Shyamatara Das

In the Service of the Divine Mother

The Tulsidas Ramayan

March 8, 2022 By Brian Leave a Comment

Ranayana TextGoswami Tulsidas was an Indian saint and poet who lived in the 16th Century CE. His Ramcharitmanas (the Holy-Lake of the enactments of Lord God Rama) is a retelling of the Ramayana in Awadhi. Through this, which would become one of the great works of world literature, he brought the story from Sanskrit into the vernacular of the people for the very first time.

I had previously read William Buck’s excellent translation of the Valmiki Ramayan (which predated Tulsidas by many centuries), but since Tulsidas is the author of one of my favorite prayers, the Hanuman Chalisa, I had long wanted to explore his Ramayan as well.

I found a very nice hardbound version, with transliteration and translation by Baldev Prasad Saxena, nearly two years ago, and began to read it at that time, but made little progress before shelving it for another day, overwhelmed. When I came back to it this January, I was determined to work my way through, slowly but surely, committing to reading ten pages each day – no more and no less. I completed it on February 26th.

What I liked most about this book was the ready availability of the original text and transliteration above the English. I also loved the way the story was presented, as a series of conversations (between Lord Shiva and Parvati, Bharadwaj and Yajnavalkya, and Kakbhushundi and Garuda) where one person is relating the tale to another. The invocations which commence each canto are also lovely.

Tulsidas was a devotee of Hanuman, and founded the Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple on the spot where he is purported to have received darshan from the great monkey hero. That spirit of devotion shines through in every passage of this book.

I’m thankful to have had the opportunity to read this great work, and would recommend it to any serious anglophone student or devotee. I would also recommend the William Buck Ramayana translation as perhaps a bit more accessible (and no less beautiful).

राम राम

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Hanuman, Hindu, Ram, Ramayana, Sita, What I'm Reading

The Hanuman Chalisa

January 18, 2021 By Brian Leave a Comment

Prayer Book Hanuman Chalisa

“Having polished the mirror of my heart with the dust from my Guru’s lotus feet, I sing the pure fame of the best of the Raghus which bestows the four fruits of life.”

So begins the stunningly beautiful Hanuman Chalisa, a poem of devotion to Lord Hanuman composed by Tulsidas in the 16th Century.

Maharaj-ji said that every line of the Hanuman Chalisa is a Mahamantra. In my own experience, it does seem to be an extremely powerful prayer. It has certainly helped me trust and surrender to God more.

This is one of the chants that Devadas includes several days a week in his daily livestreamed sadhana. Also, Shyama Chapin has been livestreaming the Chalisa, along with other chants and readings from the Ramayana, each morning at 7 AM Eastern Time for nearly a year on her Facebook Page.

The photo above is a page from the Kainchi Temple prayer book available from the Taos Neem Karoli Baba Ashram’s online store.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Bhakti, Devotions, Hanuman, Hindu, Ram, Tulsidas

ༀ་ཏཱ་རེ་ཏུཏྟཱ་རེ་ཏུ་རེ་སྭཱ་ཧཱ།

Oṃ Tāre Tuttāre Ture Svāhā

Mother of Liberation, Guide and Protect Us

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