Tulsidas and His Expression of Emotions Through the Medium of Vernacular

JAC : A JOURNAL OF COMPOSITION THEORY ISSN : 0731-6755 Tulsidas and his Expression of Emotions Through the Medium of Vernacular Sanskriti Huckoo School of Humanities and Social Sciences Ph.d Scholar G. D Goenka University, Gurgaon, Haryana, India [email protected] Abstract: The paper examines how Tulsidas expresses his own feelings, perceptions and sentiments through his poetry which is in vernacular. The paper displays Tulsidas responding to the Bhakti movement and blending his own life experiences with it. His various emotions come across through a dealing of his important works like Ramcharitmanas and Kavitavali. All in all, his ideas converge towards the most important theme of his works: love and devotion to god. As the paper shows, vernacular poetry can thus be used as an important source to write history. Poetry throws significant light on the poet’s emotional attachments and touches the heart of the people. Key Words: Ramcharitmanas, Dialogues, Narratives, Rama-Nama, Divine Transformation INTRODUCTION Tulsidas (A.D. 1532-1623) was a poet-scholar who functioned as a popular bhakti saint during the 16th and the 17th century. He was the contemporary of Mughal emperor Akbar (A.D. 1542-1605). He wrote in the vernacular medium of Avadhi and Brajbhasha. His most popular works include the Ramcharitmanas, Kavitavali, Vinay- Patrika and Dohawali. In each of his works he devotes himself to the bhakti of lord Rama and his name. This paper suggests that the various life experiences that Tulsidas had shaped up the way in which he wrote. As a historic personality he reacted to his socio-religious times on one hand and on the other hand was impacted by the turn of events in his life. Both of these acted as a stimulus to which he responded through the medium of his vernacular compositions. The paper examines the pattern of his emotions and sentiments that resulted in his adoption as well as expression of love towards god. This love primarily directed towards god was part of the larger picture of his contemporary society which saw bhakti as the need of the hour. The bhakti movement emerged as a stronghold for medieval socio-religious flux characterised by adoration and loving devotion that got transformed to a passionate form of personal worship in order to please god. Hence love described bhakti and vice-versa. Let us now try to see how Tulsidas felt and expressed himself through his compositions. TULSIDAS AS HURT AND DECIEVED Tulsidas had many takings from the different events that occurred in his life. He experienced various moods and temperaments at different points of time. A kind of love and hate relationship developed between his inner self and the external world. He felt hurt, betrayed, disgusted and discouraged with his present but yet looked for inspiration within this world itself and resorted to writing as the only means to find relief. Love towards god was his final destination. The bhakti movement with popular saints such as Kabir, Surdas and Mirabai had discredited the Vedas and had resolved to do away with the varna system. Tulsidas could feel this constant scorn for the Vedas as well as the varna system in his surroundings. His apprehensions emerged in the form of words of hate especially during his later works Kavitavali and Vinay Patrika. When he wrote to express his displeasure with the major bhakti saints and their ways, he opened up a window of his inner intense self which had been wounded and deceived. The following lines from the Kavitavali captures his emotions when he critically mentions how the new saints have stylized themselves: बेष सुबनाइ सुिच बचन कह चुवाइ जाइ तौ न जरिन धरिन-धन-धाम क । कोटक उपाय कर लािल पािलअत देह, मुख किहअत गित रामहीके नामक ।। गट उपासना, दुराव दुरबासनािह, मानस िनवासभूिम लोभ-मोह-कामक । Volume XIII, Issue IX, SEPTEMBER 2020 Page No: 82 JAC : A JOURNAL OF COMPOSITION THEORY ISSN : 0731-6755 राम-रोष-इरषा-कपट-कुटला भरे 1 besa subanai suci bacana kahaim cuvai jai tau na jarani dharani-dhana-dhamaki. koṭika upaya kari lali paliata deha, mukha kahiata gati ramahike namaki. pragaṭaim upasana, duravaim durabasanahi, manasa nivasabhumi lobha-moha-kamaki. raga - rosa - irisa - kapaṭa - kuṭilaim bhare Those who make appearances like saints and speak words that are deceivingly sacred like nectar but from within cannot leave their attachment towards land, money and estate, those who use innumerable ways to take care of their bodies but falsely claim that they believe only in the name of god. Those who show off their devotional strength but hide their devilish activities continue to reside in greed, attachment, jealousy, desires, lust, selfishness, jealousy, betrayal and crookedness. For him, such outwardly appearing men were full of hypocrisy and deceit as they reviled the Vedas. 