71 Facts About Tulsidas

Tulsidas was a Smarta-Vaishnava Hindu saint and poet, renowned for his devotion to the deity Rama.

Tulsidas spent most of his life in the city of Varanasi and Ayodhya.

Tulsidas founded the Sankatmochan Temple dedicated to Hanuman in Varanasi, believed to stand at the place where he had the sight of the deity.

Tulsidas has been acclaimed as one of the greatest poets in Hindi, Indian, and world literature.

The Sanskrit name of Tulsidas can be transliterated in two ways.

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.

Tulsidas is believed by many to be a rebirth of Valmiki.

Nabhadas writes in his Bhaktamal that Tulsidas was the re-incarnation of Valmiki in the Kali Yuga.

Tulsidas was born on Saptami, the seventh day of Shukla Paksha, the bright half of the lunar Hindu calendar month Shraavana.

Legend goes that 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.

Tulsidas was therefore named Rambola, as Tulsidas himself states in Vinaya Patrika.

Tulsidas narrates the dialogue that took place during the first meeting with his guru in a passage in the Vinayapatrika.

Once when Tulsidas had gone to a Hanuman temple, Ratnavali went to her father's home with her brother.

When Tulsidas learned of this, he swam across the Yamuna river in the night to meet his wife.

Tulsidas left her instantly and left for the holy city of Prayag.

Some authors consider the marriage episode of Tulsidas to be a later interpolation and maintain among that he was a bachelor.

Tulsidas travelled across India to many places, studying different people, meeting saints and Sadhus and meditating.

Tulsidas visited the Manasarovar lake in current-day Tibet, where tradition holds he had Darshan of Kakabhushundi, the crow who is one of the four narrators in the Ramcharitmanas.

Tulsidas said he wished to see Rama with his eyes, to which the Preta responded that it was beyond him.

That evening Tulsidas noted that the first listener to arrive at his discourse was an old leper, who sat at the end of the gathering.

At first the leper feigned ignorance but Tulsidas did not relent.

When granted a boon, Tulsidas told Hanuman he wanted to see Rama face to face.

One day Tulsidas went to perform the Parikrama of the Kamadgiri mountain.

Tulsidas saw two princes, one dark and the other fair, dressed in green robes pass by mounted on horsebacks.

Tulsidas was enraptured at the sight, however he could not recognise them and took his eyes off them.

Tulsidas recalls this incident in a song of the Gitavali and laments how "his eyes turned his own enemies" by staying fixed to the ground and how everything happened in a trice.

Tulsidas was making sandalwood paste when a child came and asked for a sandalwood Tilaka.

Tulsidas was so charmed that he forgot about the sandalwood.

Some biographers conclude that the deed of Rama at Chitrakuta referred to by Tulsidas is the Darshan of Rama.

In Vikram 1628, Tulsidas left Chitrakuta for Prayag where he stayed during the Magha Mela.

Tulsidas describes the meeting between Yajnavalkya and Bharadvaja after a Magha Mela festival in the Ramcharitmanas, it is this meeting where Yajnavalkya narrates the Ramcharitmanas to Bharadvaja.

In Priyadas' biography, Tulsidas is attributed with the power of working miracles.

Tulsidas said that the word has passed his lips and so he would restore the dead man to life.

Tulsidas asked everybody present to close their eyes and uttered the name of Rama, on doing which the dead Brahmin was raised back to life.

Tulsidas is considered to be the composer of the Hanuman Chalisa, a popular devotional hymn dedicated to Hanuman, the vanara god and divine devotee of Rama.

The emperor fell at Tulsidas' feet, released him and apologised.

Tulsidas stopped the menace of monkeys and asked the emperor to abandon the place.

When Tulsidas recited this couplet, the idol of Krishna holding the flute and stick in hands changed to the idol of Rama holding the bow and arrow in hands.

Tulsidas started composing poetry in Sanskrit in Varanasi on the Prahlada Ghat.

Tulsidas woke up and saw both Shiva and Parvati who blessed him.

