The Manas-Katha Tradition

Tulsi the Singer

Although there is no reliable documentation of performance of the Manas in Tulsidas's time, it seems reasonable to assume that as the fame of the work spread, it came to be systematically expounded in Vaishnava devotional assemblies. The hagiographic tradition describes Tulsidas as performing his own works, and even though the authenticity of some of these sources (such as the Mulgosaim^[*]carit , discussed earlier) may be questioned, the portrayal of Tulsi as a devotional singer seems plausible, particularly in light of certain references in his poetry. In some of the introspective and confessional songs of the Kavitavali and the Vinay patrika , probably composed late in the poet's life,^[37] Tulsi complains of his own hypocrisy, lamenting that, though inwardly a sinner, he "fills his belly" by singing Ram's praises.^[38] Such verses suggest that, like many contemporary sadhus, he may have derived a meager livelihood from the offerings made by devotees at the conclusion of bhajan or Katha programs.

Another glimpse of Tulsi as a performer is supplied by the Gautamcandrika , a work purportedly composed within a year of Tulsi's death by Krishnadatt Mishra, the son of one of Tulsi's intimate companions and ostensibly an eyewitness to many of the events he records. One passage describes Tulsi's performance of a Visnupad^[*] (the reference may be to Vinay patrika , which is an anthology of pads , or short lyrics) and its popular reception:

One night many sadhus came
and Tulsi sang a new Visnupad^[*]
to drive away intellectualism and establish bhakti .
The night passed, but no one noticed.

Tulsi went to the temples,
prayed and sang the Visnupad^[*] .

[37] The Kavitavali alludes to the poet's sufferings due to the infirmities of old age and mentions a plague in Banaras, believed to have occurred in c. 1615. On the dating of these two works, see Allchin's introductions to his translations; Kavitavali , 63; The Petition to Ram , 34-35.

[38] E.g., Vinay patrika 158:5,6, "I rattle on like a pandit about the secrets of supreme detachment; moreover I let myself be called your servant"; 171:4, "Calling myself your servant, I fill my belly"; 185:5, "I preach to others that saints are boats to cross illusion's stream." Similarly, Kavitavali 7:61, "I fill my belly by singing your praises, Ram!"; 7:63, "I call myself yours, Ram, and sing your virtues, and from respect of you I obtain my daily bread."

Having listened with devotion to this new song
men and women began singing it everywhere.
On every ghat, in houses, lanes and squares,
the Visnupad^[*] spread throughout Kashi.
The conceited traditionalists became offended,
[as did] the hypocritical goswamis of the city.^[39]

Other hagiographic works depict Tulsi as both a singer and a kathavacak . A famous story of Tulsi's meeting with Hanuman in the context of a Katha performance is found in Priyadas's commentary on the Bhaktamal , composed some ninety years after Tulsi's death.^[40] The relevant verses, in which a ghost addresses Tulsi, read:

Your Ramayan Katha is elixir to Hanuman's ears.
He comes first and departs last, though in repugnant guise.^[41]

During the four lunar months of the rainy season (caturmas ), when travel became difficult, mendicants would traditionally remain in an ashram or religious center, where lay devotees would provide for their maintenance. Among the favored activities for these months were satsang^[*] and the hearing of Katha . The Mulgosaim^[*] carit describes Tulsi's activities during one caturmas as follows:

He stayed there for the rainy season
and daily told the Ram-katha with a glad heart.
The saints who dwelt in that forest listened daily
and listening, experienced great delight.^[42]

The First Retellers

I have noted that a Katha always has a principal srota , or listener, who should be one "worthy of receiving the Katha " (katha-adhikari ), as Tulsi himself suggests in Uttar kand^[*] :

[39] Mishra, "Gautamcandrika mem^[*] Tulsidas ka vrttant^[*] ," 8-9. This article included excerpts from the Gautamcandrika that Mishra had obtained from one Chaudhari Chunni Singh of Ramnagar, who claimed to have copied them from a (subsequently lost) manuscript of the complete work. A rough translation of the relevant passages (arranged in a different order from the one in which Mishra published them), is given in Gopal, Tulasidas: A Literary Biography , 69-86.