2 Scholars are of the view that he denounced saints as heretics in order to circulate rediscovery for the story of Rama. According to Heidi Pauwels, for Tulsidas these saints were seen as enemies of the community that he wanted to re-construct.3 Irfan Habib too reflects how Tulsidas must have been disturbed at what the shudra sants taught: a wholesale rejection of Hinduism and Islam, new preaching addressed solely to the poor, an acceptance of God and rejection of formal religion.4 What Tulsidas seems particularly to object was the sardonic way of preaching by Kabir’s followers which included criticism for Vedas and Puranas in popular couplets or dohas.5 Edmour Babineau is of view that in his desperation to protect the Vedas, Tulsidas was seeking a common ground which she calls to be the revival of the orthodox theism that required reconciliation of love to god with traditional duties in order to maintain the balance of the society. 6 Tulsidas was attempting to re-establish the legitimacy of the tradition that had been lost in the wake of newer preaching’s by the bhakti saints. He sensed deception by the various elements in the society and he felt that his compositions could act as an anti-dope to them healing him and his emotions. IN SEARCH FOR A LOST IDENTITY Tulsidas was an abandoned child. He had spent his entire childhood in poverty only to be rescued by a Vaishnav saint who instilled in him the importance of a devoted mind. As Tulsidas got close to the aura of Rama and experienced his story he began to associate his identity and purpose of living with his lord. In an attempt to search for his identity which had been lost he started witnessing the dramatic effect of the narrative of Rama on him. He was so charged that he realized that the only way to assert a strong identity for himself as well as his community was through a direct approach to god in the form of bhakti. His apprehensions about the imbalance in the society and the losing faith of people in Vedas became a recurring theme in his writings. His desperate attempt to maintain his livelihood and the constant struggle with his unworthy perceived self during his early days left him grappling with his identity within the society. The narrative of Rama provided him a reason to assert the lost self-identity. In this way narrations formed an important part of his life experiences. He had heard the narrative of Rama in his childhood but was fascinated only when it was presented in front of him by his guru in the form of dialogic engagement with the narrative. This dialogic form given to the story of Rama facilitated his desires and instincts to appropriate a more significant rendering of it. As one goes through the Ramcharitmanas, one gets a feeling of Tulsidas’s intimate wish to present a dialogic narrative that could inspire others just like it did to him. He maintains his predisposition clearly throughout his composition when he aims to spread his message to the maximum people through the use of dialogues. The dialogues between Shiva and Parvati is the main framework of the text. In the Ramcharitmanas, Tulsidas creates some doubts in the minds of the characters who are seeking for love towards the divinity of Rama. Dialogues are introduced to clarify certain doubts so that the characters as well as the audience love their lord unquestionably. So, the four speakers- Shiva, Bhushundi, Yajnavalkya and Tulsidas himself are eliminating the doubts of the four listeners- Parvati, Garuda, Bharadvaja and other saints. Through his life experiences he realized 1 Indradevnarayan, trans., 1994. Kavitavali by Tulsidas. Gorakpur: Geeta Press: 178 2 Ibid. 1014 3 Heidi Pauwels, 2010. “Who Are the Enemies of the bhaktas? Testimony about "śāktas" and "Others" from Kabīr, the Rāmānandīs, Tulsīdās, and Harirām Vyās”. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 130 (4): 509-539 4 Irfan Habib, 1993. “Medieval Popular Monotheism and Its Humanism: The Historical Setting.” Social Scientist, 21 (¾): 78-88. 5 Ibid. 525 6 Edmour Babineau, 1979. Love of God and Social Duty in the Ramcaritmanas. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Volume XIII, Issue IX, SEPTEMBER 2020 Page No: 83 JAC : A JOURNAL OF COMPOSITION THEORY ISSN : 0731-6755 that this could be done only when he engages with the narrative on Rama not only in dialogic form but also in the language of the masses. Thus, the chosen tool for self-efficacy was the popular dialect of his social environment- Avadhi. Through the medium of dialogues written in Avadhi, Tulsidas sought to exemplify love towards god in Ramcharitmanas and propagate it as a guideline for the rest of the society in order to reduce his sense of apprehension.

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