Born: Probably into a Brahmin (priestly caste) family in Soron or Rajapur, Uttar Pradesh, India, 11 August 1532 (some sources suggest 1497, 1526, or 1543). Mother died in infancy, and he was brought up by Baba Narharidas, who took him to Benares. Education: Accepted as disciple by scholar Ses Sanatan. Family: Married Ratnavali; one son. Career: After Sanatan’s death, returned to Rajapur, where he preached the devotional songs (bhakti) of Ram; travelled widely across northern India, and may have met Surdas, q.v., and Mira Bai, q.v. A relatively small number of the works attributed to him thought genuine. Died: 30 June 1623.
Publications
Collections
Granthavali [Complete Works], edited by R.C. Sukla and others.1923-37(?); revised edition, 4 vols., 1973-77.
The Complete Works of Gosvami Tulsidas, translated by S.P. Bahadur. 6 vols., 1978-80.
Verse (principal works)
Ramacaritamanas. As Ramcharita Manasa, edited by Pandit Ramajasana, 1861; Hindi edition, 1889; also edited by S.S. Das, 1917 (abridged) and 1922, V.A. Tripathi 1937; as Ramacaritamanas, edited by S.N. Chaube, 1948; as The Ramayana/ Racaritmanaas, edited by A.G. Atkins (bilingual edition), 3 vols., 1954; as The Ramayana of Tulasi Dasa, translated by F.S. Growse, 4 vols., 1877-81, revised edition, 1978; as The Ramayana of Tulsi Das, translated by J.M. Macfie, 1930; as The Book of Ram: The Bible of India, translated by Hari Prasad Shastri, 1935; as The Holy Lake of the Acts of Rama, translated by W. Douglas P. Hill, 1952; as The Gospel of Love: An English Rendering of Tulasi’s Shri Rama Charita Manasa (The Spiritual Lake of Rama’s Pastime), translated by Chandan Lal Dhody, 1987; as Tulsidasa’s Shriramacharitamanasa, edited and translated by R.C. Prasad, 1988; as Shri Ramcharitamanasa, translated by G.B. Kanungo and Leela Kanungo, 2000. Kavitavali [or Kavitta Ramayana], edited by V.P. Misra, 1948; also edited by C.S. Shastri, 1964; as Kavitavali translated by F.Raymond Allchin. 1964.
Vinayapatrika edited by B.S. Bhatta (Hindi and Braj), 1925; also edited by G. Gupta (Hindi and Braj), 1936, M. Malaviya, 1936, H.P. Dwevedi (Hindi and Braj), 1944, A. Sarana (Hindi and Braj), 4 vols., 1947-66, D.N. Dvivedi, 2nd edition, 1962, R.N. Sarma, 1963, and Viyogi Hari, 1965; as The Petition to Ram, translated by F.Raymond Allchin, 1966.
Other
The Sayings of Tulsidas, edited and translated by Lalo Kannoo Mal. 1923.
Critical Studies:
The Ramayana of Tulsidas by J.M. Macfie (includes translations), 1930; Etude sur les sources et la composition du Ramayana de Tulsidas by C. Vaudeville, 1955; A Comparative Study of Kamba Ramayanam and Tulasi Ramayan by S. Shankar Raju Naidu, 1971; ”The View from the Ghats: Traditional Exigesis of a Hindu Epic,” in Journal of Asian Studies, 48, 1989, and The Life of a Text: Performing the Ramcaritmanas of Tulsidas, both by Philip Lutgendorf, 1991; Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia edited by Paula Richman, 1991; Shri Rama: The Man and His Mission by G.N. Das, 1998; Tulasidasa: A Bibliography by Sudha Verma, 1998; Protocol in Sri Ramcharitmanas by Devi Dayal Aggarwal, 1998; Rama: The Lord of Decorum by Rajendra Arun, 2000.
Tulsidas is the most celebrated poet of modern India. His Ramacaritamanas is one of the most influential works for the Hindus of northern India and is known not only in India but throughout the world. Much of what has come down to us about Tulsidas’s life and the way in which he became a devotee of the god-hero Rama depends on unreliable tradition, and attempts to link his name to the bhakti movement, which advocated the supreme value of the worship of Rama. Like his predecessor Kabir, Tulsidas owes much of his inspiration to the monotheistic devotion of the Vaisnavite sects, who worshipped the god Krsna, a form of worship that had long been popular. Tulsidas’s aim, however, was to group the vital forces in Hinduism about the theme of Rama and make it a living faith. His is the role of a unifier, and he did not hesitate to make use of the previous, sometimes rival, doctrines, such as Krishnaism.