[40] See pages 49-50.

[41] Rupkala, ed., SriBhaktamal , 762 (kavitta 638). As explained earlier, Hanuman appears in the guise of a leper.

[42] Mulgosaim^[*]carit , passage after doha 21; in Gupta, Gosaim^[*]carit , 281. In contemporary Maharashtra, Damle notes that harikatha is still popular during caturmas and that well-known performers are often engaged by a temple or patron for the full four-month period; "Harikatha," 70.

A listener who is wise, virtuous, pure,
a lover of Katha and servant of the Lord—
O Uma!—finding such a one,
a good man reveals even the most secret things.
7.69b

The chief listener's qualifications are important because he can become another link in the chain of transmission of the Katha ; hence the hagiographic tradition's concern with the identity of Tulsi's first hearers. The Mulgosaim^[*]carit identifies four original srotas , one of whom is then said to have recited the epic "over the course of three years," which suggests the kathavacak style of exposition in daily installments. Other traditional accounts of the early performance of the epic paint a similar picture of extended recitation in the satsang -assemblies of Vaishnava holy places. A twentieth-century Prasnottari (question-and-answer manual) on the propagation of the Manas lists nine early "tellings" and reveals, if not historical exactitude, at least the tradition's characteristic concern with place and occasion of narration as well as its concept of the extended and elaborate nature of Katha .

Question: Who was the first Manas expounder?

Answer: (1) Swami Nandlal of Sandila and (2) Swami Ruparun of Mithila. These two swamis had the good fortune to hear the recitation of the Ramcaritmanas from Goswami at Tulsichaura, Ayodhya. One of them recited the Manas-katha over the course of three years to Raskhan at Vrindavan, on the banks of the Yamuna, and the other recited it to Sabhal Singh Bhumihar on the banks of the Bagmati.

(3) At Chitrakut on the banks of the Mandakini, a second Tulsidas and (4) his pupil Kishoridas, in the midst of an assembly of saints, completed the entire Katha of the Manas in twelve years.

(5) In Kashi on the banks of the Ganga, Baba Raghunathdas told the Katha of the Manas in seven years and (6) in Panchavati on the banks of the Godavari the poet Moreshvarpant told it in nine years.

(7) In Ayodhya on the banks of the Sarayu, Benimadhav Das . . . and (8) at the confluence at Varahkshetra his pupil Keshavdas systematically related this Katha in ten years to Manas lovers. (9) At Soron on the banks of the Ganga, Mahatma Tulsidas Gosai and his son Janaki Gosai together told the Katha in five years during a sacrificial session.^[43]

[43] "Mahatma Tulsidas" is not the author of the Manas ; "Tulsidas" was not an uncommon name among Vaishnavas (note the "second Tulsidas" mentioned in no. 3). To prevent confusion, the author of the epic is often referred to as "Goswami." The Prasnottari was compiled by Baba Lakshmandas Ramayani and Chakrapani Shastri; it is cited by Sharan in "Manas ke pracin tikakar^[*] ," 909.

