Tulsidas

1. Tulsidasji is believed to be the paramount saint, poet, philosopher and more importantly an unwavering devotee of Lord Ram born in the 15th century. His universally renowned Ram Charit Maanas is beleived to be the saviour of the Hindu Dharma at a time when humanity was faced with great distress. His own life, though full of dejection and sorrow, was full of humility and was simple. He is one of those poets whose creations and devotion command re .....

History

2. Tulsidas was born at the 7th day in the month of Shraavana (July or August), in the bright half of the lunar. His birth place is identified at the Rajapur (also known as the Chitrakuta) at the banks of the Yamuna river in UP. The name of his parents is Hulsi and Atmaram Dubey. According to the biographers, various opinions are there regarding the birth year of Tulsidas. Many of them say according to the Vikrami Samvat that he took birth in 1554 a .....

Incarnation of the Valmiki

3. It is believed that Tulsidas was the reincarnation of Valmiki. According to the Hindu scripture Bhavishyottar Purana, Lord Shiva had described to his wife Parvati that how Valmiki will incarnate in the Kal Yuga.According to the sources, it is considered that the Hanuman was used to go to Valmiki to hear him singing the Ramayana. After the triumph of Lord Rama over Ravana, Hanuman was continued to worship the Rama at Himalayas. .....

Learning

4. Rambola (Tulsidas) was given the Virakta Diksha (known as Vairagi initiation) and got the new name, Tulsidas. His Upanayana was performed by the Narharidas at Ayodhya when he was just of 7 years old. He started his first learning at the Ayodhya. He mentioned in his epic the Ramcharitmanas that his guru narrated him the Ramayana over and over again. He came to the sacred city Varanasi when he was just 15?16 years old and got the knowledge of Sansk .....

Marriage and Renunciation

5. According to the Mula Gosain Charita and some other works, Tulsidas was married to Ratnavali on the thirteenth day of the bright half of the Jyeshta month (May?June) in Vikram 1583 (1526 CE). Ratnavali was the daughter of Dinbandhu Pathak, a Brahmin of the Bharadwaja Gotra, who belonged to Mahewa village of Kaushambi 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 f .....

How he meet to the Lord Hanuman

6. Tulsidas meet the Hanuman at his own Katha, he fell at the Hanuman?s feet and shouting that I know who you are so you cannot get away leaving me. Then, the Hanuman blessed him a lot. Tulsidas had expressed his feeling in front of Hanuman that he want to see Rama confronting each other. Hanuman guided him and told that go to the Chitrakuta where you would really see the Rama. .....

How he meet to the Rama

7. After getting instructed with the Hanuman, he pursued the instructions of Hanuman and started to live in the Ashram at Ramghat in Chitrakuta. One day when he went for making the Parikrama of the Kamadgiri Mountain, he saw the two princes on the horsebacks. But he could not distinguish them. Later when he acknowledged that they were Rama and Lakshman by the Hanuman, he got disappointed. All these events are described by himself in his writing Gita .....

About his literary life

8. Tulsidas had composed the Statue at Tulsi Manas Mandir, Chitrakuta, Satna, India. He then started to compose poetry in the Sanskrit at the listener in the Varanasi. It is considered that Lord Shiva himself had ordered him to compose his poetry in the vernacular language instead of the Sanskrit. When Tulsidas opened his eyes, he saw that both Shiva and Parvati had blessed him. He ordered to go to Ayodhya and write his poetry in the Awadhi. .....

Composition of the Epic Ramcharitmanas

9. He started to write the Ramcharitmanas in Ayodhya on the Ramnavami of the Chaitra month in the year 1631. He completed his writing of the Ramcharitmanas in two years, seven months and twenty six days in the year 1633 at the Vivaha Panchami (marriage day of the Rama and Sita) of the month Margashirsha.He came to the Varanasi and delivered the epic Ramcharitmanas to the Lord Shiva and Mata Parvati at the Kashi Vishwanath Temple. .....

Darshan of Sri Ram

10. Another legend tells us that Tulsi would pour some water at the base of a banyan tree when he passed that way after his morning ablutions. A spirit that was suffering the effects of past evil deeds lived on that same tree.Tulsi?s offering relieved the spirit of its agony. Wanting to express gratitude to Tulsi, the spirit asked him what he wished. What else would Tulsi want but the holy darshan of Sri Ram? The spirit replied: ?An old man attends y .....

The Ramayana

11. The Valmiki Ramayana was Tulsidas's inspiration. It is an epic that is broad in scope and provides guidance for all the stages of one?s life?incidentally, ayana means journey (of life). Human life, in all its facets and fancies, twists and turns, ups and downs, is on display in the Ramayana. People of different spiritual states derive different light and meaning from the text in accordance with their need and understanding. Ordinary human life ca .....

Tulsis Works

12. The works of Tulsidas are about Sri Ram, with two exceptions: Krishna-gitavali and Parvati-mangal. Tulsidas?s magnum opus, the Ramcharitmanas, is the story of Sri Ram retold in mellifluous language an outburst of bhakti based on his own spiritual experiences. Although the origin of the Ramcharitmanas lies in the Valmiki Ramayana, its immediate source is the Adhyatma Ramayana. What are the differences between these two Ramayanas? The Valmiki Ramay .....

Tulsis Philosophy

13. Tulsidas was ardently devoted to Sri Ram; in his works, Sri Ram functions as a symbol on which the human mind can focus for the double purpose of conceiving the ultimate Reality and expressing devotion to it. Thus, Tulsi?s Ram is not a historical human character, but Satchidananda, which has not even an iota of the darkness of delusion? This is the reason why other deities such as Krishna and Shiv appear in his works rather interchangeably in add .....

