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A man writes a date into a poem. He has put every doubt away, set the dust of his guru’s feet on his head. He has asked everyone once more, with joined hands, that no fault touch the making of the story. He bows to Shiva and begins: “In Samvat 1631 I make the story.” The day was the ninth of the month of honey, which the commentary names Chaitra, a Tuesday, in the city of Ayodhya. It was the day of Rama‘s birth, when, the Vedas sing, all the holy places come walking to Ayodhya.
After the date come a name and a map. The poem is called the Ramcharitmanas, and the name was Shiva’s. He made the poem, kept it in his own mind, told it to Parvati, and named it. The last word of the name means both the mind and a lake. The poet builds the lake piece by piece: its ground and rain, four ghats, seven steps, its lotuses and swans, the groves around it. Who keeps it and who stays away, the hard road to its shore, and one traveler who reaches it and goes home without bathing. Then the poet plunges in. A river of poetry runs out of the lake, named for the Sarayu, carrying in its water the story still to come, through all six seasons. Its water is light, he says, with the lightness of his own humility.
The lake’s maker, its hearer, and its poet
The main figures in this episode
- Tulsidas the poet, who writes his year, his day and his city into the verse. He names himself the poet of the Ramcharitmanas by Shiva’s grace, plunges into the lake, and calls his own humility the lightness of its water.
- Shiva who made the Ramcharitmanas, kept it in his own mind, told it to Parvati when the time was right, and gave it the name it still carries. Bowed to before the date is written.
- Parvati Shiva’s hearer, to whom he told the story when the time was right. Remembered with him when the telling starts and when it closes.
- Rama whose fame is the water of the lake, without whose grace no one reaches its shore. His birth, wedding, forest years, war and rule flow in the river that runs out of it.
- The Sarayu the river of Ayodhya, where the good bathe on Rama’s birthday, and then the name the poet gives the river of poetry that runs out of the lake.
- The company of the saints found in five places in the picture: the clouds that rain Rama’s fame, the mango groves around the lake, the companions on the road. The way in for anyone who wants to bathe, and the Ayodhya on the river’s bank.
A date, a day, and a city
“In this way,” the poet begins, pointing back to the last episode’s close, where the hearer was told to set doubt aside. He puts all doubts far away, places the dust of his guru’s lotus feet on his head. He again asks everyone with joined hands that no fault may touch the making of the story. The poem’s first chaupai made that dust a salve for the eyes. Here it goes on the head.
Then he bows his head to Shiva, sets it at the Lord’s feet, and between the two bows writes a year: Samvat 1631. The next line gives the day in the verse’s own order, the ninth, a Tuesday, the month of honey, in the city of Ayodhya. It says that there the story was made manifest. On Rama’s birthday, the Vedas sing, every holy place comes to Ayodhya. The poet set his first day of making on that day, in that city.
He describes the day. Asuras, nagas, birds, men, sages and gods come to serve Rama. The wise keep a great festival for the birth and sing his fame. Crowds of good people bathe in the holy water of the Sarayu and repeat Rama’s name, holding his beautiful dark form in their hearts. The Vedas and Puranas say that seeing the Sarayu, touching it, bathing in it, or drinking from it takes away sin. Its glory is so great that even Sarasvati, the goddess of speech, cannot tell it.
The city gives Rama’s own abode, which the commentary reads as his supreme dwelling, and it is known and holy in every world. Any creature of the four kinds of birth that leaves its body in Ayodhya never returns to the world, and lives, the commentary says, in the Lord’s abode. The commentary lists the four kinds as born from eggs, from sweat, from seed, and from the womb. The poet knows the city to be enchanting in every way, giver of every attainment and a mine of welfare. He says, “I began the pure story, at whose hearing lust, pride and hypocrisy perish.”
The name, and the map kept inside it
Here the poem is named: the Ramcharitmanas, Rama’s deeds and a word that means both the mind and a lake. Just hearing the name brings rest. The mind is an elephant burning in a forest fire of sense-objects, the commentary explains. It finds happiness if it falls into this lake.
