Hanuman Chalisa is a devotional song based on Lord Hanuman as the model devotee. It is a poem written by Tulsidas in the Awadhi language, and is his best known Hindu text apart from the Ramcharitmanas. The word "chalisa" is derived from "chalis" in Hindi, which means 40, as the Hanuman Chalisa has 40 verses. Hanuman (also known as Anjaneya and Maruti) is a Hindu deity and an ardent devotee of Lord Rama, a central character in the Sanskrit epic Ramayana. Folk tales increasingly eulogize the powe