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“I want to tell the story of Rama’s qualities, and my wit is small, and the deeds are fathomless.” The man who says this has just bowed to every creature in the world and asked them all for kindness, because he has no trust in his own wit. His mind and his wit are paupers, he says, and his wish is a king. He wants nectar, and in this world he cannot come by buttermilk. The poem he means to make is the Ramcharitmanas, the story of Rama in the language people speak at home. Before a line of it is told he says what the telling may cost him, and who will laugh.
Eight dohas, and every word in them is his own. He counts the laughter of the wicked as gain and gives those with no taste for poetry leave to laugh. He lists everything a poem is made of. He writes on a blank page that he has the discernment of none of it. He finds one quality in his composition that the whole world knows, and it is a name. He writes his own name at the head of a list of cheats. He measures his wit against a wind that blows Mount Meru away. Then he bows, by name and by kind: to Vyasa and the poets before him, to the poets of the Kali age. To the poets of the common tongue who were, who are, and who are still to come. To the sage who made the Ramayana, whom the commentary names Valmiki. To the four Vedas, to the dust of Brahma’s feet, to the gods, the brahmins, the learned, and the planets. To Sarasvati and the Ganga. And last to Shiva and Parvati, his guru, his father, and his mother, whose Shabar mantras work in plain sight though their letters fail to match. The last doha is a wish with a condition in it. If those two are pleased with him, let everything he has said of the power of this composition come true.
The poet who pleads, and those who will hear him
The main figures in this episode
- Tulsidas the one voice in these eight dohas, who writes his name into the chhand and into the line that calls Shiva and Parvati his well-wishers. By his own account a servant, a pauper of wit, and the first name on the list of cheats.
- The good the hearers he writes for, who will hear him as parents hear a child’s lisping. The rare man like the sea, who rises at the full moon. The saints who take the virtue as bees do. The ones who wear his pearl-poems on their clear hearts.
- The wicked the hearers he expects, the cruel and crooked who wear others’ faults as ornaments and will laugh as crows, herons, and frogs mock. The cheats of the Kali age with a crow’s deeds in a swan’s dress.
- Sarasvati who leaves Brahma’s house and comes running when a poet remembers her. Her weariness goes only in the lake of Rama’s deeds. She is the Svati star over the oyster of the wit, and she says “not this, not this” with Shesha, Shiva, Brahma, and the Vedas.
- The sage who made the Ramayana saluted in a sortha by his work alone. The commentary names him Valmiki. His poem has Khara in it and is soft, has Dushana in it and is free of fault.
- Vyasa and the poets Vyasa and the poets before him, who told the Lord’s fame with respect. The poets of the Kali age. The poets of the common tongue in three tenses. The sages whose road he calls easy to walk, Valmiki and Vyasa among them in the commentary’s bracket. The swans he asks to hear a child’s plea.
- Shiva and Parvati who repeat the name together. The body the cremation-ground ash is handsome on. The poet’s guru, father, and mother. The makers of the Shabar mantras. The two whose pleasure, in a dream or in waking, is the condition the last doha sets.
First the bow, then the plea
“Four sources, eighty-four hundred thousand kinds of living beings, in the water, on the land, and in the sky. Knowing the whole world as full of Sita and Rama, I salute with both hands joined.” At the end of the opening Tulsi bowed to every being in the world with both hands joined. Here he salutes them again and gives the world a count. The four sources, in the commentary’s gloss, are the four ways a body is born: from sweat, from the egg, by sprouting, and from the womb. The reason comes last. Sita and Rama fill all of it.
Then the salutation turns into a plea to the same beings. Knowing him for their servant, he asks them, mines of grace, to set guile aside and be kind to him, all of them together. Because he has no trust in the strength of his own wit.
Then he says what the work is and how far it is from him. “I want to tell the story of Rama’s qualities. My wit is small, and the deeds are fathomless. I can see no means to it, not one limb of a means. My mind and my wit are paupers, and my wish is a king.” His wit is very low, he adds, and his taste is high. He wants nectar, and in this world he cannot come by buttermilk. On the good he states a trust. They will forgive his boldness and hear a child’s words with their minds on them.
Those who swell with their own water, and the one who rises at the moon
When a child speaks lisping words, its father and mother hear them with glad minds. The cruel, the crooked, and the ill-thinking, who wear the faults of others as their ornaments, will laugh. These are the two kinds of hearer Tulsi keeps coming back to.
Then a question about poets: to whom does his own poetry fail to seem good, whether it is full of juice or very flat? Those who rejoice to hear another’s composition are few in the world. He says how few, with water. “In the world, brother, men like ponds and rivers are many, who swell with their own flood on getting water. A good man like the sea is some rare one, who rises on seeing the full moon.” The river rises by what flows into it. The sea rises at a moon that is far off and full. The commentary reads the full moon as another’s rising.