The second time the name comes, its maker comes with it. Shiva made the Ramcharitmanas, dear to sages, holy, the end of the three kinds of fault, sorrow and poverty, and of the Kali age’s evil ways and all its sins. The poet who said he began the story says a few lines later that Shiva made it. Shiva made it and kept it in his own mind. When the right time came he told it to Parvati, whom the verse calls by the feminine of Shiva’s own name. And so, looking into his heart and rejoicing, he gave it its name: the Manas, the mind he had kept it in.
“I tell that same story,” the poet says, and asks the good to hear it with respect and attention. Then the doha sets out three questions he will answer: what the Manas is like, how it came to be, and why it spread in the world. He will tell all of it, remembering Parvati and Shiva. The commentary names them Uma and Maheshvara, and the verse calls Shiva the bull-bannered. He bowed to Shiva before writing the year, and he remembers Shiva and Parvati before building the lake.
Where the water came from
The telling begins with its writer, who speaks of himself by name. By Shiva’s grace good sense flowered in his heart, and so Tulsi is the poet of the Ramcharitmanas. The verb for that flowering is the word that stood as a name in the last episode, Hulsi, whom the commentary names as his mother. He makes it as enchanting as his wit allows, and asks the good to listen with care and set it right.
Now the lake is made, beginning with the ground and the weather. Good sense is the ground, and the heart is the low place in it where water collects. The Vedas and Puranas are the sea, and the saints are the clouds, which rain down the sweet, auspicious water of Rama’s fame. In the last episode a clear mind was the hill of Chitrakuta. Here good sense is the ground the rain falls on.
The water has qualities. The stories of the Lord’s play in an embodied form, told at length, are its clearness, which washes dirt away. Loving devotion, which no words can describe, is its sweetness and coolness. The water nourishes the rice of good deeds and is life itself to Rama’s devotees.
Then its course. The holy water fell on the ground of the understanding, gathered, ran along the road of the ears, filled the lake and settled there. Grown old, it became joyful, cool, pleasing and good. Rain enters a lake by runnels, and a story enters a mind by the ears.
Four ghats
A lake needs a way down to the water, and the doha gives this one four ghats, the stone landings where a bather walks down into the water. The four ghats are four fine dialogues, made with careful thought. The doha counts them and stops. The commentary names the four pairs: Kakabhushundi and Garuda, Shiva and Parvati, Yajnavalkya and Bharadvaja, and Tulsidas with the saints.
Two of these pairs were already in the verse of the last episode, where the poet traced the story’s road. Shiva told it to Parvati, and Yajnavalkya sang it to Bharadvaja. The crow was there too, as the one Shiva gave it to. Garuda’s name, and the fourth pair, the poet with the saints, come from the commentary. Each dialogue is a speaker and a hearer, and each pair is a place to step into the same water.
What the lake holds
The ghats are four, and the steps down into the water are seven: the seven books of the poem, the seven kands in the commentary’s naming. They please the mind seen with the eyes of knowledge. Rama’s glory without qualities, unbroken, of one flavor throughout in the commentary’s reading, is the water’s unfathomed depth. The verse says it “will be described.” The depth is still ahead.
The water is the nectar of Rama’s and Sita‘s fame. The similes are its waves. The chaupais lie thick on it like lotus leaves. The poem’s turns of craft are shells, and the commentary opens them to find pearls. The chhands, sorthas and dohas are clusters of many-colored lotuses, and their meaning, feeling and language are the pollen, the nectar and the scent. Good deeds are rows of bees. Knowledge, detachment and reflection are swans. The sound, the turns of phrase (oblique speech, in the commentary’s word), the qualities and the kinds of poetry are fish of many sorts.
The four aims of life swim in it, wealth, dharma, desire, and the fourth, which the commentary supplies as release. So do the telling of knowledge and realized knowledge, the nine rasas, and repetition, austerity, yoga and detachment. Songs about the meritorious, the saints and the name are its strange water birds.
Then the verse steps from the water to the land. On all four sides stand mango groves, the company of the saints, and faith is the spring, when the groves flower. The many ways of setting out devotion, with forgiveness, compassion and self-control, are canopies of creepers. Their flowers are calm and the restraints and observances. The commentary lists them in their two fives (non-harming, truth, non-stealing, continence and non-grasping, and purity, contentment, austerity, study and surrender to God). Their fruit is knowledge, and love for the Lord’s feet is the juice, the juice of that fruit, the commentary says. So the Vedas declare. The poem’s many other stories are the parrots, cuckoos and bright birds.
