1 verses · ~1 min
मन पछितैहै अवसर बीते। दुर्लभ देह पाइ हरिपद भजु, करम, बचन अरु हीते॥१॥ सहसबाहु, दसबदन आदि नप बचे न काल बलीते। हम हम करि धन-धाम सँवारे, अंत चले उठि रीते॥२॥ सुत-बनितादि जानि स्वारथरत न करु नेह सबहीते। अंतहु तोहिं तजेंगे पामर! तू न तजै अबहीते॥३॥ अब नाथहिं अनुरागु जागु जड़, त्यागु दुरासा जीते। बुझै न काम-अगिनि तुलसी कहुँ, बिषयभोग बहु घी ते॥४॥
इति
The Poet
तुलसीदास
Tulsidas
1532 · 1623
There are works of literature, and there are works that become the living tissue of a civilization works so deeply absorbed into the bloodstream of a people that they cease to be read and begin, instead, to be breathed. Tulsidas's Ramcharitmanas is that second and almost impossibly rare thing. Composed in Awadhi in the sixteenth century, at a time when Sanskrit had erected a wall of exclusion around sacred knowledge, the Ramcharitmanas was an act of radical democratization a decision by a scholar of profound erudition to lay down his privilege and carry the light directly to those who had been told they were unworthy of it. Tulsidas took the Valmiki Ramayana and did not merely translate it. He recomposed it in the devotional key of Bhakti, saturating every couplet with such concentrated love that the text functions as much as a spiritual practice as a literary one. Generations of Hindu households have woken before dawn to the sound of these verses, heard them at birth and at death, found in them the moral grammar by which they ordered their lives. Tulsidas was not merely a poet. He was, in the most precise sense, an architect one who built a cathedral large enough for an entire subcontinent to live inside. The structure still stands. It has sheltered half a billion souls and shows no sign of age.
Paired Painting
Saint Shravana Goes to Heaven
This poignant artwork captures a deeply emotional episode from the epics, depicting the noble ascetic Shravana Kumar ascending toward the celestial realms in a divine beam of light. Shravana, renowned for his unwavering devotion and selfless care for his blind aging parents, tragically met his end through an accidental arrow shot by King Dasharatha. Yet, his pure soul transcends earthly sorrow, rising above the sacred funeral pyre as divine beings witness his liberation. Below, grieving figures gaze upward in reverence, embodying the collective grief and spiritual awe of a deeply sacred moment that honors supreme filial piety.
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