Such traditional accounts and the guru-disciple lineages offered by later expounders to assert their direct link with Tulsidas are among the few extant clues to what must have been a flourishing tradition of Manas performance during the first century and a half following the poet's death. From the latter part of the eighteenth century, however, it becomes possible to trace the development of the Manas-katha tradition, in part through manuscript commentaries on the epic composed by eminent Ramayanis. Substantial collections of these works may be found, for example, in the palace library at Ramnagar (Banaras) and in religious establishments in Ayodhya, but they have largely been ignored by academic scholars. Probably the most substantial treatment of the commentarial tradition (which, as will be seen, is synonymous with the Katha tradition) is an article by Anjaninandan Sharan, "Manas ke pracin tikakar^[*] " (Early commentators on the Manas ), which appeared as an appendix to the special Manas issue of Kalyan^[*] in 1938. The author, a scholarly sadhu of Ayodhya, was the compiler of the twelve-volume Manaspiyus^[*] (Nectar of the Manas ), an encyclopedic commentary that incorporated the insights of many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Ramayanis and about which more will be said shortly. Although the Kalyan^[*] article contains many gaps, it is still a rich source of historical and legendary material.^[44] The account presented here necessarily relies heavily on Sharan's article, supplemented when possible by material from other sources.^[45] But before I embark on this folk history of Manas commentary, some clarification of terminology is useful.

Indigenous Exegetical Terms

Although it is hardly possible to avoid using the term "commentary" in reference to written works in the Manas tradition, the reader's understanding of this term should be tempered by reference to the Sanskrit/

[44] Sharan apologizes to his readers that, "of late due to a certain indifference in my mind toward reading and writing, all my books and papers have been given away, and at present there is not a single Manas -related book in my possession"; "Manas ke pracin tikakar^[*] ," 909. His memory must have been prodigious, however, and many dates and citations in his article can be verified through other sources. Even without his books, Sharan seems to have known more than anyone else about the development of the Katha tradition. I am indebted to C. N, Singh for having brought this valuable article to my attention.

[45] These include Singh, Rambhaktimem^[*]rasik sampraday , which includes brief biographies of sixty-eight prominent Ram devotees. Another pertinent (but less substantial) source is Jhingaran, "Ham sevak," which deals with the Katha tradition in Banaras. Also useful is Chaube, "Ramcaritmanas ," which mentions a number of nineteenth-century commentaries. These written sources have been supplemented with material drawn from interviews with devotees and scholars, among whom Pandit Ramkumar Das of Mani Parvat, Ayodhya, and C. N. Singh of Banaras have been especially helpful on historical questions.

Hindi terms for which it is only a partially adequate substitute. Both tika^[*] and tippani^[*] , for example, can mean "annotation" or "note," and many commentaries originated in the kharra , or "rough notes," made by expounders in the margins of their manuscripts of the Manas —notes intended as aids in interpreting difficult lines in oral exposition. Such annotations could rarely be understood without a teacher to expound them, and this was true even in the case of some nineteenth-century published "commentaries."^[46] Another word often translated as "commentary" is tilak , and here a primary meaning is "ornament" or "embellishment." Indeed, both tika^[*] and tilak also refer to the auspicious, often sectarian symbols with which Hindus adorn their foreheads. The purpose of a written tilak —at least within the bhakti tradition—is often as much "ornamental" as it is explicative; it is primarily an embellishment and expansion on the text rather than an intellectual explanation of it.

The interpretation of a given Manas verse by an individual expounder is usually referred to as a bhav —a "mood" or "feeling," an indicator of its essentially affective nature. A vyas in performance may cite the interpretations of a number of earlier expounders, introducing each somewhat as follows: "Concerning this verse, Pandit Ramkumar-ji had this bhav . . . ." The bhav of another vyas may then be presented in turn; the fact that it differs greatly from Ramkumar's or even contradicts it will not disturb either performer or audience. Conflicting "feelings" can still be savored by listeners, even though they may find that one bhav comes closer to their own feeling about a line than another does.

