qMonk literal translation — draft, pending review
Ghosts do not come close, and neither do the spirits that feed on flesh —
not when the name of the great hero is spoken out where it can be heard.
Bhūta is the past participle of bhū, to be: one who has been. A bhūta is somebody who was, and has not finished being. Piśāca names a lower and nastier order, flesh- eating, and the two words side by side cover the whole of what might be out there once it is dark.
For most of the centuries this poem has been sung, the dark outside a village was populated, and it was populated by things with names. A stretch of road, a bad death, a fever that would not turn, a night on your own: these had causes, and bhūtas and piśācas were among them. The chaupai does not argue that they are there. It is speaking to people for whom that question had not come up, and it names what keeps them off. Whether anything is out there is not something these two lines set out to settle, and it is not settled here either.
What does the work is the name. Not his presence, not a weapon, not a deed already done — nāma, and specifically sunāvai, which is causative: not "hears" but "causes to be heard," said out so that it carries. Tulsīdās thought hard about this elsewhere. In the Bāl Kāṇḍ of his Rāmcaritmānas he argues at length for the name, holding it greater even than the form it names, so a chaupai that turns entirely on a spoken name is not a stray piece of folk practice in his poem. It is his settled position, in two lines.
One structural thing worth having. Up to here the Chalisa has been addressing Hanumān directly — you did Sugrīva a good turn, your own power is in your hold. From this chaupai the poem turns away and speaks about him in the third person for three chaupais together: his name, Hanumat the hero, Hanumān releases. The second person comes back at the ascetic king. The stretch where the claims are made is exactly the stretch that faces the listener rather than the god — which is what the claim-making stanzas of this literature do.
The line is printed two ways. Some texts have the Awadhi pisāca and mahābīra; the reading followed here has the Sanskritised piśāca and mahāvīra, though the same epithet is spelt mahābīra at the third chaupai in both streams.
What do you say, or sing, when you are frightened in the dark? Does saying it where you can hear it make any difference?
qMonk literal translation — draft, pending review·Devanagari checked against two printings·Draft — awaiting reviewer·How these texts were made