There are some interesting facts about Hanuman and The Ramayana of Valmiki.
There are over 1600 versions of Ramayana and this include the Regional Editions like Rama Charitamanas, Kamba Ramayana and the foreign versions
like the Indonesian and Balinese.It may not be proper to call the later as Foreign as they were once part of the Bharata Varsha.
Hanuman finds a place in many a places in Hindu Purans and even in Jainism.
There are no references to Hanuman in the Vedas.
However Rama finds a mention and there is a Upanishad Rama Rahsyopanishad.
Read my post on this.
Vedas mention Rama and Ramayana mentions Vedas.
Which is earlier?
I shall be posting on this interesting subject.
Now to many Ramayanas.
Valmiki is called the Adi Kavi and the Ramayana is the Adi Kavya-the first Literary work(of Mankind)
Yet there is a version of Ramayana considered older than Ramyana .
And it was suppressed so that one Valmiki Ramayana gets prominence.
This is the HanumanRamayana by Hanuman!
After the victory of Rama over Ravana, Hanuman went to the Himalayas to continue his worship of the Lord Rama.
There he scripted a version of the Ramayana on the Himalayan mountains using his nails, recording every detail of Rama’s deeds.
When Maharishi Valmiki visited him to show him his own version of the Ramayana, he saw Hanuman’s version and became very disappointed.
When Hanuman asked Valmiki the cause of his sorrow, the sage said that his version, which he had created very laboriously, was no match for the splendour of Hanuman’s, and would therefore go ignored. At this, Hanuman discarded his own version, which is called the Hanumad Ramayana.
Maharishi Valmiki was so taken aback that he said he would take another birth to sing the glory of Hanuman which he had understated in his version.
Later, one tablet is said to have floated ashore during the period of Mahakavi Kalidasa, and hung at a public place to be deciphered by scholars
Kalidasa is said to have deciphered it and recognised that it was from the Hanumad Ramayana recorded by Hanuman in an extinct script, and considered himself very fortunate to see at least one pada of the stanza.
Lord Chathur-Mukha Jaya Maruthi with four Veda faces, inscribed His version of Lord Shri Ram’s divine story as MARUTHI RAMAYANA on hundreds of thousands of rocks.
Even though the MARUTHI RAMAYANA pre-dates the Valmiki Ramayana, Lord Jaya Maruthi Hanuman wanted Maharishi Valmiki’s Ramayana to become famous as the first Ramayana and so He did not announce His own version.
Such is Hanuman’s deep humility, broad mindedness and magnanimity…
Citation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanuman
http://www.agasthiar.org/a/jaya-maruthi-hanuman.htm
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