"Saint Tulasidas"

Explaining his object is composing the great work "SRI RAMACHARITAMANAS", written in metres, suited to the occasion and handled with unusual deftness, Saint Sri Tulasidas told in its introductory verses "My intellect is beggary but my ambition is high". "I am confident that while the noble ones would be happy and joyous to hear the stories of Rama, the foolish ones would laugh at me. Well, if they wish to laugh at my homely speech or poor wit, let them for, it is through no fault of mine; it is because of their inability to understand the true nature of real devotion to the Lord that the story I tell, would sound insipid. To the true and disciplined worshippers of HARI and HARA, the story of Raghubar (Rama) will be sweet as honey".

Saint Tulasidas the incarnation of humility, who rejected cooked food for Twelve years and survived on fruits and fallen leaves, obtained the physical darshan Sri Rama, through the spiritual companionship of Sri Hanuman, wrote Ramacharitamanas in the 16th Century, now popularly known as Tulasidas Ramayan. He was the choisest messenger of God who occupies the most decisive position amongst the singers of the Ramasaga peculiar to himself. The writing of Ramacharitamanas started on March 31st 1574 A.D. marking Sri Rama's birth anniversary and was completed in Two years seven months 26 days which has immortalised Sri Tulasidas and its immense popularity has hailed him as a renouned Saint that prompted Mira Bai to seek his gracious advice through letters. Saint Keshab Das, Raja Mansing and even emperor Akbar somotto granted him tax-free lands but when Tulasidas was sounded for the grant of MANSABDARI, he politely declined the Royal offer and said : "I do not need any temporal honour, because the greatest offer I have received is to continue under the sphere of love of Rama".

Who is this great Tulasidas, whose determination and devotion was the power that pushed him through all frustrations and obstacles, is now revered by the people of our country? It is a fact that there are much confusion on the time and place of birth of Tulasidas, though there is unanimity on his death that was in the year at the age of Eighty years. But it is now generally agreed and accepted that Tulasidas was born at RAJAPUR (U.P.) to mother Hulasi and father Atma Ram around 1543 A.D. The legend says that the child was unusal, that he was born a year after conception, that he was as big as "a child of five" and had thirty two teeth but instead of crying he was uttering the word Rama, For which was given the name "RAMBOLA".

The mother of the new born, hearing the whispers of the baby, feared the worst and asked her faithful maid servant Muniya to whiskaway the child at the dead of night to the maid's in-laws house across the river so that the child is saved from the fear of death. Surprisingly mother Hulasi breathed her last, three days after the incident. Within five years while nurturing the boy there were calamities in quick succession in the maid servant's house for which father Atma Ram was intimated to take the boy, but the father declined for fear of impending bad luck for him and told "the child is as good as dead for him".

Forsaken by the family and relations, the child roamed about aimlessly, was spotted by a saint who cursed the father of Rambola and surprisingly the father Atma Ram also died that completed the cycle of calamity for the forlorn boy. Tulasidas has himself said that being forshaken by the parents and all relatives, he begged for alms, picking-up crumbs and his place of sleep was the local Muslim Mosque.

Miraculously as per providence another wondering Saint Sri Naraharyanada who appeared on the seen, feeling pity, took Rambola and adopted him as a disciple giving required initiation near the Sarayu river. Saint Naraharyanda gave Rambola the name of Tulasidas after initiation and took him to Ayodhya, the place hallowed by the name of Rama and subsequently to Kasi the holy city of ancient Indian knowledge and culture. Here SesNarayan the great and most respected Sanskrit Pandit of Kasi could find brilliant talent in Tulasidas and taught him, Puranas, Vedas and all scriptures. Fifteen years of Guru-Sishya relationship ended in the demice of Sesnarayan and the silken thread that bound them having been severed, Tulasidas pondering over his future returned to his birth place to find no trace of even his house, which had crumbled down, but the villagers welcomed the son of the soil who returned as an erudite scholar. His command, on the scriptures, vast knowledge of the ancient Hindu lore started the villagers as well as the people of the surrounding villagers.

One Brahmin of the nearby village being moved with the scholarship of Tulasidas, spontaneously decided to offer the hand of his daughter to Tulasidas and being frustrated to know the negative views of Tulasidas, started a fast on to death to coerce him for marrying his daughter- Ratnavali, Tulasidas had to concede to see the predicament and determination of the Brahmin. The ordained marriage which was solemnised was not only a success but Tulasidas became so passionately in love with his wife and so deeply attached that he even could not bear the thought of a little separation from her.

the turning point

One day in the absence of Tulasidas, his wife went to her father's house to observe Rakhya Bandhan and when Tulasidas returned to his house in the night he was severely distressed to find his wife left for her father's house. Passionate and sexual Tulasidas felt increasingly restless and plunged into the water of the river in spate to swim across and reached his father-in-laws house. Poor Ratnavali though felt flattered for the devotion shown by the husband, mused and cajoled Tulasidas, telling him that if he had devoted to Rama only a fraction of love that he has shown to the Perishable body, a bundle of flesh and bones, he would have achieved salvation.

