Shri Ramcharitmanas

01A lake with four ghats

Manas means a lake, the Manasarovar. Tulsidas describes his book as a lake of Rama's deeds with four ghats, the four dialogues in which the katha is told: Shiva to Parvati, Kakabhushundi to Garuda, Yajnavalkya to Bharadvaja at Prayag, and the poet to his own mind and to the saints. He says he began it on a Tuesday, the ninth of Chaitra, in Samvat 1631, at Ayodhya. He wrote in Awadhi, the speech of the people, at a time when Sanskrit was the language of scripture, and the Kashi tradition tells that the pandits resisted it until a manuscript placed overnight in the Vishwanath temple was found signed "satyam shivam sundaram".

02Seven steps into the water

The seven kandas are called sopanas, the steps of the ghat that lead down into the lake. Each opens with Sanskrit shlokas of invocation, and then the Awadhi begins. The working verse is the chaupai, four short lines that carry the katha forward; after every few chaupais comes a doha or a sortha that gathers the scene up, and at the high moments a chhand, longer and more musical, breaks in. The Bal Kand alone has 361 dohas, the Ayodhya Kand 326; the Kishkindha Kand, the shortest, has 30. Readers say the metre itself is part of the bhakti: it is made to be sung aloud, in a steady rhythm, by people who may never have read a book.

03Valmiki's katha, Tulsi's bhakti

The events follow the Ramayana of Maharshi Valmiki, with the Adhyatma Ramayana and the Puranas behind many details. The tone is bhakti throughout. Rama is Parabrahman in human form, and every character is measured by love for him: Bharat ruling from Nandigram with the padukas on the throne, Shabari waiting years in her ashram for one visit, Hanuman's service, and Kevat who will not let Rama into his boat until he has washed his feet, in case the dust that turned a stone into Ahalya turns his boat into a woman too.

04Saguna and nirguna are one

Parvati asks Shiva how the Brahman beyond all qualities can be a prince who weeps for his wife in the forest. The answer runs through the whole book: "sagunahi agunahi nahin kachhu bheda", between the Lord with form and the Lord without form there is no difference. The Name is greater still, since it carries both. Tulsidas also closes the old gap between Shaiva and Vaishnava. Rama himself installs the linga at Rameshwaram and says that one who hates Shiva and calls himself Rama's devotee will not reach him even in a dream. In the Uttar Kand Kakabhushundi weighs jnana and bhakti: knowledge is a lamp that a gust can put out, bhakti a jewel that shines on its own.

05The passages people know by heart

Ask anyone in Awadh which lines they know and the same places come back. The bow breaking in Janak's court. Dasharatha bound by his word to Kaikeyi: "Raghukul riti sada chali aai, pran jahun baru bachanu na jai", the way of the Raghu line has always been that life may go but a promise may not. Bharat at Chitrakoot begging Rama to come home. The nine forms of bhakti Rama teaches Shabari, beginning with the company of saints. The whole Sundar Kand, which households read on Tuesdays for courage. And in the Uttar Kand the plain verdict on dharma: there is no dharma like doing good to others, and no sin like causing them pain.

06Goswami Tulsidas

The Ramanandi tradition gives Tulsidas's birthplace as Rajapur on the Yamuna, in the Banda country, and tells that a rebuke from his wife Ratnavali, that he should love Rama as he loved her, turned him to the ascetic life. He lived at Ayodhya, at Chitrakoot and above all at Kashi, where he wrote much of the Manas and spent his last years at Assi Ghat. The tradition says the work took two years, seven months and twenty-six days. A manuscript of the Ayodhya Kand kept at Rajapur is revered there as written in his own hand. He also wrote the Vinaya Patrika, the Kavitavali, the Gitavali, the Dohavali and the Hanuman Bahuk.

07Tikas and the katha tradition

The Manas has drawn commentary the way the Gita has. Gita Press at Gorakhpur printed it with a line-by-line Hindi tika and has sold it in crores of copies. At Ayodhya, Anjaninandan Sharan compiled the Manas Piyush, which gathers older tikas verse by verse into several thick volumes. Beside the written tikas runs the spoken one: the Manas katha, in which a vyas sits on a raised seat, sings a chaupai, and spends an hour opening it out with stories, other scriptures and his own experience. Pandit Ramkinkar Upadhyay and many kathakars after him drew crowds of thousands to nine-day kathas on single kandas.