This tolerance for conflicting interpretations extends even to the basic structure of the narrative, since the Manas is an authoritative but

[46] Note Coburn's observation: "The guru-student relationship may well take a written document^[*] as its starting point, but so intimate and personal is that relationship, and so essential is it to the correct understanding of the written (or orally preserved) word, that there exists the widespread custom that if a teacher does not find a student worthy of inheriting his manuscripts, he will, in his old age, simply discard them by throwing them into a river—as one would ashes that had been cremated. Written documents, unvivified by personal relationship, are lifeless"; "'Scripture' in India," 444. Similarly (in a lecture delivered at the University of Chicago, April 1985) Francis Zimmerman has noted the tendency of commentaries on verses of Ayurvedic texts to end with the word adi (etc.), indicating that the line is incompletely expounded and that the student should refer to his teacher for further explanation.

not a definitive text of the Ramayan tradition and since people typically know many Ramayan-related stories that are not recounted by Tulsidas. I once heard the Banarsi vyas Shrinath Mishra digress while expounding the Manas to relate an incident from Krittibas's Bengali version of the story concerning a long conversation between Ram and Ravan on the battlefield, where the latter lay dying from his wounds. This incident not only has no parallel in the version of the story best known to Shrinath's audience but seriously contradicts its narrative and chronology. It depicts Ravan, just before his death, as a devotee of Ram, and their conversation as extended and tender; in Tulsi's account Ravan remains an enemy to the last (although his soul wins final salvation by Ram's grace) and his death in battle is instantaneous. In retelling this story, the vyas advised his listeners not to worry over the narrative details but to "just savor Krittibas's bhav a little!" Moreover, it is understood that there is no limit to the number of bhavs that can be drawn from the epic or even from one of its verses, as some expounders have tried to demonstrate by presenting a stupefyingly vast number of interpretations for a single line.^[47]

If we understand the terms tilak and tika^[*] , at least in the context of the Manas , to refer essentially to emotionally flavored "re-presentations" of the text, we can better explain the wide range of works that may be grouped under these terms—ranging from brief verse-by-verse glosses in modern Hindi prose, offering no elaboration (although interpretation is necessarily involved in any transposition from poetry to prose), to multivolume works such as the Vijayatika^[*] of Vijayanand Tripathi, in which each verse is followed by an extended analysis that may fill several pages.^[48] In the same way, Katha performances may consist of little more than a recitation of the text with a brief prose explanation for each line or may involve elaborate and extended exposition in which, for example, a single line is discussed for many consecutive days.

The Rise of Royal Patronage

Although the tradition of oral exposition of religious texts—notably of the Vaishnava Puranas—had developed in northern India before the advent of Islamic rule, the establishment of Muslim hegemony created

[47] Baldevprasad Mishra mentions one Ramayani who is said to have expounded 1,675,186 interpretations of a single verse; Tulsidarsan , 320. See also the account of Ramkumar's performance before the Raja of Rewa, below, p. 142.

[48] Tripathi, ed., SriRamcaritmanas , vijaya tika^[*] .

conditions favorable to its spread. The congregational expression of religious feelings through bhajan, kirtan , and Katha required no elaborate superstructure of temples and shrines, which could become targets for the iconoclasm of the new rulers. Vaishnava storytellers and expounders were often wandering sadhus, whose activities were likewise difficult for the state to regulate. Moreover, the religious philosophy of Katha tended to emphasize spiritual egalitarianism and hence appealed to people of low social status; it served to counter the social appeal of Islam and may have encouraged the patronage of wealthier, caste Hindus alarmed at the conversion of low-caste and untouchable groups.^[49]

The development of present-day styles of Manas exposition can be dearly traced only from the period of the define of centralized Muslim rule in northern India—that is, from the eighteenth century. The rapid dissolution of the Mughal empire following the death of Aurangzeb in 1707 led to the rise of many independent and semi-independent kingdoms, some under Hindu rulers. Even though Hindu courts of the period remained heavily influenced by Islamic cultural models, they also sought to express their identity and independence by affirming Hindu traditions of kingship and social order. This need to reassert a Hindu identity became more acute in the nineteenth century, when the Mughal imperial mantle passed to a far more self-assertively foreign regime, which engaged in an increasingly harsh critique of Hindu religion and culture—the British Raj.

