|
''Ramcharitmanas'' (Devanāgarī: , IAST: ŚrīRāmacaritamānasa), also spelt as ''Ramacharitamanasa'', is an epic poem in Awadhi dialect of Hindi, composed by the 16th-century Indian bhakti poet Goswami Tulsidas (c.1532–1623). ''Ramcharitmanas'' literally means "Lake of the deeds of Rama". ''Ramcharitmanas'' is considered as one of the greatest works of Hindi literature. The work has been acclaimed as "the living sum of Indian culture", "the tallest tree in the magic garden of medieval Indian poetry", "the greatest book of all devotional literature" and "the best and most trustworthy guide to the popular living faith of the Indian people".〔Lutgendorf 1991, p. 1.〕 The core of the work is considered by some to be a poetic retelling of the events of the Sanskrit epic ''Ramayana'', centered on the narrative of Rama, the scion of the family tree of Raghu of the Sun Dynasty and the crown prince of Ayodhya who is also considered in Hindu tradition as one of the Avataras of Vishnu. However, Tulsidas never alludes to ''Ramcharitmanas'' as being a retelling of Valmiki Ramayana. He calls the epic ''Ramcharitmanas'' as the story of Rama was stored in the mind (Mānasa) of Shiva before he narrated the same to His consort Parvati. Tulsidas claims to have received the story through his guru, Narharidas. Tulsidas was unconscious (Acheta, Devanāgarī: ) and the story was stored in his mind (Mānasa) for long before he wrote it down as ''Ramcharitmanas''. The epic poem is, therefore, also referred to as ''Tulsikrit Ramayana'' (literally, ''The Ramayana composed by Tulsidas''). The ''Ramcharitmanas'' consists of seven Kāndas (i.e. parts or books). Tulsidas compared the seven Kāndas (literally "books" or "episodes", cognate with ''cantos'') of the epic to seven steps leading into the holy waters of Lake Manasarovar "which purifies the body and the soul at once". A unique feature of Ramacharitmanas is that at least one of the four letters s, t, r, m (symbolizing SitaRam) is present in every line of this epic. ''Ramcharitmanas'', for the first time in the history of North India, made available the story of Rama to the common man to sing, meditate and perform on. Tulsidas was a great scholar of Sanskrit. However, he wanted the story of Rama to be accessible to the general masses and not just the Sanskrit-speaking elite. In order to make the story of Rama as accessible to the layman as to the scholar, Tulsidas chose to write in Awadhi, a local dialect of Hindi which was in vogue as the language of general parlance in large parts of north India during the composition of the work. Tradition has it that Tulsidas had to face a lot of criticism from the sanskrit scholars of Varanasi for being a bhasha(vernacular) poet. However, Tulsidas remained steadfast in his resolve for simplifying the knowledge of the Vedas and Upanishads to the common people and was subsequently accepted by all. The writing of ''Ramcharitmanas'' also heralded many a cultural tradition, most significantly that of the tradition of Ramlila, the dramatic enactment of the text. The ''Ramcharitmanas'' is considered by many as a work belonging to the Saguna school of the Bhakti movement in Hindi literature. ==Background== Tulsidas (the Sanskrit name of Tulsidas can be transliterated in two ways. Using the IAST transliteration scheme, the name is written as Tulasīdāsa, as pronounced in Sanskrit. Using the Hunterian transliteration scheme, it is written as Tulsidas or Tulsīdās, as pronounced in Hindi. ) began writing the ''Ramcharitmanas'' in Ayodhya in Vikram Samvat 1631 (1574 CE). The exact date is stated within the poem as being the ninth day of the month of Chaitra, which is the birthday of Rama, Rama Navami.〔 ''Ramcharitmanas'' was composed at Ayodhya, Varanasi & Chitrakoot.〔Rambhadracharya, Swami (2008). Ramcharitmanas Bhavarthbodhini Hindi Tika. Page No. xxxi〕 India was under the reign of Mughal emperor Akbar (1556-1605 CE) during this period. This makes Tulsidas a contemporary of William Shakespeare. Widely considered a re-telling of the Valmiki ''Ramayana'' , the ''Ramcaritmanas'' of Tulsidas in vernacular Avadhi language, is by no means a word-by-word copy of the former. In fact, ''Ramcaritmanas'' has elements from many other Ramayanas written earlier in Sanskrit and other Indian dialects as well as stories from Puranas. Tulsidas himself never writes ''Ramcharitmanas'' as being a retelling of Valmiki Ramayana. He calls the epic ''Ramcharitmanas'' as the story of Rama was stored in the mind (Mānasa) of Shiva before he narrated the same to His consort Parvati. Tulsidas claims to have received the story through his guru, Narharidas. Tulsidas was unconscious (Acheta, ) and the story was stored in his mind (Mānasa) for long before he wrote it down as ''Ramcharitmanas''. The ''Ramcharitmanas'' is a masterpiece of vernacular renaissance. It is believed by some to represent a challenge to the dominance of high-class Brahmanical Sanskrit, echoing the revolt of Buddha against Brahmanical elitism. However, this interpretation appears faulty as Tulsidas himself was a brahmin and often talks very highly of the Brahmins in the ''Ramcharitmanas'' and other books written by him. His seems to be, rather than an attempt to revolt, an attempt to reconcile the different stories of Rama and to bring the story within the reaches of the common man. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ramcharitmanas」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|