Tulsidas

In the Treta Yuga, the great rishi Valmiki composed the Ramayana in one hundred crore verses, each syllable so supremely sacred that merely hearing them frees even those steeped in the gravest sins. Now, in the iron age of Kaliyuga, when jivas had grown crooked and forgetful, that same Valmiki took birth again as Goswami Tulasidasa. The Skanda Purana states it plainly: Valmiki became Tulasi, and Vani, Sarasvati herself, became his speech. What the rishis had once rendered in the high Sanskrit of the gods, Tulasidasa would render in the common Awadhi of the people, so that the nectar of Rama-katha might flow into every lane and every hut.

His arrival in this world was attended by signs both wondrous and terrible. He remained in his mother Hulsi's womb for a full twelve months. When at last he emerged, he did not cry as infants do. Instead, the newborn opened his mouth and uttered the syllable "Rama." All thirty-two teeth were already set in his gums, and his body was unusually large and strong. Because his first sound was that holy name, the family called him Rambola, "the one who speaks Rama." Yet the astrologers saw only catastrophe. He was born under the Abhuktamula nakshatra, a constellation so inauspicious that it threatens the father's very life. Terror gripped the household. On the fourth night, his parents sent him away with Chuniya, a maidservant, and closed their doors behind him.

Chuniya carried the infant to her village of Haripur and raised him with whatever love and means she possessed. For five and a half years she was his only shelter. Then she too died, and the boy was left entirely alone. He wandered from village to village, begging for scraps of food, sleeping under trees, knowing neither family nor home. It was in this condition that the sadhu Narharidas, a saint of the Ramananda sampradaya, found the child and took him in. He gave the boy a new name, Tulasidasa, and initiated him into the mantra of Shri Rama. Under Narharidas, Tulasidasa received his first instruction in the shastras, in devotion, and in the singing of Rama's qualities. The seed of bhakti, already present from countless prior births, now found its soil.

As a young man, Tulasidasa married a woman named Ratnavali. His attachment to her was absolute. He could not bear even a few hours of separation. One day, Ratnavali went to her father's house without informing him. When Tulasidasa discovered she was gone, he was beside himself. Night had fallen. The river Yamuna was swollen with monsoon rains, dark and churning. No boatman would cross. But Tulasidasa plunged in without hesitation. In the blackness, his hands found what he believed was a floating log, and he clung to it and kicked his way across. It was not a log. It was a bloated corpse drifting downstream. He did not notice, or did not care.

Reaching the far bank, he found that the doors of his father-in-law's house were bolted for the night. Ratnavali's room was on the upper floor. He saw what appeared to be a thick rope hanging from her balcony and hauled himself up hand over hand. It was not a rope. It was a serpent, coiled and hanging from the ledge. When Ratnavali lit a lamp and saw what her husband had done, she was not moved to tenderness. She was horrified. She said to him: "Shame on you. The thing you crossed the river on was a dead man's body. The thing you climbed was a living snake. If you had even half the longing for Shri Rama that you have for this body of mine, this cage of flesh and bone, you would have crossed the ocean of samsara long ago and reached the far shore of eternal bliss."

Those words struck Tulasidasa like an arrow loosed from a bow drawn to the ear. He did not answer. He did not stay another moment. He walked out of the house, out of the village, and out of the life of a householder forever. He became a wandering sadhu, traveling the length of northern Bharat, visiting every tirtha and every sacred river, crying out the name of Rama to anyone who would listen and to the empty sky when no one would.

In Kashi, where he settled at last, a strange grace found him. Each day, Tulasidasa would pour the leftover water from his morning puja at the roots of a certain tree. Unknown to him, a preta, a restless ghost, dwelt in that tree, and the water quenched a thirst that had tormented the spirit for ages. One night the preta appeared before him and said: "You have relieved my suffering without even knowing it. Ask me for any boon." Tulasidasa asked for the darshana of Shri Hanuman. The preta told him: "There is an old man, afflicted with leprosy, who comes first to every recitation of the Ramayana and leaves last. That man is Hanuman himself."

Tulasidasa watched carefully at the next katha. Sure enough, an aged leper arrived before all others and sat in rapt attention throughout. When the recitation ended, Tulasidasa followed him out of the city and into the forest. There he fell at the old man's feet and would not let go. "I know who you are," he said. "I will not release your feet until you show me your true form." Hanuman, pleased by such fierce and unrelenting devotion, revealed himself. The place where this meeting occurred is now the site of the Sankat Mochan Temple in Varanasi. Tulasidasa begged for one thing: to see Shri Rama in His royal form with his own eyes. Hanuman said: "Go to Chitrakut. Darshana will be granted there."