The Vinay patrika

14. A criminal used to beg everyday with the call: ?For the love of Ram, give me?a murderer?alms.? Hearing the name of Ram, the delighted Tulsidas would cheerfully take him inside his house and give him food. This behaviour of Tulsi infuriated the orthodox brahmanas, who demanded an explanation. Tulsidas told them that the name ?Ram? had absolved the person concerned of all his offences. This attitude of Tulsi incensed the people further. In a fit of .....

The Ramcharitmanas

15. The Valmiki Ramayana was Tulsidas's inspiration. It is an epic that is broad in scope and provides guidance for all the stages of one?s life incidentally, ayana means journey (of life) Human life, in all its facets and fancies, twists and turns, ups and downs, is on display in the Ramayana. People of different spiritual states derive different light and meaning from the text in accordance with their need and understanding. Ordinary human life can .....

Spiritual Heritage

16. The longing for supernal beings is as old as humankind itself. Ancient people worshipped the forces of nature to propitiate them or invoke their power. The Vedas are replete with prayers to Indra, Varuna, Agni, and other such gods. After the decline of the Vedic and Buddhist thought, the bhakti movement was ushered in by a host of saints. Sri Ramanujacharya (1017?1137), who gave bhakti a firm philosophic base and also popularized it, was one of t .....

Counteracting Occultism

17. At that time there were four major secretive cults that cultivated the practice of supernatural powers: the Vedic sacrificial, the Tantric, the Natha, and the Mahanubhava. It is natural that common people will equate religion with occultism.Tulsidas?s teachings bailed out religion from this pitfall and made it plain and simple. He emphasized living a virtuous life and developing human perfection, as opposed to supernatural achievement. .....

Opposition to Left hand Practices

18. With his devotion and teachings, Tulsidas provided an alternative to the cults that showed a proclivity for debauchery. Shakta cults used to practise the rite of chakra-puja, in which an equal number of men and women sit round in a circle and partake of the five ?m?s: madya (wine), mamsa (meat), matsya (fish), mudra (cereals) and maithuna (sexual union). The Shaiva cults of the kapalikas and kalamukhas also followed licentious rituals and practic .....

Introduction of an Ideal to Emulate

19. A person directly described as a superhuman deity would surely fail to be a model for human beings to emulate?in such a case, people would ?worship? him rather than emulate him! Tulsidas presented a picture of human perfection, achievable by common people, through which one could uplift and divinize one?s own character.Tulsidas never became attracted to miracles or money. He was guileless but fearless and frank, innocent but outspoken and plain i .....

Travels

20. After renunciation, Tulsidas spent most of his time at Varanasi, Prayag, Ayodhya, and Chitrakuta but visited many other nearby and far-off places. He traveled across India to many places, studying different people, meeting saints and Sadhus and meditating. The Mula Gosain Charita gives an account of his travels to the four pilgrimages of Hindus (Badrinath, Dwarka, Puri and Rameshwaram) and the Himalayas.He visited the Manasarovar lake in current- .....

Darshan of Yajnavalkya and Bharadvaja

21. In Vikram 1628 (1572 CE), Tulsidas left Chitrakuta for Ayodhya where he stayed during the Magha Mela (the annual fair in January). Six days after the Mela ended, he had the Darshan of the sages Yajnavalkya and Bharadvaja under a banyan tree. In one of the four dialogues in the Ramcharitmanas, Yajnavalkya is the speaker and Bharadvaja the listener. Tulsidas describes the meeting between Yajnavalkya and Bharadvaja after a Magha Mela festival in the .....

Nirguna and Saguna Brahman

22. As per Tulsidas, the Nirguna Brahman (quality-less impersonal absolute) and Saguna Brahman (personal God with qualities) are one and the same. It is the devotion (Bhakti) of the devotee that forces the Nirguna Brahman which is quality-less, formless, invisible and unborn, to become Saguna Brahman with qualities. Tulsidas gives the example of water, snow and hail to explain this the substance is the same in all three, but the same formless water .....

Bhakti

23. The Lord is to be approached by faith (bhakti) single minded devotion and surrender of self in perfect love, and all actions are to be purified of self-interest in contemplation of Him. Show love to all creatures, and thou wilt be happy; for when thou lovest all things, thou lovest the Lord, for He is all in all. The soul is from the Lord, and is submitted in this life to the bondage of works (karma); Mankind, in their obstinacy, keep binding the .....

Other works

24. Besides the R?macaritam?nasa, Tulsidas was the author of five longer and six shorter works, most of them dealing with the theme of Rama, his doings, and devotion to him. The former are the Dohavali, consisting of, 573 miscellaneous doha and sortha verses; of this there is a duplicate in the Ram-satsai, an arrangement of seven centuries of verses, the great majority of which occur also in the Dohavali and in other works of Tulsi, the Kabitta Ramay .....

Protests and Magical Events

25. Ramcharitmanas soon gained popularity far and wide, so much so that jealous pandits created a hue and cry in Kashi. They protested that composing Shri Ram Katha in vernacular language inflicted insult on Sanskrit, a language of gods. But truth remains truth. With the aim of testing this new scripture, Ramcharitmanas was put at the top of all scriptures in the temple of Shri Vishvanath ji in Kashi and the door was closed. Next day in the morning, .....

Death

26. Tulsidas died at the Assi Ghat on the bank of the river Ganga in the Shraavan (July?August) month of the year Vikram 1680 (1623 CE). Like the year of his birth, traditional accounts and biographers do not agree on the exact date of his death. Different sources give the date as the third day of the bright half, seventh day of the bright half, or the third day of the dark half. .....