Chapter Five: Avatāra Doctrine and Rama Worship
—and these works are revered like the Veda within the tradition and formally recited throughout the eight periods of the day.
The point is that from the eleventh through the sixteenth centuries, a great tide of mādhurya-bhakti was rising in both spiritual practice and literature. Though guarded as supremely secret, sweet worship had become fully incorporated, just as in the Krishna-bhakti branch.
Glimpses of the sweet disposition in Tulsidas
The Rama whom we encountered in the Mādhurya-gītā as “I am Rama, supreme among weapons” had become “delighted with Janaki and passionately absorbed in playful sport” and “exulting in the nectar of the great rāsa, the lover within every embodied being.” Loving devotees especially cherished this form.
In the next chapter we shall examine in detail how this propriety-centred discipline quietly became sweetness-centred in literature and practice. One further point deserves notice: when composing the Rāmacaritamānasa, Tulsidas must have encountered the abundant literature of sweet worship surrounding him. Some literary historians even hold that outwardly his worship followed the servile disposition, while inwardly it was sweet.1
Sri Brajanidhi says:2
He showered colour and turned countless souls toward him;
Janakanandini and Rama—both hearts drenched in one another’s beauty.
O Tulsidas, servant of those whose Lord and Lady, Raghubara and Janaki, dwell forever within:
have mercy upon me and grant me the gift of the Divine Couple.
Beautiful is the pair of Sita and Rama; I would sacrifice ten million Love-gods before them.
Together they shine in the palace of delight and bewitch every companion’s heart.
Remain, servant Tulsi, crown jewel among all the companions;
serve with lovely taste and sing their stainless fame.
This exclusive servant, seeing you pleased, fell at your feet.
Ah, Tulsidas! By grace you have made me your own.
Brajanidhi then “reveals the secret” of the name Tulsidas:
Victory, victory to Sri Tulsi, the sovereign living tree!
In the forest of bliss your manifest beauty spreads.
Your poems are lovely clusters of blossoms;
Rama, the bee, remains absorbed in them for that very reason—