Vinaya Patrika

(“letter of petition”) One of the later
poetic works by the poet-saint
Tulsidas (1532–1623?), in the form of a
series of 280 short poems written in
the Braj Bhasha dialect. The entire
work is presented as a letter of petition
to Tulsidas’s chosen deity, Rama,
using as his intermediary the monkeygod Hanuman. The letter’s general
theme is a plea for deliverance from
the evils of the current degenerate age
(kali yuga). The first sixty-odd verses
are a series of invocations paying
homage to various deities, showing
the ecumenical quality that more generally marks Tulsidas’s devotion. The
remainder of the poem is directed to
Rama and stresses other themes that
run throughout Tulsidas’s poetry. One
theme is the corrupted nature of the
present cosmic age, the kali yuga,
which makes devotion the only effective means to salvation. Another pervasive theme is the power of God’s
name and its incomparable ability to
rescue the devotee (bhakta). Finally,
there are warnings to the hearers not
to waste the opportunity of a human
birth. Much of the poetry has an intimate personal quality, and it seems to
reflect both the poet’s despair at his
own frailty and his eventual hope for
salvation. From this general tone, the
Vinaya Patrika is generally assumed
to have been written in the later part
of the poet’s life, although it cannot be
precisely dated.