How I Got My Name and Powers

Hello and welcome back. Today I am going to tell you of the time when I got my name and powers. Remember that this all happened when I was super little, and that being said, I remember the beginning of the day leading up to the accident and after I woke up. I am going to tell you the story exactly how my mother told it to me when I was little, except for the beginning and the ending of the story because I actually remember those parts.

It all began in my childhood. I was about five years old or so and was playing with some friends that day. We were tossing a ball back and forth in a field behind my house. I got really hungry and wandered away from my friends. I was searching for something to eat. I was really in the mood for some fruits. When all of a sudden, I found a nice, ripe mango just sitting there in the sky. This is the last memory from before the accident that I actually remember.

Apparently, I leaped up into the sky trying to grab a mango so I could eat it. But who would have imagined that it was actually the sun and not a fruit? I guess not me. Can you imagine how embarrassing it must have been for me? Well, thank goodness I do not remember that! Before I could grab the sun, Indra, the king of the gods, interfered and hit me with a thunderbolt. That thunderbolt hit me in the jaw, and I fell to the earth dead with a shattered jaw.

My friends saw and heard everything. They quickly ran and brought my parents to where I was lying on the ground. My father was in shock, while my mother was in a frenzy when she saw her only son dead on the ground. She immediately started praying to any and every god. Out of pity for Anjana, Vayu, the lord of the winds and deity of breath, stopped the flow of all air on Earth. The lack of air on Earth created a tremendous amount of pain and suffering for all creatures that lived on it. Lord Shiva, also known as the destroyer of evil, decided to resuscitate me but could not fully repair my jaw. He fixed me the best he could, but there would be a scar on my jawline. Because of Shiva’s decision to resurrect me, Vayu released his grasp on the air, and life continued as normal.

Since all of this happened because Indra struck me with a thunderbolt, Indra granted me a wish that made my body as strong as his Vajra, so even the Vajra could not hurt me. More gods came and bestowed me with wishes. Agni, the Fire God, came and granted me the wish that not even fire could harm me. Varuna, the Water God, bestowed the power that no water would hurt me. Vayu decided to visit out of respect and placed the wish of wind upon me. It would let me be as fast as the wind while it could also not hurt me. Lord Brahma appeared and gave me the ability to move from place to place without being stopped. Finally, Lord Vishnu came and gave me a weapon called gada in Sanskrit, what you call a mace. It is like a heavy club and is what people see me carrying around a majority of the time.

Because of all these wishes bestowed upon me, I became an immortal with all sorts of different powers and tremendous strength. The gods reassured my parents that I would wake up after a few hours.

After what felt like a long nap, I remember waking up with a pounding headache and a pain in my jaw. I asked my mother what had happened. That is when my mother told me the story that I just mentioned up above. After listening to the story, I went to look in the mirror. What I saw shocked me! I had a lightning bolt scar on my jawline. From then on, my friends started calling me Hanuman which is like the Sanskrit word for "big-jaw." This is the story of how I got my name and powers. I hope you enjoyed hearing it just as I did telling it to you.