[9] The authorship of the Hanuman Chalisa [1](remover of obstacles) is attributed to Tulsidas, a poet-saint who lived in the 16th century CE.

Among Hindus worldwide, it is a very popular belief that chanting the Chalisa invokes Hanuman's divine intervention in grave problems.

A composer of several popular works, he is best known for being the author of the epic Ramcharitmanas, a retelling of the Ramayana in the vernacular Awadhi language.

[15][20][21][22] The Hindu deity to whom the prayer is addressed is Hanuman, an ardent devotee of Rama (the seventh avatar of Vishnu) and a central character in the Ramayana.

[35] The Hanuman Chalisa is one of the best selling Hindu religious books and has been sung by many popular bhajan, classical and folk singers.

[36] A recording based on the same traditional melodies was released in 1992 by Super Cassettes Industries, with Hariharan as the singer and Gulshan Kumar as the artiste.

[36] The renditions by Unni Krishnan, Nithyasree Mahadevan, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Ganapathi Sachchidananda Swamiji and Morari Bapu are also popular.

One of the scenes show the protagonist Arjun Singh Rathod (played by Rajneesh Duggal), reciting the Hanuman Chalisa in full.

It is used in an important sequence in Bajrangi Bhaijaan, when the protagonist fights back against child traffickers and rescues a little girl from them.

[41][42] Popular singers who have sung the Hanuman Chalisa include Carnatic singer M. S. Subbulakshmi, as well as Lata Mangeshkar, Mahendra Kapoor, S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, Shankar Mahadevan, Anuradha Paudwal, Kailash Kher, Sukhwinder Singh, Sonu Nigam, Hariharan, and Udit Narayan.

[43] A rendition of Hanuman Chalisa sung by Hariharan became the first devotional song and first on YouTube to cross 3.5 billion views in November 2023.