Rambola Dubey (; 11 August 1511 – 30 July 1623pp. 23–34.), popularly known as Goswami Tulsīdās (), was a Vaishnava (Ramanandi) Hindu saint, devotee (भक्त) and poet, renowned for his devotion to the deity Rama. He wrote several popular works in Sanskrit, Awadhi, and Braj Bhasha, but is best known as the author of the Hanuman Chalisa and of the epic Ramcharitmanas, a retelling of the Sanskrit Ramayana, based on Rama's life, in the vernacular Awadhi language.
Tulsidas spent most of his life in the cities of Banaras (modern Varanasi) and Ayodhya., quoting Mata Prasad Gupta: Although he paid occasional visits to several places of pilgrimage associated with Rama, his permanent residence was in Kashi. The Tulsi Ghat on the Ganges in Varanasi is named after him. He founded the Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple in Varanasi, believed to stand at the place where he had the sight of the deity. Tulsidas started the Ramlila plays, a folk-theatre adaptation of the Ramayana.: ... this book ... is also a drama, because Goswami Tulasidasa started his Ram Lila on the basis of this book, which even now is performed in the same manner everywhere.
He has been acclaimed as one of the greatest poets in Hindi, Indian, and world literature.: He is not only the supreme poet, but the unofficial poet-laureate of India.: Of Tulasidasa's place among the major Indian poets there can be no question: he is as sublime as Valmiki and as elegant as Kalidasa in his handling of the theme. The impact of Tulsidas and his works on the art, culture and society in India is widespread and is seen today in the vernacular language, Ramlila plays, Hindustani classical music, popular music, and television series.: ... – scores of lines from the Rāmcaritmānas have entered folk speech as proverbs – ...: The hottest-selling recording in the thriving cassette stalls of Banaras in 1984... was a boxed set of eight cassettes comprising an abridged version of the Manas sung by the popular film singer Mukesh... it is impossible to say how many of the sets were sold, but by 1984 their impact was both visible and audible. One could scarcely attend a public or private religious function in Banaras that year without hearing, over the obligatory loudspeaker system, the familiar strains of Murli Manohar Svarup's orchestration and Mukesh's mellifluous chanting.: On 25 January 1987, a new program premiered on India's government-run television network, Doordarshan... it was the first time that television was used to present a serialized adaption of a religious epic. The chosen work was the Ramayan and the major source for the screenplay was the Manas. Long before the airing of the main story concluded on 31 July 1988, the Ramayan had become the most popular program ever shown on Indian television, drawing an estimated one hundred million viewers and generating unprecedented advertising revenues. Throughout much of the country, activities came to a halt on Sunday mornings and streets and bazaars took on a deserted look, as people gathered before their own and neighbors' TV sets.... The phenomenal impact of the Ramayan serial merits closer examination than it can be given here, but it is clear that the production and the response it engendered once again dramatized the role of the epic as a principal medium not only for individual and collective religious experience but also for public discourse and social and cultural reflection.
Transliteration and etymology
The Sanskrit name of Tulsidas can be transliterated in two ways. Using the original Sanskrit, the name is written as Tulasīdāsa. Using the Hunterian transliteration system, it is written as Tulsidas or Tulsīdās reflecting the vernacular pronunciation (since the written Indian languages maintain the vestigial letters that are no longer pronounced). The lost vowels are an aspect of the Schwa deletion in Indo-Aryan languages and can vary between regions. The name is a compound of two Sanskrit words: Tulasī, which is an Indian variety of the basil plant considered auspicious by Vaishnavas (devotees of god Vishnu and his avatars like Rama), and Dāsa, which means slave or servant and by extension, devotee.
Sources
Tulsidas himself has given only a few facts and hints about events of his life in various works. Till late nineteenth century, the two widely known ancient sources on Tulsidas' life were the Bhaktamal composed by Nabhadas between 1583 and 1639, and a commentary on Bhaktamal titled Bhaktirasbodhini composed by Priyadas in 1712. Nabhadas was a contemporary of Tulsidas and wrote a six-line stanza on Tulsidas describing him as an incarnation of Valmiki. Priyadas' work was composed around a hundred years after the death of Tulsidas and had eleven additional stanzas, describing seven miracles or spiritual experiences from the life of Tulsidas.
During the 1920s, two earlier biographies surfaced from manuscript discoveries: the Gosain Charit (c. 1770) by Dasanidas (Bhavanidas), which expanded considerably upon Priyadas's narrative, and the Mula Gosain Charit, purportedly composed in 1630 by Tulsidas's contemporary disciple, Veni Madhav Das. Though the Mula Gosain Charit claimed firsthand eyewitness authority and provided an alternative birth date, it was widely challenged. Literary scholars dismissed the 1926 Bihar manuscript as a late-nineteenth-century forgery, pointing to traces of modern Khari Boli, preciseness of names and dates, and anachronisms such as the phrase satyam śivam sundaram—which Pitambar Datt Barthwal identified as a translation of the English expression "the true, the good and the beautiful". Yet despite being "widely regarded as spurious" by scholars, Lutgendorf suggests that the text achieved immense devotional success. It was popularized through an inexpensive Gita Press edition in 1934 and came to dominate the popular conception of Tulsidas's life.
