), he critiques current scholarship for failing, for the most part, to go outside of the major cults of traditional Hindu South Asia and sees the present study as a means to address this lack. The remainder of the chapter summarizes past scholarship on Hanuman and then addresses Lutgendorf's own approach and intended contribution. Over and above a study of Hanuman as he has been understood by previous scholarship and contextualized in terms of the Ramkatha, the author is interested in the stories about Hanuman beyond the purview of the epic saga. Finally, Lutgendorf pursues a more speculative undertaking, in which he wishes "to decipher the cultural and psychosocial 'message' encoded in the narrative, iconography, and worship" (p. 28) of this deity.