These words moved Tulasidas to such an extent that it completely turned him back on the life of a house holder. All the affectionate effort of his wife could not persuade him to stay back or look to the back. He experienced a change of heart and said: Oh, mother what you say is true and bowing before her said: dependence on external relationship is actually ignorance, that need to be dispelled.

All his sweet intoxication of passion and satiation evaporated instantly and he replied "oh, is that so? Well, "I Shall show you". He left, noticing in passing the corpse, and the snake, amazed at the blindness which sex had engendered him. He left his own home and wandered the world as a Sadhu.

And Ratnavali? She was as good as a widow after that. She helped her husband attain God and ruined her marriage in the bargain. She did not meet Tulsidas for several years. Once she finally located him, he told her, "You are my first Guru. I must always respect you for pushing me on to the path that led to Rama. The journey on the pathless path to cover all the principal pilgrime centres and places associated with the life of RAMA including the valleys in the Himalayas and Mansarover was going on. All the prolonged travels actually gave him an idea of the diverse condition and habits of people in different parts of India that was reflected in his early book "VAIRAGYA SANDI PANI" seems to have been the result of pilgrimages but it did not bring out the real genious of Tulasidas.

It is only Sri Ramcharitamanas which made him immortal, written in Ayodhya and Kasi in the midst of serious hostility of the so-called learned Brahmins who had monopolished the Sanskrit Ramayana of Valmiki. They not only vehemently opposed the writing in spoken language but tried to terrorise and manhandle Tulasidas. The hostility was so ferocious that it prompted Tulasidas to send his petition to Lord Sri Rama on the advice of Sri Hanuman, contained in his "VINAYA PATRIKA", where he refers to his humble beginnings, from which Sri Rama had rescued him and taken him into his protective care. Ramacharitmanas is of the highest artistic merit, which consists of 5000 Choupiyas (Quatrains) and 1.200 Dohas (couplets) is based not only on the familiar story of Ramayana by Valmiki Who has portrayed Rama as a model man but also in fact more, where Rama is portrayed as an incarnation of the Supreme.

Ramacharitmanas with some 200 odd characters is so vast, ranging as it does from God Almightly Himself, in the human form to the insignificant spider and in addition to human being, embraces Gods, deities, serpants, monkeys, bears, birds of all species, whose thoughts are significantly projected as those of human beings. The hero, heroine and villian have all been conceived in the traditional pattern of an epic. However, despite his being rooted in the age old values of Philosophy and poetry, Tulasidas does introduce some changes in the text, and his yardstick of the strength or weakness of a character is just one, namely, devotion to Rama.

The seven cantos of Ramachairtamanas, according to tradition were written:

To row across the ocean of the World;

To wash away arrogant hypocrisy and establish the Pure and highest religion;

To destroy the accumulated sins of Kaliyuga and to highlight the beauty of devotion to God;

To erase sectarianism and teach the lesson of love and devotion;

To create enthusiasm in the hearts of the holy and enhance the joy of the Good;

To explain how devotion to Hari depends upon Hara; and

To point out the way to the Vedic Path.

Tulasidas's potrayal of Ravana as; brave, courageous, judicious, knowledgeable and simultaneously haughty, insolent, violent, passionate, lustful and despite such weakness described him as a great character, because the higher the stature of Ravana, higher still was that of Rama was his sole intention. He makes Ravana's maternal Grand father, Malyavan, his brother Vibhisana, Kumbhakarna and wife Mondodari, appear fully aware of the divinity of Rama and almost were his admirers. They all criticised RAVAna for his evil ways and even rebuffed him. People of our country continue to worship Ramacharitmanas as a great work and recite it or hear it being recited with deep devotion. There is no village in Northern India, where the story is not recited or staged every year at the time of Dussehra, that deeply move the masses and at several context shed tears, reveals the Hindu ideal of Code of Conduct.

Mahatma Gandhi in his story "My Experience with Truth".

said "What left a deep impression on me, when one was reading Ramayana before my father..........the reader was a great devotee of Rama Sri Ladha Maharaj of Bileswar............." I must have been 13 years at that time; but I quite remember being enrapted by his reading, that laid the foundation of my deep devotion to Ramayana. To day, I regard the Ramayana of Tulasidas as the greatest book of all devotional literature".

