Hanuman
Hanuman is one of India's most important popular deities. Hanuman is enormously strong, has magic powers, and is a skilled healer, but his greatest quality is his devotion to Rama. His status as Rama's servant is also said to make him more attentive to other devotees' pleas. This picture--a mural on a Haridwar pilgrim rest house built in 1923-- shows Hanuman carrying Rama (dark figure) and Lakshmana (light figure) on his shoulders, thus serving as a mobile attack platform. A few years later the entire building was painted a beautiful blue, and this image (and others) were gone. I understand the desire for a good-looking building, but the loss still pains me.
This 2014 image was part of a small temple cluster underneath a tree in Haridwar. The red vermillion and strips of tinsel are reapplied every day as an act of worship. Cloves stuck on this image form his necklace, tika (forehead mark), and Rama's name over his heart. Though hard to see, Hanuman's right hand carries his club, and the left holds aloft the mountain containing the life-giving herb to save Rama's brother Lakshmana. When Hanuman was unable to find the herb, he brought the whole mountain instead. Hanuman is a strong protective figure, but his status as a fellow devotee of Rama makes him less exalted and more accessible. This image was probably bought ready-made in the marketplace (see immediately below).
Here are a ready-made images stacked in the Hardwar marketplace (behind the owner's motorcycle), waiting for a customer to take them away. These are retail merchandise, and any potential customer could touch them without any hesitation. At the upper left is a niche containing a small shrine with several images--a Shiva linga in the front, with a pot suspended over it to drip water on the image (both as an offering, and as a way to "cool" the deity), and behind it is a smaller image of Hanuman, with silver foil all over his body and the upraised arm. These of course are objects of worship, and thus very different from the ones for sale in front.
This image from Koteshvar (2014) shows a Panchamukha or "Five-Faced" Hanuman. This image--associated with tantric practice, and thus more powerful--comes from the story of Mahiravana, king of the underworld, who kidnapped Rama and Lakshmana and held them prisoner. Hanuman tracked them down, but discovered that to kill Mahiravana he had to extinguish 5 lamps simultaneously. He did this by taking 5 different forms (from left to right): Varaha, Garuda, Hanuman, Narasimha, and Hayagriva, each of which blew out one of the lamps. All five forms are connected with Vishnu: Varaha and Narasimha are two of Vishnu's 10 avatars, Garuda is Vishnu's eagle mount, Hayagriva (associated with knowledge) is considered a form of Vishnu, and Hanuman is of course Rama's faithful servant.
By virtue of his size and strength, Hanuman has traditionally been the patron deity of wrestlers. Here we see Hanuman's reputation for strength moving into a more modern idiom--fitness--as well as ads for the other things that the tourist market in Pushkar demands (2005).
This poster titled Hanuman Lila or ("Hanuman's Deeds") illustrates many stories associated with him. Many of these come from the Ramayana, but others reflect his popular importance as a deity in his own right. The central image shows Hanuman carrying the mountain with the life-giving herb to save Lakshmana (when he couldn't find it on the mountain, he brought the whole mountain back instead). This poster (probably from the 1970s) was given to me by Dr. Allen Hauk, who taught Religion at Carthage for many years.
Click here to another page showing the sequence of the smaller images, running clockwise from the upper left.