The doha states his one trust. “My fortune is small and my wish is great. I hold one trust: the good will all gain joy hearing this, and the wicked will mock.”
Leave to laugh
“The mockery of the wicked will be my gain. Crows call the sweet-throated cuckoo harsh. Herons laugh at the swan and frogs at the chatak. The dirty wicked laugh at clean talk.”
Then he gives leave for the laughter. Those with no taste for poetry and no love for Rama’s feet will find in this a pleasing rasa of laughter. It is a composition in the common tongue, and his wit is simple. It is fit to be laughed at, and in laughing there is no fault.
Next he sorts the hearers by what decides the taste of the story. Those with no love for the Lord’s feet and no good understanding will find the story flat. Those who love the feet of Vishnu and Shiva, holding them equal, the commentary adds, and whose wit is free of crooked argument, will find Rama’s story sweet. The good will hear it knowing it in their hearts as adorned with bhakti to Rama, and praise it as they listen.
Then he says what he is: no poet, no master of words, bare of every art and every learning. He lists what a poet would have, letters, meanings, figures of many kinds, metre and arrangement of many designs. The countless divisions of mood and of rasa, the faults and virtues of poetry of many sorts. He answers the whole list in one line. “Of the discernment of poetry I have not one. I say it is true, writing it on a blank page.” The commentary reads the blank page as an oath.
The doha turns the inventory around. “My composition is bare of every quality. One quality in it is known to the world. Weighing that, the wise will hear it, whose discernment is clear.” He withholds the name of that quality, and the next line gives it.
The one quality, and whose it is
“In it is Rama’s generous name, most pure, the essence of the Puranas and the Vedas, the house of welfare and the remover of ill, which Shiva repeats with Parvati.” The quality is a name, and the one who repeats it is Shiva, with Parvati beside him.
He says it from two sides. A wondrous composition by a good poet fails to shine without Rama’s name, as a moon-faced woman adorned in every way fails to shine without clothes. Speech bare of every quality, made by a bad poet, is told and heard with respect by the wise once it is known to carry Rama’s name and fame. Because the saints take up virtue as bees do.
Then the trust, in plain words. “Though there is not one rasa of poetry in it, Rama’s might is plain in it. That trust came to my mind: who has not gained greatness from good company?” Even smoke gives up its natural bitterness and takes on scent in the company of agar wood. The composition is coarse. The thing described is good: Rama’s story, which does the world’s welfare.
The chhand carries the poet’s name. Tulsi says that Rama’s story does welfare and takes away the dirt of the Kali age. He says that the course of his river of poetry is crooked, like the course of the river of holy water, the Ganga in the commentary’s naming. He says that in the company of Rama’s fame the composition will become good and please the minds of the good. And he says that the ash of the cremation ground, unclean in the commentary’s word, is handsome on Shiva’s limbs and purifies whoever remembers it.
The doha adds two pictures. His composition will be dear to all in the company of Rama’s fame, as wood in the company of the Malaya mountain is bowed to. No one gives the wood a thought. The wood on Malaya is sandal, in the commentary’s word. And the black cow’s milk is white and very wholesome, and everyone drinks it. The speech is rustic, and the wise sing and hear the fame of Sita and Rama in it. The wood is changed by its company. The cow stays black, and the milk is white.
Gem, oyster, and the weariness that is Sarasvati’s
“The beauty that gems, rubies, and pearls have fails to shine so on the snake’s hood, the hill, and the elephant’s head. On a king’s crown and a young woman’s body they all gain greater beauty.” So too, the wise say, a good poet’s poems are born in one place and find their beauty in another. The commentary opens that: where the poem is thought over, passed on, and lived by. And then a goddess who runs. For his bhakti, leaving Brahma’s house, Sarasvati comes running when the poet remembers her.
Her run has a cost. Without a bath in the lake of Rama’s deeds, that weariness will not go by tens of millions of means. The weariness is hers, from her coming, in the commentary’s reading. Poets and the learned, weighing this in their hearts, sing the Lord’s fame, which takes away the dirt of the Kali age. When the qualities of worldly men are sung, Sarasvati beats her head and begins to regret. The commentary hears the regret as a question, why she came when this one called.
Then the wise give three things their places. The heart is a sea, the wit is the oyster in it, and Sarasvati is the Svati star, under whose rain the oyster makes its pearl. If the water of good thought rains there, pearl-poems are made. The doha takes the pearls to where they end. “Pierced with skill and then strung on the thread of Rama’s deeds, the good wear them on their clear hearts, and the beauty is great love.”
