cursed to be born as a stone (the shala-
gram); and Lakshmi, who tries only to
mediate the quarrel, is cursed to be born
as a plant. This plant is thus a form of
Lakshmi, and pious Vaishnavasculti-
vate a tulsi plant as an act of devotion.
The plant is especially dear to Vishnu,
and it is believed that all parts of the
plant are purifying. Any parts of it used
in worshipare especially meritorious—
whether grinding the leaves to a paste to
mark one’s body, taking the leaves as
prasad(food offered to a deityas an act
of worship), or using tulsi wood for
implements or sacrificial fuel.
Tulsidas
(1532–1623) Poet-saint and devotee
(bhakta) of the god Rama, whose great-
est work, the Ramcharitmanas, retells
the epic Ramayanain the vernacular
language of his day. According to evi-
dence in his poetry, Tulsidas was born
into a desperately poor brahminfamily,
but his life was transformed by the
power of Rama’s name. This can be
taken as a reference to his teacher, who
is believed to have been a Ramanandi,
but it can also be taken literally. Tulsidas
continually stresses that the name of
Rama embodies the divinity’s power and
thus makes that power accessible to
devotees. According to tradition, he
lived a fairly hard life despite his fame,
and because of his emphasis on devo-
tion, he reportedly faced problems from
other brahmins, who were concerned
about maintaining their social status.
As with all of the Ramayana’s vernac-
ular retellings, Tulsidas did not merely
translate the story of Rama but inter-
preted it according to his own religious
convictions. The two most important
shifts are his overwhelming emphasis
on the importance of devotion (bhakti)
and the saving power of the name
of Rama, to which Tulsidas gives
greater importance than Rama himself.
Tulsidas also brings in mythic material
from a variety of other sources, most
notably the Shiva Purana and the
Adhyatmaramayana. This material is
largely added to the first and last chap-
ters, where Tulsidas makes his greatest
changes from the original epic. One the-
ory to explain why Tulsidas brought in
this other material is that he was trying
to transcend narrow sectarian bound-
aries, and a sign of this is that much of
the text is narrated by the god Shiva, in
the form of a dialogue to his wife
Parvati. For part of the final book, Shiva
is supplanted as narrator by the crow
Bhushundi, who symbolizes the power
of devotion to rescue even a common
carrion-eating crow. Aside from the
Ramcharitmanas, Tulsidas composed
many other works in varying regional
languages and dedicated to various
deities; the most important are the
Kavitavali, the Vinaya Patrika, the
Ramavali, and the Shrikrishnavali.
Tulsidas himself refers to writing down
his poems, and although the manuscript
tradition is uncertain for some of his
texts, the transition from song to written
text took place much faster than for
most of his contemporary poet-saints,
many of whom were illiterate. For fur-
ther information see F. Raymond Allchin
(trans.), Kavitavali, 1964; W. Douglas P.
Hill (trans.), The Holy Lake of the Acts of
Rama, 1971; and John Stratton Hawley
and Mark Juergensmeyer (trans.), Songs
of the Saints of India, 1988.Tulsidas Jayanti
Festival falling on the seventh day
of the bright (waxing) half of the lunar
monthof Shravan( July–August), cele-
brating the birthday of the medieval
devotional (bhakti) poet-saint Tulsidas
(1532–1623). Tulsidas composed many
different texts, and he is one of the few
medieval poet-saints believed to have
been literate and to have actually writ-
ten down his work. His most celebrated
text is the Ramcharitmanas, a vernacu-
lar retelling of the epic Ramayana.Tulsi Vivah
Festival marking the marriage of the
goddess Lakshmiand the god Vishnu,Tulsi Vivah