Tulsidas
Rambola Dubey, popularly known as Goswami Tulsīdās, was a Vaishnava Hindu saint, devotee and poet, renowned for his devotion to the deity Rama. He wrote several popular works in Sanskrit, Awadhi, and Braj Bhasha, but is best known as the author of the Hanuman Chalisa and of the epic Ramcharitmanas, a retelling of the Sanskrit Ramayana, based on Rama's life, in the vernacular Awadhi language.
Tulsidas spent most of his life in the cities of Banaras and Ayodhya. The Tulsi Ghat on the Ganges in Varanasi is named after him. He founded the Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple in Varanasi, believed to stand at the place where he had the sight of the deity. Tulsidas started the Ramlila plays, a folk-theatre adaptation of the Ramayana.
Tulsidas has been acclaimed as one of the greatest poets in Hindi, Indian, and world literature. The impact of Tulsidas and his works on the art, culture, and society in India is widespread and is seen today in the vernacular language, Ramlila plays, Hindustani classical music, popular music, and television series.
Transliteration and etymology
The Sanskrit of Tulsidas can be transliterated in two ways. Using the original Sanskrit, the name is written as Tulasīdāsa. Using the Hunterian transliteration system, it is written as Tulsidas or Tulsīdās reflecting the vernacular pronunciation. The lost vowels are an aspect of the Schwa deletion in Indo-Aryan languages and can vary between regions. The name is a compound of two Sanskrit words: Tulasī, which is an Indian variety of the basil plant considered auspicious by Vaishnavas, and Dāsa, which means slave or servant and by extension, devotee.Incarnation of Valmiki
He is believed by many to be a reincarnation of Valmiki. In the Hindu scripture Bhavishyottar Purana, the god Shiva tells his wife Parvati how Valmiki, who received a boon from Hanuman to sing the glory of Rama in vernacular language, will incarnate in future in the Kali Yuga.Nabhadas writes in his Bhaktamal that Tulsidas was the re-incarnation of Valmiki in the Kali Yuga. The Ramanandi sect believes that it was Valmiki himself who incarnated as Tulsidas in the Kali Yuga.
According to a traditional account, Hanuman went to Valmiki numerous times to hear him sing the Ramayana, but Valmiki turned down the request saying that Hanuman being a monkey was unworthy of hearing the epic. After the victory of Rama over Ravana, Hanuman went to the Himalayas to continue his worship of Rama. There he scripted a play version of the Ramayana called Mahanataka or Hanuman Nataka engraved on the Himalayan rocks using his nails. When Valmiki saw the play written by Hanuman, he anticipated that the beauty of the Mahanataka would eclipse his own Ramayana. Hanuman was saddened at Valmiki's state of mind and, being a true bhakta without any desire for glory, Hanuman cast all the rocks into the ocean, some parts of which are believed to be available today as Hanuman Nataka. After this, Valmiki was instructed by Hanuman to take birth as Tulsidas and compose the Ramayana in the vernacular.
Early life
Birth
Tulsidas was born on Saptami, the seventh day of Shukla Paksha, the bright half of the lunar Hindu calendar month Shraavana. This correlates with 11 August 1511 of the Gregorian calendar. Although as many as three places are mentioned as his birthplace, most scholars identify Soron in Kasganj, Uttar Pradesh, a city on the banks of the river Ganga. In 2012 Rajapur, Uttar Pradesh was declared officially by the government of Uttar Pradesh as the birthplace of Tulsi Das. His parents were Hulsi and Atmaram Dubey. Most sources identify him as a Saryupareen Brahmin of the Bharadwaj Gotra. Tulsidas and Sir George Grierson give the year of his birth as Vikram 1568. These biographers include Ramkrishna Gopal Bhandarkar, Ramghulam Dwivedi, James Lochtefeld, Swami Sivananda and others. The year 1497 appears in many current-day biographies in India and in popular culture. Biographers who disagree with this year argue that it makes the life span of Tulsidas equal 126 years, which in their opinion is unlikely if not impossible. In contrast, Ramchandra Shukla says that an age of 126 is not impossible for a Mahatma like Tulsidas. The Government of India and provincial governments celebrated the 500th birth anniversary of Tulsidas in the year 2011 CE, according to the year of Tulsidas' birth in popular culture.Childhood
Legend goes that Tulsidas was born after staying in the womb for twelve months, he had all thirty-two teeth in his mouth at birth, his health and looks were like that of a five-year-old boy, and he did not cry at the time of his birth but uttered Ram instead. He was therefore named Rambola, as Tulsidas himself states in Vinaya Patrika. As per the Mula Gosain Charita, he was born under the Abhuktamūla constellation, which according to Hindu astrology causes immediate danger to the life of the father. Due to the inauspicious astrological configurations at the time of his birth, on the fourth night he was sent away by his parents with Chuniya, a female house-help of Hulsi. In his works Kavitavali and Vinayapatrika, Tulsidas attests to his family abandoning him after birth.Chuniya took the child to her village of Haripur and looked after him for five and a half years, after which she died. Rambola was left to fend for himself as an impoverished orphan, and wandered from door to door for menial jobs and alms. It is believed that the goddess Parvati assumed the form of a Brahmin woman and looked out for Rambola every day. or alternately, the disciple of Anantacharya. Rambola was given the Virakta Diksha with the new name of Tulsidas. Tulsidas narrates the dialogue that took place during the first meeting with his guru in a passage in the Vinayapatrika. When he was seven years old, his Upanayana was performed by Narharidas on the fifth day of the bright half of the month of Magha at Ayodhya, the birthplace of Sri Rama. Tulsidas started his learning at Ayodhya. After some time, Narharidas took him to a particular Varaha Kshetra Soron, where he first narrated the Ramayana to Tulsidas. Tulsidas mentions this in the Ramcharitmanas.
