Page:The Rámáyana of Tulsi Dás.djvu/24

iv In the seventh, or last, Book, the divergence is if anything still more marked. It consists with Válmíki of 124 cantos, the first 49 of which are occupied by a dialogue between Ráma and the Rishi Agastya, who relates the story of Rávan's birth and his conquest of the world. In the 50th canto Ráma dismisses his monkey followers to their homes: and it is only in this one passage and in occasional references to the glory and happiness of Ráma's reign that there is any concidence with the Hindí 'Sequel.' The remainder of the Sanskrit poem relates the exile of Sita and the Asvamedh sacrifice; after which Ráma and his brothers ascend to heaven. All these topics are totally omitted by Tulsi Dás, who substitutes for them the story of Káka-bhusundi and a series of laboured disquisitions on the true nature of Faith.

The earliest notice of our author, as indeed of all the other celebrated Vaishnava writers who flourished about the same period, viz., the 16th and 17th century A.D., is to be found in the Bhakt-Málá or 'Legends of the Saints,' one of the most dificult works in the Hindi language. Its composition is invariably ascribed to Nábhá Ji, himself one of the leaders of the reform, which had its centre at Brindá-ban; but the poem, as we now have it, was avowedly edited, if not entirely written, by one of his disciples named Náráyan Dás, who lived during the reign of Shahjahán. A single stanza is all that is ordinarily devoted to each personage, who is panegyrized with reference to his most salient characteristics in a style that might be described as of unparalleled obscurity, were it not that each such separate portion of the text is followed by a tika, or gloss, written by one Priya Dás in the Sambat year 1769 (1713 A.D.), in which confusion is still worse confounded by a series of the most disjointed and inexplicit allusions to different legendary events in the saint's life. The poem has never been printed, and though it is of the very highest repute among modern Vaishnavas and is therefore not rare in MS. either at Mathurá or Brindá-ban, it is utterly unintelligible to ordinary native readers. The text of the passage referring to Tulsi Dás is therefore here given, and is followed by a literal English translation:—

कलि कुटिल जीव निस्तार हेत बाल्मीक तुलसी भयो ॥ त्रेता काब्य निबंध करिब सत कोटि रामायण ॥ इक अक्षर उद्धरै ब्रह्महत्यादि करी जिन होत पारायन ॥ अब भक्तनि सुख दैंन बहुरि वपु धरि लीला बिस्तारि ॥