The doha gathers it into one picture. The thrill that runs over a listener’s skin is the gardens and woods around the lake, and the joy in him is the birds at play. The gardener is a clear mind, the pure mind in the commentary, who waters the gardens with love through the eyes, which is where tears come from. The lake was filled through the ears. Its garden is watered through the eyes.
Those who lose heart on the way
The lake has keepers and owners. Those who sing this story with care are its keepers. The men and women who always hear it with respect are the gods entitled to it.
The wicked and the sensual are herons and crows, unlucky birds that never come near, because the lake has no snails, frogs or weed for them. None of the many-flavored stories of the senses they feed on. In the first episode of this preface, crows became cuckoos and herons became swans the moment they bathed in the company of the saints. Here they stay away. They lose heart on the way, and the verse says why. Reaching this lake is very hard, and without Rama’s grace no one reaches it.
Then a traveler’s map of dangers. Bad company is the terrible road, and the words of bad company are its tigers, lions and serpents. The work and tangles of a household are great mountains, hard to cross. Delusion, pride and conceit are rough forests, and the many bad arguments are fearsome rivers. For those who have no provision of faith for the road, the road’s expenses in the commentary’s word, no company of saints, and no love for Rama. For them the lake is very hard to reach. A few lines back faith was the spring around the lake. On the road it is the money one spends to get there.
The one who arrives and turns back
Say one traveler makes it, with great effort. As he arrives, the chill of sleep comes over him, an ague in the commentary’s word, the shaking cold of a fever. The hard cold of dullness grips his heart. The unlucky man, though he has come all that way, takes no bath. He neither bathes nor drinks, and goes home with his pride. When someone comes to ask him about the place, he speaks ill of the lake to explain himself. The commentary adds what he leaves out, his own bad luck.
No obstacle touches the one Rama looks on with grace. He bathes in the lake with respect and never burns in the three fires, which the commentary names: the fire from within oneself, from the gods, and from the elements. Those who love Rama’s feet never leave the lake. Then the verse turns to the listener and calls him brother: whoever wants to bathe in this lake should keep the company of the good, with his whole mind.
The river that runs out of the lake
Looking on such a Manas with the eyes of the mind, the eyes of the heart in the commentary, the poet plunged in, the bath the shivering traveler never took. His mind became clear. Joy and eagerness rose in his heart, and a flood of love and delight welled up.
From it ran a river of poetry, filled with the water of Rama’s clear fame. He names it the Sarayu, the river where the good bathed on Rama’s birthday, a source of every good. Its two banks are the opinion of the world and the teaching of the Veda. This holy river, the lake’s daughter, tears out by the roots the grass and trees of the Kali age’s dirt, its small sins and its great ones, the commentary says. The three kinds of listeners are the hamlets, villages and towns on both banks. The matchless company of saints is its Ayodhya, the root of all welfare.
The Sarayu and Ayodhya opened this stretch as a river one could bathe in and a city where one could leave the body. Here they return as names for the poem and for the company of saints.
What flows in that river
The river of fame goes on past its city and meets the river of the gods, the Ganga in the commentary, which is devotion to Rama. From the other side the Son comes in, and the Son is the fame of the war fought by Rama and his younger brother, Lakshmana in the commentary. Between the two, the stream of devotion shines with detachment and reflection, knowledge and detachment in the commentary’s reading. As one river with three mouths, a terror to the three fires, it runs toward the sea that is Rama’s form. Rising in the lake and joined to the Ganga, it will make pure the minds of the good who hear it. The stories of its many episodes stand along its banks like woods and gardens.
Most of what the next lines name in the water is a story this poem has yet to tell. The wedding party of Parvati and Shiva is its countless water creatures. The joy at Rama’s birth is its whirlpools and waves. The boyhood of the four brothers is its many-colored lotuses. The good deeds of the king, Dasharatha in the commentary, his queens and his household, are the bees and water birds. Sita’s svayamvara is the beauty spread over the river. Clever questions are its boats, and wise answers the boatmen who steer them. The talk among listeners after a telling is the crowd of travelers on its banks.