Throughout Mahatma Gandhi's writings we find him Profusely Quote verses from Tulasidas;- he knew the whole work by heart and drew such inspiration from it that he is reported to have said there was no situation in human life to which Tulasidas has not referred. When once a Questioner asked him where from he drew inspiration for his noncooperation movement, Gandhiji referred to the dialogue between Ravana, the demon king of Lanka, and Sita who had been given an ultimatum that she must respond to his overtures or face dire consequences. That is, Sita told Ravana:"Only two things that can touch my neck. They are either the soft-but-as-strong-as an-elephant's-trunk-like arms of my husband Rama; or the sword. No third force can touch me". This, said Gandhiji, was what formed the basis of non-cooperation. Gandhiji always insisted that he drew inspiration from Tulasidas for his belief that Truth signifies God, the idea for which, all of his life was preaching for "Rama Rajya", the state of Governance in the Rama's kingdom as portrayed by Tulasidas. Sri Rajgopalchari wrote, Tulasidas made his vision of God into a concrete reality for the commonest of masses around him. His great love of the common folk, enabled him to produce a work that has stood the test of centuries like a rock among Philosophers, Pundits and lowly men and women.

Vincent A.Smith. the British biographer of "Akbar the great", referred to Tulsidas as "the tallest tree in the magic garden" of mediaval Hindu poetry. His name will not be found in the Ain-in-Akbari, or in the pages of any Muslim annalist or in the books of European Authors based on the narratives of the Persian historians, yet that Hindu was the greatest man of his age in India- greater even than Akbar himself, in is much as the conquest of the hearts and minds of millions of men and women affected by the poet, was an achievement infinitely more a lasting work that has stood the test of time, the importance of influence of which cannot be exaggerated. It is the bible of the Hindu speaking Hindus.

"Love Burns the Lover,

Devotion Burns the Beloved,

Love Seeks Happiness For

The Beloved,

Devotion Seeks for Blessings

From the Beloved".

"Saint Tulasidas"

Saint Tulasidas the incarnation of humility, who rejected cooked food for Twelve years and survivehad gained currency in India before the Mughals came in. And a remarkable and unparalleled facility that Tulasidas showed was in adopting thousands of words to the Metres in which he wrote or composed. It is a rare treat to see him use Nouns as Verbs and Verbs as Nouns. He could do so by slightly twisting the tail of a word or by adapting the syllables. This is something which nobody else has had been able to do earlier, and indeed has done since his time with such debtness. He gave a new texture to language, and all this with idea of propagating the story of RAMA the incarnation of the Divinity.

Ramacharitmanas was actually His life's harvest which was rich in all aspects. Even to day millions of simple, devoted souls find solace in its recitation, when ever they are in distress, mentally or otherwise. The elite also find in this epic great depths of meaning- aesthetic and spiritually the concentrated thought of varied schools of Philosophy.

The Philosophical conviction of Santha Sri Tulasidas is revealed from these basic ideas which he followed and called others to follow:

Without being God-fearing, love for God is not possible, and without love for God, realization is impossible.

Citing his own life he said: "even after renouncing wealth, home, relatives and wife one cannot easily renounce the lust for name and fame, nor can one easily purify the ego and direct his emotions towards self Realisation." So cultivation of a new mind is a necessity for enlightenment. Self discipline is most important in the path of Spirituality. Renunciation is a path of fire, and should be followed only by those who have burned their worldy desires. Fulfilling wants and desires without understanding the actual needs and necessities, deviates one from the path of awareness. Desire is the mother of all miseries. When the desire for world attainments are directed towards attaining self-awareness, then the same desire becomes a means. At this stage the desire, instead of becoming an obstacle, becomes a useful instrument for self-realisation. This is explained by him by a simple simile. " A candle light is extinguished by the breeze very easily, but if that light is protected and allowed to catch the forest, it shall grow into a forest fire. Then the breeze helps that forest fire instead to extinguishing it. Similarly, when an aspirant, with the help of discipline, protects the flame of desire burning within, it grows more and more. Then all the adversities, instead of becoming obstruction, in fact start becoming means. The obstacles which are supposed to obstruct the path of self-realisation are not really obstacles. The weaknesses and the values one imposes on the objects of the world creates these obstacles for oneself and with the help of non-attachment only, one can overcome the obstacles of attachment". He has unequivocally told that disappointments, greed, lust, hatred, anger and jealously cannot be renounced without spiritual discipline.

Goswami Tulasidas as he is revered wrote Parvati Mangal, Janaki Mangal, Ramlal-Nahachhu, Vairagya-Sandipani and finally Sri Ramacharitmanas, not to display his learning or to tickle the ears of pedants, but he wrote for the people and had his reward that he succeeded in getting his teachings contained in it accepted. He founded no sect, laid down no dogmatic creed, and yet his great work and mission is still shedding its spiritual light as a guide and saviour of mankind.