The first name on the list
Tulsi then describes a class of men born in the terrible Kali age. Their deeds are a crow’s and their dress a swan’s. They walk the wrong road and leave the road of the Veda. Their bodies are made of guile, and they are vessels of the Kali age’s dirt. “Cheats who are called Rama’s devotees, servants of gold, anger, and lust. Among them, in the world, the first line is mine, bully, flag-bearer of dharma, beast of burden of crooked trades.” Before the description ends, he writes his own name at the top of it. The commentary hangs the last four words on the cheats and reads the flag-bearer of dharma as the hypocrite, the man who flies dharma as a false flag. Those four words in the original all begin with one letter. The man who wrote on a blank page that he lacks the discernment of poetry has struck one letter four times.
“If I told all my faults the story would grow and I would find no end of it. So I have told very few. The clever will know from a little.” Understanding his pleas of many kinds, no one will find fault with the story on hearing it. Those who doubt even after this are duller than he, greater paupers of wit.
He is no poet, he says, and is not called quick-witted. He sings Rama’s qualities as his wit allows. Where are Rama’s boundless deeds, and where is his wit, sunk in the world? “The wind in which Mount Meru is blown away: tell me, what count is cotton in?” Understanding Rama’s measureless lordship, his mind quails at making the story.
The doha names those who have tried before him. Sarasvati, Shesha, Shiva, Brahma, the agamas, the Vedas, and the Puranas sing his qualities without pause, saying neti neti, “not this, not this.” The commentary reads it as the speech of ones who fail to reach his end.
No one stayed silent
“Everyone knows Rama’s lordship to be so, and yet no one stayed without telling it. The Veda has set a reason there: the power of worship has been told in many ways.” The commentary reads the telling as worship, whose power the Veda describes in many ways. It adds that even a little of it carries a man across the sea of being.
Then he says who is being told of, by taking away: the one, desireless, formless, nameless, unborn, being, consciousness, and bliss. The supreme abode, all-pervading, the Lord whose form is the universe. That one took a body and did many deeds, for the good of his devotees alone, because he is most merciful and loves those who come to him for refuge. His tenderness and kindness toward his people is great, and once he has shown compassion he shows no anger. He brings back what was lost. He cherishes the poor. He is simple, strong, and the master. Knowing this, the wise tell his fame and make their own speech pure and fruitful. The commentary names the fruit as freedom and the Lord’s own love.
On that, he declares himself. “By that strength I will tell the story of Rama’s qualities, bowing my head at Rama’s feet. The sages sang the Lord’s fame first. Walking that road is easy for me.” The strength, in the commentary’s reading, is the Lord’s grace. The commentary names two of the sages in its bracket, Valmiki and Vyasa. The doha gives the road its picture. “Over the very great rivers, if a king has a bridge built, even the smallest ants climb onto it and cross without labor.” The commentary applies it. The sages’ tellings are the bridge, and the poet is the ant.
Those who were, those who are, and those still to come
Showing his mind its strength in this way, he will make the story of Rama. Then a new round of bows, and it begins with poets. He bows to the feet of Vyasa and the many poets before him, who told the Lord’s fame with respect. He asks them to fill all his wishes. He salutes the poets of the Kali age who told the host of Rama’s qualities. He bows to the most clever poets of the common tongue, who told the Lord’s deeds in the people’s speech. Those who were, those who are, and those who will be hereafter, all of them, with guile set down.
The boon he asks of them is a place: that his composition be honored in the society of the good. Work the wise fail to honor is vain labor, and child poets do it, foolish ones in the commentary’s word.
“That fame, that composition, and that wealth is good which, like the Ganga, does good to all. Rama’s fame is beautiful and my composition is coarse. That mismatch is my fear.” He answers the fear himself. By the poets’ grace that too is within his reach, since the stitching of silk is handsome even on sackcloth.
The doha comes in three parts. The wise honor poetry that is simple and whose fame is clear, which an enemy hears and, forgetting his natural enmity, praises. That comes only with a clear wit, and his wit’s strength is very small. So he begs again and again for their grace, that he may tell the Lord’s fame. “Poets and learned men, swans of the Manas of Rama’s deeds: hear a child’s plea, see the good taste, and be kind to me.” The commentary reads the Manas as the lake Manasarovar. The word is the one in the poem’s own title. It is the swan’s third appearance in these dohas: once laughed at by herons, once a costume on a crow, and now the poets themselves, on the water.
