HANUKKAH, a Jewish festival, the “Feast of Dedication” (cf. John x. 22) or the “Feast of the Maccabees,” beginning on the 25th day of the ninth month Kislev (December), of the Hebrew ecclesiastical year, and lasting eight days. It was instituted in 165 B.C. in commemoration of, and thanksgiving for, the purification of the temple at Jerusalem on this day by Judas Maccabaeus after its pollution by Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria, who in 168 B.C. set up a pagan altar to Zeus Olympius. The Talmudic sources say that when the perpetual lamp of the temple was to be relighted only one flask of holy oil sufficient for the day remained, but this miraculously lasted for the eight days (cf. the legend in 2 Macc. i. 18). In memory of this the Jews burn both in synagogues and in houses on the first night of the festival one light, on the second two, and so on to the end (so the Hillelites), or vice versa eight lights on the first, and one less on each succeeding night (so the Shammaites). From the prominence of the lights the festival is also known as the “Festival of Lights” or “Illumination” (Talmud). It is said that the day chosen by Judas for the setting up of the new altar was the anniversary of that on which Antiochus had set up the pagan altar; hence it is suggested (e.g. by Wellhausen) that the 25th of Kislev was an old pagan festival, perhaps the day of the winter solstice.
For further details and illustrations of Ḥanukkah lamps see Jewish Encyc., s.v.
HANUMAN, in Hindu mythology, a monkey-god, who forms a central figure in the Ramayana. He was the child of a nymph by the god of the wind. His exploits, as the ally of Rama (incarnation of Vishnu) in the latter’s recovery of his wife Sita from the clutches of the demon Ravana, include the bridging of the straits between India and Ceylon with huge boulders carried away from the Himalayas. He is the leader of a host of monkeys who aid in these supernatural deeds. Temples in his honour are frequent throughout India.
HANWAY, JONAS (1712-1786), English traveller and philanthropist, was born at Portsmouth in 1712. While still a child, his father, a victualler, died, and the family moved to London. In 1729 Jonas was apprenticed to a merchant in Lisbon. In 1743, after he had been some time in business for himself in London, he became a partner with Mr Dingley, a merchant in St Petersburg, and in this way was led to travel in Russia and Persia. Leaving St Petersburg on the 10th of September 1743, and passing south by Moscow, Tsaritsyn and Astrakhan, he embarked on the Caspian on the 22nd of November, and arrived at Astrabad on the 18th of December. Here his goods were seized by Mohammed Hassan Beg, and it was only after great privations that he reached the camp of Nadir Shah, under whose protection he recovered most (85%) of his property. His return journey was embarrassed by sickness (at Resht), by attacks from pirates, and by six weeks’ quarantine; and he only reappeared at St Petersburg on the 1st of January 1745. He again left the Russian capital on the 9th of July 1750 and travelled through Germany and Holland to England (28th of October). The rest of his life was mostly spent in London, where the narrative of his travels (published in 1753) soon made him a man of note, and where he devoted himself to philanthropy and good citizenship. In 1756 he founded the Marine Society, to keep up the supply of British seamen; in 1758 he became a governor of the Foundling, and established the Magdalen, hospital; in 1761 he procured a better system of parochial birth-registration in London; and in 1762 he was appointed a commissioner for victualling the navy (10th of July); this office he held till October 1783. He died, unmarried, on the 5th of September 1786. He was the first Londoner, it is said, to carry an umbrella, and he lived to triumph over all the hackney coachmen who tried to hoot and hustle him down. He attacked “vail-giving,” or tipping, with some temporary success; by his onslaught upon tea-drinking he became involved in controversy with Johnson and Goldsmith. His last efforts were on behalf of little chimney-sweeps. His advocacy of solitary confinement for prisoners and opposition to Jewish naturalization were more questionable instances of his activity in social matters.
Hanway left seventy-four printed works, mostly pamphlets; the only one of literary importance is the Historical Account of British Trade over the Caspian Sea, with a Journal of Travels, &c. (London, 1753). On his life, see also Pugh, Remarkable Occurrences in the Life of Jonas Hanway (London, 1787); Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. xxxii. p. 342; vol. lvi. pt. ii. pp. 812-814, 1090, 1143-1144; vol. lxv. pt. ii. pp. 721-722, 834-835; Notes and Queries, 1st series, i. 436, ii. 25; 3rd series, vii. 311; 4th series, viii. 416.
HANWELL, an urban district in the Brentford parliamentary division of Middlesex, England, 10½ m. W. of St Paul’s cathedral, London, on the river Brent and the Great Western railway. Pop. (1891) 6139; (1901) 10,438. It ranks as an outer residential suburb of London. The Hanwell lunatic asylum of the county of London has been greatly extended since its erection 1831, and can accommodate over 2500 inmates. The extensive cemeteries of St Mary Abbots, Kensington, and St George, Hanover Square, London, are here. In the churchyard of St Mary’s church was buried Jonas Hanway (d. 1786), traveller, philanthropist, and by repute, introducer of the umbrella into England. The Roman Catholic Convalescent Home for women and children was erected in 1865. Before the Norman period the manor of Hanwell belonged to Westminster Abbey.