TULASI DASA … AUTHOR OF SHRI RAMA CHARITA MANASA.

SHRI TULASI DASA …

AUTHOR OF SHRI RAMA CHARITA MASNASA.

This was recorded in a conversation of April 1969 with Brahmananda and Gargamuni …

Gargamuni:

He mentioned to me that he’s married and that he has a child in India. And he asked, “Oh, were you married?” And I said, “No. My wife was taken away.” And he came over and he hugged me. “Oh,” he said, “you are so lucky.” (laughter) He hugged me. He said, “Oh, you are so lucky.”

Prabhupāda:

(chuckling) There is a Tulasī das poetry, din ka ḍākinī rat ka bhāginī gargara bhāginī cuṣe. Bhāginī. Tulasī das had very good, beautiful wife, and he was very much attached to her. So the system is that after the girl is staying with her husband… Because young girls, very minor age, they were married, say, ten years, nine years, twelve years. But they’re allowed to live with husband, say, after thirteen years or fourteen years, when she has attained puberty. So the system is six months father house and six months husband. In this way, going and coming. But when she is elderly she can remain continually with her …but in the beginning… Because after all, she is girl, so she cannot tolerate the separation from father and mother. So six months here, six months… So Tulasī das, as soon as the, his father-in-law will come to take his daughter, he won’t allow. He won’t allow.

Brahmānanda:

Oh, he’s so attached.

Prabhupāda:

Yes. “She’ll go later on. She’ll go.” So he went back. The father used to…, went back. In this way, several times. Then it was agreed that the girl would go there, father’s house, and the father took the girl in the morning, and in the evening Tulasī dāsa went there. (laughs) His wife chastised, “You are so rascal fool that I have come this morning and you have, evening you are here? You have so much attachment for the skin?” Just like husband and wife talking.

That struck him very badly, and he immediately left that place and went to… Left home for good. Yes. And that was the initiation that he took up writing about Rāma. That is Tulasī dāsa’s life. Just being, I mean to say, hurt by the words of wife, that “I love her,”… Later on he understood, “Yes, she is right. So why should I be so much attached?” She uttered this (indistinct), “If you have got so much attachment for this skin and bone; if you had so much attachment for Rāma then your life would have been different.”

So he took it seriously. “Why not attachment for Rāma?” So he became a great devotee of Rāma, Tulasī das. His book, Rāma-carita-mānasa. “Thinking always of Rāma,” that is his book. It is very famous book, and that is the only important literature in the Hindi language, Rāma-carita-mānasa. It is very popular in India. Village to village. Practically Gītā Press has flourished simply by selling the Rāma-carita-mānasa and Gītā. Gītā and Rāma-carita-mānasa. Two books. Millions of books they print and sell, this Rāma-carita-mānasa and Bhagavad-gītā.