Tulasidasa set out immediately. At Chitrakut, he sat at the place Hanumanji had indicated and waited, his heart on fire with longing. One day, two young princes came riding through on horseback, dressed in green hunting garments, chasing a deer. One was dark-complexioned, the other fair. They galloped past in a blur of dust and beauty, and Tulasidasa looked but could not be certain. His mind, so practiced in doubt and analysis, failed him at the crucial instant. When Hanumanji came and asked, "Did you see your beloved Prabhu?" Tulasidasa confessed: "I saw, but I could not recognize Him with certainty. Please, show me once more." Hanumanji, with infinite patience, arranged a second darshana. This time, on the bank of the Mandakini river, Shri Sita and Shri Rama were seated upon a simhasana. Shri Bharata held the royal chhatra above them. Shri Lakshmana and Shatrughna waved chamaras on either side. The full divine court was assembled. Tulasidasa saw, and this time there was no doubt. His eyes overflowed. His body trembled. Every cell of his being was flooded with the light of that vision. Hanumanji, the compassionate son of the wind, had fulfilled the deepest prayer of Tulasidasa's heart.

It was on the sacred day of Rama Navami, in Chaitra of Vikram Samvat 1631, in the holy city of Ayodhya, that Tulasidasa set stylus to leaf and began composing the Shri Ramcharitmanas. He called it not a purana but a manas, a sacred lake, into which the rivers of Rama's lila flow and in which the devotee may bathe and be cleansed. He wrote in Awadhi, the language spoken by the common people, not in the Sanskrit reserved for pandits. This was a deliberate and revolutionary act of love. For two years, seven months, and twenty-six days, the verses poured through him. Every chhanda, every doha, every chaupai carried the fragrance of that direct darshana at Chitrakut.

The Brahmins of Kashi were outraged. A vernacular Ramayana? Written by a man who was not even born into privilege? They declared it an affront to tradition and to the sanctity of Sanskrit. They devised a test. The manuscript of the Ramcharitmanas was placed at the very bottom of a pile of scriptures inside the sanctum of the Vishvanath Temple. The Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas were all stacked above it. The doors were locked for the night. When the priests opened the sanctum in the morning, the Ramcharitmanas lay on top of every other scripture. And upon its pages, in letters no human hand had written, appeared the words: Satyam Shivam Sundaram. The signature beneath them was that of Mahadeva Shiva himself. The critics fell silent.

But the testing was not over. Thieves came one night to rob Goswamiji's dwelling, hoping to seize whatever wealth a famous poet might possess. From every direction they approached, and from every direction they were turned back. A dark-complexioned young warrior stood guard, extraordinarily beautiful, with a quiver at his waist and a bow and arrow in his hands. No matter which way the thieves circled, there he was, his bow drawn, his eyes blazing. All through the long night, this sentinel kept watch. By dawn, the thieves were transformed. The beauty of that guardian had entered their hearts and dissolved the impulse to steal. They came before Goswamiji and asked: "Maharaj, who is that young warrior of dark complexion who guards your home? Where has he gone?" Hearing this, Tulasidasa fell silent. Tears poured from his eyes. In his heart arose a burning remorse: for the sake of worthless material things, his beloved Shri Rama had kept watch through the entire night like a common guard. At that very moment, he distributed every coin, every vessel, every possession he owned. The thieves fell at his feet, received the Rama-mantra and true instruction, and walked away as devotees.

In Kashi, a Brahmin who had committed a terrible sin came on pilgrimage, weeping and calling out: "Rama, Rama! Give alms to a murderer!" The pandits shunned him. Tulasidasa heard the man's cry and noticed something the pandits had missed: before calling himself a murderer, the man had uttered the supremely sacred name. He went to the Brahmin and said: "Since you speak the name of my beloved Shri Rama with such genuine remorse and humility, you have already been purified." He seated the man in the row of diners and fed him Rama-prasada. The pandits of Kashi were furious and convened a sabha, demanding to know how Tulasidasa could declare the man's sin absolved without formal prayashchitta. Tulasidasa replied: "You read the shastric texts but do not hold their essence in your hearts. The name of Rama is not a mere word. It is the fire that burns all karma to ash. It is the river that carries the jiva across. What prayashchitta can surpass the name itself?"

Shri Goswamiji himself declared, in a pada that rings through the centuries: "Birth after birth, Tulasidasa has sung the virtues of Shri Janaki-natha." He took the ananya vrata, the vow of exclusive devotion, and passed his days and nights immersed in the nama, the yasha, and the katha of Shri Rama. Like a bumblebee drunk on the nectar of the lotus, he clung to the feet of Sita-Rama and could not be pried away. His plea to Siya Swamini echoes still: "O Siya Swamini, in whom other than Your lotus feet can I place my trust? Though I am the lowliest among the ignorant, still I am called Yours. Keep me ever near Your charana." For the deliverance of crooked jivas drowning in the ocean of samsara, he took as his vessel the easy-to-approach, two-armed form of Para-Brahma: Sitapati Sharangadhara, Saketa-vihari Shyamasundara Shri Rama, His nama, and His guna-lila-katha. This was the boat he built and set upon the waters of the age, and it carries souls still.