08Path, Ramlila, akhand path

Across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and among the families of Mauritius, Fiji, Trinidad and Suriname, the Manas is read in a nine-day navahna path or a month-long masaparayana, or straight through in an akhand path of about twenty-four hours, the readers taking turns so the voice never stops. The Ramlila of Ramnagar near Varanasi, staged for a month under the patronage of the Kashi royal family, follows its text, and the Ramayanis recite the lines before each scene is acted. At weddings in Awadh the women still sing the Sita-Rama wedding verses of the Bal Kand.

09Carried across the sea

When indentured labourers sailed from Calcutta between 1834 and 1917 to the sugar colonies, many carried a gutka of the Manas and little else. In Mauritius, Fiji, Guyana, Trinidad and Suriname it became the text by which families kept Hindi, kept their festivals and taught their children who Rama was, and Ramayan mandalis still meet on Sunday evenings to sing it. At home its lines passed into everyday speech: "hoihi soi jo Rama rachi rakha", what Rama has ordained will be, is said at every turn of fortune by people who could not name the kanda it comes from.

What it contains

1. 1
   Bal Kand बालकाण्ड

   The invocations, the four dialogues, and the wedding of Shiva and Parvati, told first so that the reader comes to Rama through Shiva. Then Rama's birth in Ayodhya, Vishvamitra's yajna, Ahalya, the garden at Janakpur and the bow broken in Janak's court. With 361 dohas it is the longest kanda.

2. 2
   Ayodhya Kand अयोध्याकाण्ड

   Kaikeyi's two boons, Dasharatha bound by his word, the exile, Kevat at the Ganga and the ashrams of Bharadvaja and Valmiki. Dasharatha dies calling Rama's name, and Bharat goes to Chitrakoot to bring him back. It ends with Bharat carrying the padukas to Nandigram, the kanda Tulsi readers call the heart of the book.

3. 3
   Aranya Kand अरण्यकाण्ड

   Atri and Anasuya, the sages of Dandaka, Panchavati, Shurpanakha, the golden deer and Sita taken by Ravana. Jatayu fights and falls, and Rama performs his last rites. Shabari receives Rama and hears the nine forms of bhakti.

4. 4
   Kishkindha Kand किष्किन्धाकाण्ड

   Hanuman meets Rama in the guise of a brahmin and carries him and Lakshman on his shoulders to Sugriva. Vali is slain, Sugriva crowned, and the search parties go out in four directions. Jambavan reminds Hanuman of his strength on the shore of the sea.

5. 5
   Sundar Kand सुन्दरकाण्ड

   Hanuman's leap, Sita found in the Ashoka grove, the ring given, Lanka burned, and Vibhishan taking refuge with Rama. Its 60 dohas are read on their own as a complete path. Many families read it every Tuesday, and Sundar Kand mandalis sing it in temples on Saturday nights.

6. 6
   Lanka Kand लङ्काकाण्ड

   The setu built, the linga installed at Rameshwaram, and Angad's embassy to Ravana's court. The war, Lakshman struck down and saved by the sanjivani, Kumbhakarna and Meghnad slain, and Ravana's fall. Sita returns and the Pushpaka carries them north. It is also called the Yuddha Kand.

7. 7
   Uttar Kand उत्तरकाण्ड

   Bharat's anxious wait, the return to Ayodhya, the coronation and the description of Ram Rajya. The second half is Kakabhushundi's own life told to Garuda, and his teaching on bhakti, the signs of Kali Yuga and the power of the Name. Tulsidas ends Sita and Rama's katha at the throne and leaves out the later sorrows that Valmiki's Uttara Kanda tells.

Famous verses

मंगल भवन अमंगल हारी। द्रवउ सो दसरथ अजिर बिहारी॥

May he who is the home of all good and the remover of all ill, he who played in Dasharatha's courtyard, show me his grace.Ramcharitmanas, Bal Kand, chaupai before doha 112

सीय राममय सब जग जानी। करउँ प्रनाम जोरि जुग पानी॥

Knowing the whole world to be filled with Sita and Rama, I bow with joined palms.Ramcharitmanas, Bal Kand, chaupai before doha 8

संबत सोरह सै एकतीसा। करउँ कथा हरि पद धरि सीसा॥

In Samvat sixteen hundred and thirty-one, with my head at Hari's feet, I tell this katha.Ramcharitmanas, Bal Kand, chaupai before doha 34

रघुकुल रीति सदा चलि आई। प्रान जाहुँ बरु बचनु न जाई॥

This has always been the way of the Raghu line: life may go, but a promise given may not.Ramcharitmanas, Ayodhya Kand, chaupai before doha 28

पर हित सरिस धर्म नहिं भाई। पर पीड़ा सम नहिं अधमाई॥

Brother, there is no dharma equal to doing good to others, and no wickedness equal to causing others pain.Ramcharitmanas, Uttar Kand, chaupai before doha 41