Ramcharitmanas

(“Holy Lake of Rama’s Deeds”) Vernacular
retelling of the Ramayana, the earlier of
the two great Sanskrit epics. The
Ramcharitmanas was written by the
poet-saint Tulsidas (1532–1623), in the
language known as Avadhi, an eastern
variant of medieval Hindi. Evidence
indicates that Tulsidas began the text
in Ayodhya in 1574. At nearly 10,000
lines, this text is by far his longest work
and is generally considered to be his
greatest. For the most part the poem is
structured in groups of six to eight
verses written in the chaupai form, followed by a verse in the shorter doha
form. (The doha verse either sums up
the essence of the preceding chaupai
verses or serves to foreshadow later
developments.) There are also verses
written in longer meters such as
savaiya, as well as invocations in fluid
Sanskrit poetry at the beginning of
each of the seven sections. Tulsidas
was a masterful epic poet, as evidenced both by the sheer size of his
text and the high poetic quality of the
verses contained in it.
As with all the Ramayana’s vernacular retellings, Tulsidas did not merely
translate the story of Rama but interpreted it according to his own religious
convictions. His two most important
changes to the poem are the overwhelming emphasis on the importance
of devotion (bhakti), and the saving
power of the name of Rama, to which
Tulsidas gives greater importance than
Rama himself. Tulsidas also includes
mythic material from a variety of other
sources, most notably the Shiva Purana
and the Adhyatmaramayana. This
material is largely added to the first and
last chapters, in which Tulsidas makes
his greatest changes from the original
558
Rambha Ekadashi
epic. One theory to explain why Tulsidas
brought in this other material argues
that he endeavored to transcend narrow
sectarian boundaries, for example, by
having the god Shiva narrate much of
the text in the form of a dialogue to his
wife Parvati. Later, in part of the final
book, Shiva is supplanted as narrator by
the crow Bhushundi, who symbolizes
the power of devotion to rescue even a
common carrion-eating crow.
The Ramcharitmanas has popularly
been called the “Bible of northern
India,” reflecting its enormous influence
on ordinary people’s piety. Although
according to legend Tulsidas faced some
opposition from brahmins who thought
it sacrilegious to translate the Ramayana
into a vernacular tongue, the text has
been immensely popular with ordinary
people. Even now there are many people
who can recite large sections from
memory (“discourses” (katha) on the
text can draw hundreds or thousands
of people) and many of the verses have
become proverbial expressions in
modern Hindi. Aside from reading or
hearing the text, millions of people see
it each autumn, in the dramatic presentation known as the Ram Lila. The
oldest and most traditional Ram Lila,
held at Ramnagar in Benares, uses the
text from the Ramcharitmanas, and
takes great pride in this traditionalism.
For further information see Philip
Lutgendorf, The Life of a Text, 1991.