Shiva ordered Tulsidas to go to Ayodhya and compose poetry in Awadhi.

Tulsidas is credited with having composed a number of wise sayings and dohas containing lessons for life.

Tulsidas composed the epic over two years, seven months and twenty-six days, and completed the work in Vikram 1633 on the Vivaha Panchami day.

Tulsidas came to Varanasi and recited the Ramcharitmanas to Shiva and Parvati at the Kashi Vishwanath Temple.

The thieves tried to break into the Ashram of Tulsidas, but were confronted by two guards with bows and arrows, of dark and fair complexion.

Tulsidas sent the manuscript of Ramcharitmanas to his friend Todar Mal, the finance minister of Akbar, and donated all his money.

Around Vikram 1664, Tulsidas was afflicted by acute pain all over his body, especially in his arms.

Tulsidas then composed the Hanuman Bahuk, where he describes his bodily pain and suffering in several stanzas.

The Vinaypatrika is considered as the last compositions of Tulsidas, believed to be written when Kali Yuga started troubling him.

Besides these twelve works, four more works are popularly believed to be composed by Tulsidas which include Hanuman Chalisa, Hanuman Ashtak, Hanuman Bahuk and Tulsi Satsai.

One manuscript of Balakanda, dated Samvat 1661, nineteen years before the poet's death, claimed to be corrected by Tulsidas, is at Ayodhya.

The philosophy and principles of Tulsidas are found across his works, and are especially outlined in the dialogue between Kakbhushundi and Garuda in the Uttar Kand of the Ramcharitmanas.

Tulsidas' doctrine has been described as an assimilation and reconciliation of the diverse tenets and cultures of Hinduism.

Some authors contend from a few couplets in Ramcharitmanas and Vinay Patrika that Tulsidas has vigorously contradicted the denial of Avatar by Kabir.

Tulsidas says in Kavitavali that his own redemption is because of the power, glory and majesty of the name of Rama.

Tulsidas holds that Rama is superior to all other names of God, and argues that ra and ma being are the only two consonants that are written above all other consonants in the conjunct form in Sanskrit because they are the two sounds in the word Rama.

In several verses of the Ramcharitmanas, Tulsidas says that the animate and inanimate world is a manifestation of Rama, and the universe is the cosmic form of Rama.

Authors interpret these verses to mean that the world is real according to Tulsidas, in keeping with the Vishishtadvaita philosophy of Ramanuja.

However, at some places in the Ramcharitmanas and Kavitavali, Tulsidas compares the world to a night or a dream and says it is Mithya.

At the beginning of the Ramcharitmanas, Tulsidas performs Samasti Vandana in which he bows down to the world, saying it is "pervaded by" or "born out of" Sita and Rama.

Tulsidas says as the four states of consciousness with their presiding divinities reside in the mind of a Jiva, so the four brides with their grooms are resplendent in the same pavilion.

Tulsidas equates the Guru as an incarnation of Shiva, and a considerable part of the Balkand of Ramcharitmanas is devoted to the narrative of Shiva including the abandonment of Sati, the penance of Parvati, the burning of Kamadeva and the marriage of Parvati and Shiva.

From his time, Tulsidas has been acclaimed by Indian and Western scholars alike for his poetry and his impact on the Hindu society.

Nirala considered Tulsidas to be a greater poet than Rabindranath Tagore, and in the same league as Kalidasa, Vyasa, Valmiki, Homer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and William Shakespeare.

Hindi litterateur Hazari Prasad Dwivedi wrote that Tulsidas established a "sovereign rule on the kingdom of Dharma in northern India", which was comparable to the impact of Buddha.

Edmour J Babineau, author of the book Love and God and Social Duty in Ramacaritmanasa, says that if Tulsidas was born in Europe or the Americas, he would be considered a greater personality than William Shakespeare.

Specifically about his poetry, Tulsidas has been called the "emperor of the metaphor" and one who excels in similes by several critics.

Tulsidas did not shine by composing poetry, rather it was Poetry herself that shone by getting the art of Tulsidas.