The works attributed to Tulsidas are numerous, but among them only 12 are considered to have been written by him. Most of them deal with the story of Rama and have the object of popularizing his worship. They have, therefore, an edifying purpose. The story of Rama, the great hero who was an incarnation of Visnu, had been told long before by the Sanskrit poet Valmiki, who probably lived in the 4th century BC. The story exerted a profound influence on later poets. A brief survey of Tulsidas’s works will illustrate the sources of inspiration of the poet and the religious aim of his literary production.
The Gitavali is a series of stanzas on the life of Rama, adapted for singing. The Kavitta Ramayana, the Ramajna-prasnavali the Janaki Managala, the Ramalalanahachu, and the Baravai Ramayana, as well as several others that are probably spurious, retell the story of Rama focusing on some event essential to the legend of the hero. The Vinayapatrika (The Petition to Ram) is a collection of petitions addressed to various deities, rivers, sacred places, and the heroes and heroine of the Ramayana of Valmiki. The Krsna Gitavali is a collection of songs in honour of the god Krsna. The Vairagya-sandipini is a didactic treatise which deals with the qualities of the true saint and the peace of mind (santi) he enjoys. Special mention should be made of the Ramasatasai, which contains a systematic exposition of Tulsidas’s religious beliefs. The poem is divided into seven sargas in which the poet teaches: the doctrine of faith (bhakti), central to his work; the path of self-knowledge (atmabodha); the law of action (karma); and the doctrine of knowledge (jnana). There is also a description of the essence of Rama (Ramarasa) in a number of cryptic riddles.
The great masterpiece of Tulsidas is, however, the Ramacaritamanas—translated as The Holy Lake [i.e. the quintessence] of the Acts of Rama—and generally known as the Ramayana of Tulsa. It follows freely the course of the story of the Ramayana of Valmiki, although the writer has also drawn on other Sanskrit sources besides Valmiki. However, the spirit of Tulsidas’s poem is very different from that of Valmiki. The Holy Lake exalts Rama as the supreme Lord above all the other divinities of the Hindu pantheon, and the events narrated are examples of truth and fidelity. The message of the poem is made clear throughout the book: salvation comes only through absolute faith in Rama, The chief merit of Tulsidas’s work lies in the fact that it brought a new message of salvation to the average Hindu, oppressed by the strict tenets of traditional Hinduism which advocated the doctrine of reincarnation and the impossibility of the uneducated people ever attaining the knowledge of the Absolute Truth.
In order to be understood by everybody, Tulsidas used the vernacular in his poem, a fact that provoked the ire of the most traditional pandits, who despised his work as a concession to the uneducated masses. The poem is written in the Avadhi dialect of Hindi, although the influence of other dialects, especially Braj, is also evident. Tulsidas makes use of a simple and vigorous language, which abounds in colloquialisms. We also find descriptive passages of great beauty in which the poet displays his skill in the use of Sanskrit metres and rhymes. These virtues have earned him his fame as the creator of modern Hindi.
The impetus that this work gave to vernacular literature was extremely important. However, The Holy Lake owes its success not so much to its language as to the spiritual message it conveys. It speaks with a human voice to pious Hindus who find their inspiration and example, as well as their means to salvation, in the figure of Rama. This means is devotion (bhakti), evident in all of Rama’s deeds; everything else is illusion (maya). The last verses of the seventh book of The Holy Lake illustrate the message of hope and liberation that the work conveys:
Those who plunge with faith into this Holy Lake of Rama’s Acts, a lake of merit, sin-destroying, ever blessing the soul and granting faith and wisdom, which by its pure, clear waters full of love washes away the filth of ignorance and illusion, are not scorched by the burning rays of the sun of birth and death.
Tulsidas wrote his work at a time in which Hindus felt the need to escape the oppressive intellectualism of Brahmanic philosophy. At the same time, they were aware of the presence of an external threat to their religious beliefs—Muslim power. In these circumstances it is almost logical that Tulsidas’s work, which proposes devotion towards a personal god who loves and sympathizes with his devotees, exerted a profound influence on the Hindu masses. The Holy Lake has influenced Hindu spiritual life to such an extent that it has been rightly called the Bible of the Hindu people of northern India.