The feet of the sage who made the Ramayana
The metre turns to the sortha for three bows. The first is to a sage known by his work. “I bow to the feet of the sage who made the Ramayana, which holds Khara and is most soft, which is free of fault and holds Dushana.” The commentary supplies the name, Valmiki. Khara and Dushana are rakshasas in that Ramayana. Khara’s name is the word for harsh and Dushana’s the word for fault. The poem has Khara in it and is soft, has Dushana in it and is without fault. Two puns in one line, from the man who said a little earlier that he lacks the discernment of figures.
The second bow is to the four Vedas, ships on the sea of being, who even in a dream feel no weariness telling Rama’s clear fame. Sarasvati’s run left her weary. The Vedas do the same telling and feel none.
The third is to the dust of Brahma’s feet, who made the sea of being. From it the saints came forth as nectar, the moon, and the wish-cow, and the wicked as poison and wine. On the page before, the sea of the world was the one father of nectar and wine. Here the sea has its maker named, and the dust of his feet is bowed to.
Then the bow widens. Bowing to the feet of the gods, the brahmins, the learned, and the planets, he says with joined hands: be pleased, and fill all my wishes.
Letters that fail to match, and a power in plain sight
Again he bows, to Sarasvati and to the river of the gods, both pure. One takes away sin by bathing and drinking, and one takes away unwisdom by telling and hearing. The commentary matches each to her work, the Ganga to the bath and the drink, Sarasvati to the telling and hearing of virtue and fame.
Then the guru and the parents, and one couple in all three places. “Guru, father, and mother, Shiva and Parvati: I bow to them, friends of the poor, givers every day. Servant, master, and friend of Rama. In every way the guileless well-wishers of Tulsi.”
Then the mantras. “Seeing the Kali age, for the good of the world Shiva and Parvati made the net of Shabar mantras. Whose letters fail to match, which have neither meaning nor repetition, and whose power is in plain sight by Shiva’s might.” Letters and meaning, the first two things the mantras lack, head the list of a poem’s parts whose discernment he disowned on the blank page. What the mantras have is a power anyone can see. The word for plain is the one he used for Rama’s might in his own composition.
That Shiva, favorable to him, will make this story the root of joy and welfare. And remembering Parvati and Shiva, and taking their grace, he describes Rama’s deeds with an eager heart. The verbs before were promises, I will tell, I will make. This one is in the present.
His composition will shine by Shiva’s grace, as a night does with the moon and the company of the stars. Those who tell and hear this story with love and attention, understanding it, will become lovers of Rama’s feet, free of the dirt of the Kali age, sharers in welfare. The fruit is the same for the teller and the hearer.
The last doha is a condition with a wish inside it. “If Shiva and Parvati are pleased with me, in a dream or in waking truth. Then let all I have said of the power of this composition in the common tongue come true.” He has argued that power through smoke and sandal, the cow’s milk and the mantras. The wish is that what he has said be so.
The poet at the door
From the first line of these eight dohas to the last, the man speaking has still to begin his story. Much of what he does is bow: to the eighty-four hundred thousand kinds of beings. To the poets, Vyasa first, then the poets of the Kali age and those of the common tongue in three tenses. To the sage who made the Ramayana, the four Vedas, and the dust of Brahma’s feet. To the gods, the brahmins, the learned, and the planets. To Sarasvati and the Ganga. And at the end to Shiva and Parvati, his guru, his father, and his mother. The laughter of the wicked he counts as gain, and those with no taste for poetry he gives leave to laugh.
The word child comes four times: a child’s words the good will hear, a child’s lisping its parents are glad at. The child poets whose labor is vain, and a child’s plea the swans of the Manas are asked to hear. He calls himself a servant, a pauper of wit, and the first name on the list of cheats. The lines that say so are made with care. The half-line after the one that puts him among the cheats strikes one letter four times. The sortha to the maker of the Ramayana turns two rakshasas’ names into two puns. He wrote on a blank page that he lacks the discernment of poetry. He wrote it in verse that has it.
What lets him go on is said in the middle of these dohas and shown at their end. Everyone knows what Rama’s lordship is, and no one stayed without telling it. The one told of took a body for his devotees’ good. The sages went first, and over a great river a king has built a bridge, so that the smallest ant crosses without labor. Then the mantras, whose letters fail to match and whose power is in plain sight. The seven who say “not this, not this” are still singing. The poet bows his head at Rama’s feet, takes the grace of Shiva and Parvati, and his verb turns to the present: I describe. The last doha wishes one thing, that all of this be true, and hangs the wish on the pleasure of Shiva and Parvati.
Source: the Gita Press edition of Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas, Balkand, doha 8 to 15, read with Hanuman Prasad Poddar’s Hindi commentary.