Most authors identify the Varaha Kshetra referred to by Tulsidas with the Sookarkshetra is the Soron Varaha Kshetra in modern-day Kasganj, Tulsidas further mentions in the Ramcharitmanas that his guru repeatedly narrated the Ramayana to him, which led him to understand it somewhat.
Tulsidas later came to the sacred city of Varanasi and studied Sanskrit grammar, four Vedas, six Vedangas, Jyotisha and the six schools of Hindu philosophy over a period of 15–16 years from the guru Shesha Sanatana who was based at the Pancaganga Ghat in Varanasi. Shesha Sanatana was a friend of Narharidas and a renowned scholar on literature and philosophy.
Marriage and renunciation
There are two contrasting bards regarding the marital status of Tulsidas. According to the Tulsi Prakash and some other works, Tulsidas was married to Ratnavali on the eleventh day of the bright half of the Kartik month in Vikram 1604. Ratnavali was the daughter of Dinbandhu Pathak, a Brahmin of the Parashar gotra, who belonged to narayanpur village of Gonda district. They had a son named Tarak who died as a toddler. Once when Tulsidas had gone to a Hanuman temple, Ratnavali went to her father's home with her brother. When Tulsidas learned of this, he swam across the Sarju river in the night to meet his wife. Ratnavali chided Tulsidas for this, and remarked that if Tulsidas was even half as devoted to God as he was to her body of flesh and blood, he would have been redeemed. Tulsidas left her instantly and left for the holy city of Prayag. Here, he renounced the grihastha stage and became a sadhu.Some authors consider the marriage episode of Tulsidas to be a later interpolation and maintain among that he was celibate. These include Rambhadracharya, who cite two verses in the Vinayapatrika and Hanuman Bahuka that Tulsidas never married and was a sadhu from childhood.
Later life
Travels
After renunciation, Tulsidas spent most of his time at Varanasi, Prayag, Ayodhya, and Chitrakuta but visited many other nearby and far-off places. He travelled across India to many places, studying with different people, meeting saints and sadhus, and meditating. The Mula Gosain Charita gives an account of his travels to the four pilgrimages of Hindus and the Himalayas. He visited Lake Manasarovar in current-day Tibet, where tradition holds he had Darshan of KaagBushundi, the crow Bushundi who is one of the four narrators in the Ramcharitmanas.Darshan of Hanuman
Tulsidas hints at several places in his works, that he had met face to face with Hanuman and Rama. The detailed account of his meetings with Hanuman and Rama are given in the Bhaktirasbodhini of Priyadas. According to Priyadas' account, Tulsidas used to visit the woods outside Varanasi for his morning ablutions with a water pot. On his return to the city, he used to offer the remaining water to a certain tree. This quenched the thirst of a Preta, who appeared to Tulsidas and offered him a boon. Tulsidas said he wished to see Rama with his eyes, to which the Preta responded that it was beyond him. However, the Preta said that he could guide Tulsidas to Hanuman, who could grant the boon Tulsidas asked for. The Preta told Tulsidas that Hanuman comes every day disguised as a leper to listen to his Katha, he is the first to arrive and last to leave.That evening Tulsidas noted that the first listener to arrive at his discourse was an old leper, who sat at the end of the gathering. After the Katha was over, Tulsidas quietly followed the leper to the woods. In the woods, at the spot where the Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple stands today, Tulsidas firmly fell at the leper's feet, shouting "I know who you are" and "You cannot escape me". At first the leper feigned ignorance but Tulsidas did not relent. Then the leper revealed his original form of Hanuman and blessed Tulsidas. When granted a boon, Tulsidas told Hanuman he wanted to see Rama face to face. Hanuman told him to go to Chitrakuta where he would see Rama with his own eyes.
At the beginning of the Ramcharitmanas, Tulsidas bows down to a particular Preta and asks for his grace. According to Rambhadracharya, this is the same Preta which led Tulsidas to Hanuman.