Tulsidas Life Story - The Saint Who Gave Us the Ramcharitmanas

Goswami Tulsidas (traditionally 1532 to 1623 CE) was born at Rajapur on the banks of the Yamuna in present-day Uttar Pradesh. Tradition tells that his birth itself was extraordinary: he stayed twelve months in the womb, was born with teeth, and instead of crying uttered the word 'Ram' - earning the childhood name Rambola, 'the one who spoke Ram'. But the astrologers called the birth inauspicious, and the infant was abandoned, raised in poverty by a servant woman and then left to beg from door to door. The orphan's fortunes turned when the saint Narharidas took him in, gave him the name Tulsidas, and taught him the katha of Shri Ram at Sookarkhet. The boy who had no family found his family in Ram's story. He later studied Vedas and shastras in Varanasi for many years under the scholar Shesha Sanatana.

Tulsidas married Ratnavali and loved her with an attachment so intense it became the stuff of legend. One day she went to her father's house, and Tulsidas, unable to bear even a night's separation, crossed a stormy, flooded river in the dark to reach her - tradition tells he unknowingly clung to a floating corpse as a raft and climbed to her window holding a hanging snake he mistook for a rope. Ratnavali was mortified, and spoke the words that history remembers:

अस्थि चर्म मय देह मम, ता में ऐसी प्रीति। तैसी जो श्रीराम महं, होति न तौ भवभीति॥

Asthi charm maya deh mam, ta mein aisi preeti; taisi jo Shri Ram mahan, hoti na tau bhavbheeti.

'This body of mine is mere bone and skin; if you had such love for Shri Ram, you would have no fear of the ocean of existence.' The words pierced him like an arrow. Tradition tells he left that very moment, never to return to household life.

As a renunciant in Varanasi, Tulsidas poured his leftover water daily at the roots of a tree. Tradition tells this pleased a preta (spirit) living there, who offered a boon. Tulsidas asked for one thing only: darshan of Shri Ram. The spirit revealed a secret - Hanuman attends every Ram katha, arriving first disguised as an old man with leprosy and leaving last. At the next katha, Tulsidas fell at the old listener's feet and would not let go. Hanuman revealed his true form, and directed him to Chitrakoot, promising that darshan would come. There, devotees believe, Ram and Lakshman rode past him as young princes on horseback, but Tulsidas failed to recognize them. The next dawn at the ghat, as he ground sandalwood paste, a beautiful boy asked him for tilak - and Hanuman, perched as a parrot, sang:

चित्रकूट के घाट पर भई संतन की भीर। तुलसिदास चंदन घिसैं तिलक देत रघुबीर॥

'On Chitrakoot's ghat, amid the crowd of saints, Tulsidas grinds sandal paste while Raghubir himself receives the tilak.'

Tradition tells that Tulsidas began the Ramcharitmanas in Ayodhya on Ram Navami of Vikram Samvat 1631 (1574 CE) and completed it in about two years and seven months. His revolutionary choice was language: instead of scholarly Sanskrit, he wrote in Awadhi, the tongue of farmers, mothers and shopkeepers, so that Ram's story could enter every home. The pandits of Varanasi were outraged at the 'lowering' of sacred narrative. Tradition tells the manuscript was placed overnight in the Kashi Vishwanath temple beneath the scriptures; in the morning the words 'Satyam Shivam Sundaram' - truth, auspiciousness, beauty - were found written upon it with the signature of Shiva himself. The Manas unfolds in seven kands, from Bal Kand to Uttar Kand, its verses arranged like steps leading down into a holy lake - which is exactly what 'Ramcharitmanas' means: the lake of Ram's deeds.

Tulsidas is traditionally revered as the author of the Hanuman Chalisa, the forty verses to Hanuman that are today perhaps the most recited devotional composition on earth. One popular tradition links its composition to a period of imprisonment, when devotees believe Hanuman's grace, invoked through these verses, set events right. Beyond the Chalisa and the Manas, about a dozen works are accepted as his: the Vinaya Patrika, a petition of humble prayers to Ram; Kavitavali, Ram katha in vivid kavitta meters; Dohavali, a treasury of his couplets; Gitavali, the story rendered as songs; and the Barvai Ramayana, among others. Across all of them runs one signature: deep scholarship worn lightly, so that the simplest devotee feels personally addressed. Tulsidas always called himself not a poet but a servant - 'Kavi na hoon, nahin chatur kahavaun' - 'I am no poet, nor do I claim cleverness.'

A few chaupais show why the Manas remains a daily companion for millions.

होइहि सोइ जो राम रचि राखा। को करि तर्क बढ़ावै साखा॥

Hoihi soi jo Ram rachi rakha; ko kari tarak badhavai sakha.

'Only that will happen which Ram has ordained; why grow branches of useless argument?' A verse devotees lean on in every anxiety.

परहित सरिस धर्म नहिं भाई। पर पीड़ा सम नहिं अधमाई॥

Parhit saris dharam nahin bhai; par peeda sam nahin adhamai.

'There is no dharma like doing good to others, brother, and no sin as low as giving others pain.' The whole of ethics in two lines.

बिनु सतसंग बिबेक न होई। राम कृपा बिनु सुलभ न सोई॥

Binu satsang bibek na hoi; Ram kripa binu sulabh na soi.

'Without satsang there is no discernment, and satsang itself is not gained without Ram's grace.' Keep good company - and pray for the grace to find it.

Tulsidas turned the most humiliating night of his life into the seed of the Ramcharitmanas - the first lesson is that no shame is wasted if it turns us toward God. Second, he democratized devotion: by writing in Awadhi he declared that the door to Ram katha has no gatekeeper of language or learning. Whatever language you pray in is sacred enough. Third, his life models dasya bhava, the devotion of a servant: the mightiest scholar of his age signed himself simply as Ram's dog at the door. Fourth, he shows the power of daily discipline - the Manas and the Chalisa were built verse by verse, day by day, just as our own practice grows. Begin with one chaupai a day, or a daily Hanuman Chalisa, and let Tulsidas's lake fill your own life slowly, the way it has filled north India's heart for four and a half centuries.