Then the river grows dangerous. Parashurama’s anger is the fierce current that takes a bather off his feet, and Rama’s gentle words are the well-built ghats a bather can stand on. The wedding of Rama and his brothers is the auspicious flood, a joy to all, and those who thrill as they tell and hear it are the bathers. The preparations for Rama’s coronation are the festival crowds. In the very next line Kaikeyi’s ill thinking is the moss on which the foot slips, whose fruit was a heavy calamity. Bharata’s conduct, which stills countless troubles, is the rite of repeating the name, performed on the bank, the commentary adds. The telling of the Kali age’s sins and the faults of the wicked, which filled the first episodes of this preface, is the river’s dirt and its herons and crows.
The six seasons
The river of fame is beautiful in all six seasons, and the verse gives each season a story. Early winter is the wedding of Shiva and Parvati, the daughter of the snow mountain, whose wedding party swam in the river a few lines back. Late winter is the festival of Rama’s birth, the day the poet began. The king of seasons, spring in the commentary, is the gathering for Rama’s wedding. Summer, unbearable, is Rama’s going to the forest. The story of his road is the harsh sun and the hot wind, as the commentary has it. The rains are the terrible war with the rakshasas, rain that does good to the rice that is the family of the gods. Autumn, clear and pleasant, is the happiness, humility and greatness of Rama’s rule. Earlier the saints’ rain fed the rice of good deeds. Here the rain is a war and the rice is the gods.
After the seasons come the water’s own qualities. Its clear, matchless quality is the story of Sita’s virtues, best of faithful wives. Its coolness, always of one flavor and past describing, is Bharata’s nature. And the looking, the speaking, the meeting, the mutual love, the laughter and the brotherliness of the four brothers are its sweetness and fragrance.
The lightness of the water
The last section opens with “my.” The poet’s own distress, humility and lowliness are the lightness of this fine water, the quality good drinking water has. The lightness is no small one, very great in the commentary’s word. It is wonderful water, because it does good at the mere hearing, and it takes away the thirst of hope and the dirt of the mind.
It nourishes love for Rama and takes away all the Kali age’s sins and remorse. It dries the weariness of birth and death, as the commentary reads the weariness of being. It satisfies contentment. It stills sin, sorrow, poverty and fault. It destroys lust, anger, pride and delusion. It increases clear discernment and detachment. Bathing in it and drinking it with respect wipes away the sins and torments of the heart.
Those who have not washed their minds in this water are cowards cheated by the Kali age. They are like the thirsty deer that sees the sun’s glare on the sand as water, the commentary says, and runs to it. They will turn away, suffering. The verb is the one that brought the proud traveler home from the shore.
The doha closes in two voices. In the third person, the poet counts the water’s qualities as far as his wit allows, bathes his mind in it, remembers Parvati and Shiva, and tells the story. In the first person: “Now, holding Rama’s lotus feet in my heart and gaining his grace, I tell the handsome dialogue of the meeting of the two best of sages.” The doha leaves the two sages unnamed. In the last episode he promised the dialogue in which Yajnavalkya told the story to Bharadvaja. The next line of the poem opens at Prayaga, where Bharadvaja lives.
Near the start of this stretch the poet bowed to Shiva and wrote a date. Near its end he bathes his mind and remembers Parvati and Shiva. Between the two he has made a lake out of a word. The word was Shiva’s, who kept the poem in his own mind and named it for the place he kept it. The poet took the name apart to show what the lake holds: ground and sea and clouds, a rain of fame, four landings and seven steps. A depth still to be told, and a gardener who waters it all through his eyes. He drew the hard road to it, and the chill at the shore that sends a man home to speak against water he never entered. Then he plunged in. The river that came out of it took the name of the river the good bathed in on Rama’s birthday. With two banks, a city of saints, two rivers to meet, a sea to run to, and six seasons. Every one of them a story this poem has yet to reach.
Of all the water’s qualities, the one he claims as his own is its lightness. A man has called himself, in this preface, a bad servant, dull, and a child too young to understand the story. He now names his distress, humility and lowliness as the lightness that makes the water easy to drink. Then he bathes his mind in it and turns to the sages. The map is drawn. The next episode goes to Prayaga, where one of the two sages lives, and the water described here begins to be heard.
Source: the Gita Press edition of Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas, Balkand, doha 34 to 43 (b), read with Hanuman Prasad Poddar’s Hindi commentary.