TULSI DAS (1532-1623), the greatest and most famous of Hindi poets, was a Sarwariya Brahman, born, according to tradition, in A.D. 1 53 2, during the reign of Humayan, most probably at Rajapur in the Banda District south of the Jumna. His father's name was Atma Ram Sukal Dube ; that of his mother is said to have been Hulasi. A legend relates that, having been born under an unlucky conjunction of the stars, he was aban doned in infancy by his parents, and was adopted by a wander ing sadhfi or ascetic, with whom he visited many holy places in the length and breadth of India; and the story is in part supported by passages in his poems. He studied, apparently after having rejoined his family, at Sukarkhet, a place generally identified with Soron in the Etah district of the United Provinces, but more probably the same as Varahakshetra on the Gogra River, 3o m. W. of Ajodhya (Ayodhya). He married in his father's lifetime, and begot a son. His wife's name was Ratnawali, daughter of Dinabandhu Pathak, and his son's Tarak. The latter died at an early age, and Tulsi's wife, who was devoted to the worship of Rama, left her husband and returned to her father's house to occupy herself with religion. Tulsi Das followed her, and endeavoured to induce her to return to him, but in vain; she reproached him (in verses which have been preserved) with want of faith in Rama, and so moved him that he renounced the world, and entered upon an ascetic life, much of which was spent in wandering as a preacher of the necessity of a loving faith in Rama. He first made Ajodhya (the capital of Rama and near the modern Fyzabad) his headquarters, frequently visiting dis tant places of pilgrimage in different parts of India. During his residence at Ajodhya. the Lord Rama is said to have appeared to him in a dream, and to have commanded him to write a Ramayana in the language used by the common people. He began this work in the year 1574, and had finished the third book when differences with the Vairagi Vaish navas at Ajodhya, to whom he had attached himself, led him to migrate to Benares, where he settled at Asi-ghat. Here he died
in 1623, during the reign of the emperor Jahangir, at the great age of 91.
The period of his greatest activity as an author synchronized with the latter half of the reign of Akbar (1556-1605), and the first portion of that of Jahangir, his dated works being as fol lows: commencement of the Ramayan, 1584; 1586; Ramagya, 1598; Kabitta Ramayan, be tween 1612 and 1614. A deed of arbitration in his hand, dated 1612, -relating to the settlement of a dispute between the sons of a land-owner named TOdar, who possessed some villages adjacent to Benares, has been preserved, and is reproduced in facsimile in Dr. Grierson's Modern Vernacular Literature of Hindustan, p. 51. Vidal. (who was not, as formerly supposed, Akbar's finance minister, the celebrated Raja 'radar Mall) was his attached friend, and a beautiful and pathetic poem' by Tulsi on his death is extant. He is said to have been resorted to, as a venerated teacher, by Maharaja Man Singh of Jaipur (d. 1618), his brother Jagat Singh, and other powerful princes; and it appears to be certain that his great fame and influence as a religious leader, which remain pre-eminent to this day, were fully established during his lifetime.
than the Bible among the rustic population in England. Its verses are everywhere, in this region, popular proverbs. Not only are Tulsi's sayings proverbial : his doctrine actually forms the most powerful religious influence in present-day Hinduism; and, though he founded no school and was never known as a guru or master, but professed himself the humble follower of his teacher, Narhari-Das, from whom as a boy in Sukar-khet he heard the tale of Rama's doings, he is everywhere accepted as an inspired and authoritative guide in religion and conduct of life.