In the 1950s a fifth ancient account was published based on an old manuscript, the Gautam Chandrika composed by Krishnadatta Misra of Varanasi in 1624. Krishnadatta Misra's father was a close companion of Tulsidas. The accounts published later are not considered authentic by some modern scholars, whereas some other scholars have been unwilling to dismiss them. Together, these five works form a set of traditional biographies on which modern biographies of Tulsidas are based.
Incarnation of Valmiki
He is believed by many to be a reincarnation of Valmiki. In the Hindu scripture Bhavishyottar Purana, the god Shiva tells his wife Parvati how Valmiki, who received a boon from Hanuman to sing the glory of Rama in vernacular language, will incarnate in future in the Kali Yuga (the present and last yuga or epoch within a cycle of four yugas).Rambhadracharya 2008, p. xxv. Devanagari IAST वाल्मीकिस्तुलसीदासः कलौ देवि भविष्यति । vālmīkistulasīdāsaḥ kalau devi bhaviṣyati । रामचन्द्रकथामेतां भाषाबद्धां करिष्यति ॥ rāmachandrakathāmetāṃ bhāṣābaddhāṃ kariṣyati ॥
Nabhadas writes in his Bhaktamal (literally, the Garland of bhakt or devotee) that Tulsidas was the re-incarnation of Valmiki in the Kali Yuga.Growse 1914, p. v.Prasad 2008, p. xix.Lamb 2002, p. 38 The Ramanandi sect believes that it was Valmiki himself who incarnated as Tulsidas in the Kali Yuga.
According to a traditional account, Hanuman went to Valmiki numerous times to hear him sing the Ramayana, but Valmiki turned down the request saying that Hanuman being a monkey was unworthy of hearing the epic. After the victory of Rama over Ravana, Hanuman went to the Himalayas to continue his worship of Rama. There he scripted a play version of the Ramayana called Mahanataka or Hanuman Nataka engraved on the Himalayan rocks using his nails. When Valmiki saw the play written by Hanuman, he anticipated that the beauty of the Mahanataka would eclipse his own Ramayana. Hanuman was saddened at Valmiki's state of mind and, being a true bhakta without any desire for glory, Hanuman cast all the rocks into the ocean, some parts of which are believed to be available today as Hanuman Nataka. After this, Valmiki was instructed by Hanuman to take birth as Tulsidas and compose the Ramayana in the vernacular.
Early life
Birth Tulsidas was born on Saptami, the seventh day of Shukla Paksha, the bright half of the lunar Hindu calendar month Shraavana (July–August).Gita Press Publisher 2007, p. 25. This correlates with 11 August 1511 of the Gregorian calendar. Although as many as three places are mentioned as his birthplace, most scholars identify Soron in Kasganj, Uttar Pradesh in Uttar Pradesh, a city on the banks of the river Ganga. In 2012 Chitrakoot was declared officially by the government of Uttar Pradesh as the birthplace of Tulsi Das. His parents were Hulsi and Atmaram Dubey. The 'Mishrabandhus', after an investigation in and around Rajapur, have affirmed that the place is inhabited by Kanyakubja Dwivedi Brahmanas, and if Tulsidas was a Dwivedi, it is more likely that he was a Kanyakubja Brahmin. But According to Mata Prasad Gupta, Kanyakubja Brahmins traditionally despised accepting alms or donations. Since Tulsidas himself mentions that his family sustained itself through alms, this suggests that he may have belonged to the Saryuparin Brahmin community. Tulsidas and Sir George Grierson give the year of his birth as Vikram 1568 (1511 CE).Ralhan 1997 pp. 187–194. These biographers include Ramkrishna Gopal Bhandarkar, Ramghulam Dwivedi, James Lochtefeld, Swami Sivananda and others. The year 1497 appears in many current-day biographies in India and in popular culture. Biographers who disagree with this year argue that it makes the life span of Tulsidas equal 126 years, which in their opinion is unlikely if not impossible. In contrast, Ramchandra Shukla says that an age of 126 is not impossible for a Mahatma (great soul) like Tulsidas. The Government of India and provincial governments celebrated the 500th birth anniversary of Tulsidas in the year 2011 CE, according to the year of Tulsidas' birth in popular culture.
Childhood
Tulsidas was born after staying in the womb for twelve months, he had all thirty-two teeth in his mouth at birth, his health and looks were like that of a five-year-old boy, and he did not cry at the time of his birth but uttered Rama instead.Rambhadracharya 2008, pp. xxvi–xxix.Gita Press Publisher 2007, pp. 25–27.Tripathi 2004, pp. 47–50. He was therefore named Rambola (literally, he who uttered Rama), as Tulsidas himself states in Vinaya Patrika.Poddar 1997, pp. 112–113 (Stanza 76). As per the Mula Gosain Charita, he was born under the Abhuktamūla constellation, which according to Hindu astrology causes immediate danger to the life of the father.Pandey 2008, pp. 34–44. Due to the inauspicious astrological configurations at the time of his birth, on the fourth night he was sent away by his parents with Chuniya (some sources call her Muniya), a female house-help of Hulsi.Shukla 2002, pp. 27–30. In his works Kavitavali and Vinayapatrika, Tulsidas attests to his family abandoning him after birth.Lamb 2002, p. 38Lutgendorf 1991, p. 6.Indradevnarayan 1996, pp. 93–94, 101–102 (Quatrains 7.57, 7.73).Poddar 1997, pp. 285–286, 337–338 (Stanzas 227, 275).