The Vaishnava devotional tradition had for centuries been a major source of religious inspiration throughout the Hindi-speaking regions. The cult of Krishna had developed a spiritual center in the Braj region as well as important connections with Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Bengal; the cult of Ram had its geographical locus in the area today comprising eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and northern Madhya Pradesh, the legendary heartland of the narrative. Geography plays its part in bhakti —one expects to find a preponderance of Krishna worship in Vrindavan and of Ram worship in Ayodhya—and so it may seem only natural that the Hindu dynasties that arose in the eastern Ganges valley in the eighteenth century were inclined to patronize Ram-related traditions. But an additional reason for this preference may lie in the fact that the theology of Krishna bhakti had, during the centuries of Muslim rule, come to be almost exclusively focused on the pastoral and extrasocial myth of the

[49] Damle makes this argument with reference to the harikatha tradition in Maharashtra, which he feels became systematized during the period of Muslim rule; "Harikatha," 64.

divine cowherd of Vrindavan and so no longer presented a model of kingship for this-worldly rulers.^[50] In contrast, the Ram tradition had preserved a strong sociopolitical strand, expressed most clearly in the vision of Ramraj and in Ram's role as the exemplar of maryada , a term that implies both personal dignity and social propriety. The accessibility of the tradition was enhanced by the expression of these ideals in a brilliant vernacular epic that had already won a vast following throughout the region. Accordingly, it was to Ram and the Manas that many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Hindu rulers turned for a validating model of temporal authority.

From the limited evidence available, we may speculate that the early propagation and patronage of the Manas was primarily the work of sadhus and middle-class people—merchants and petty landowners—and that Tulsi's epic did not initially have a strong appeal for the religious and political elite. Beginning in the latter half of the eighteenth century, however, there was a great surge in the royal and aristocratic patronage of the Hindi epic, reflected in the collection and copying of manuscripts at courts such as Rewa, Dumrao, Tikamgarh, and especially Banaras and in the encouragement of oral expounders and the commissioning of written commentaries by the most influential among them. Not surprisingly, royal patronage appears to have had the effect of awakening greater interest in the epic among Brahmans, so that the work of exposition and commentary came increasingly into the hands of religious specialists.

The chronology of the Banaras maharajas, who were the most influential patrons of the Manas during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, provides a convenient time line against which to view other developments in the tradition. The founder of the dynasty, Mansaram Singh, came to power in 1717 and ruled until 1740. By all accounts he was an ambitious local chieftain of doubtful pedigree, although his descendants claim the status of Bhumihar Brahmans (Brahmans "of the land"). The family conformed to the classic pattern of the nouvel arrive^[*] in Indian politics: rising from obscure beginnings to a position of temporal power and securing social and ritual status by patronizing a validating religious tradition. Mansaram's son, Balvant Singh (1714-70), oversaw the con-

[50] David Haberman suggests that the deemphasis on the heroic and royal aspects of the Krishna myth in favor of pastoral and erotic themes may in part have been a consequence of the establishment of Muslim suzerainty, the resultant disappearance of royally patronized temple cults, and the loss to Hindus of a channel for the active expression of religiopolitical ideals; Acting as a Way of Salvation , 40-45.

struction of the Ramnagar fortress, across the Ganga and slightly upstream from Banaras city, on bluffs rising to the south. Besides occupying a strategic location safe from the annual floods that inundate the low-lying areas to the north, the fortress is popularly believed to mark the site at which Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa, the legendary "divider" of the Veda and author of sacred literature, performed austerities and composed his Mahabharata . A small temple on the western rampart overlooking the river enshrines a Shiva linga said to have been consecrated by Vyasa himself. Legend holds that Balvant Singh constructed the palace around this shrine. This temple has for many generations remained in the custodianship of a family of Ramayanis in the service of the maharaja. The male members of the family chant the Manas during the annual Ramlila ; some also expound the epic at other times of the year and thus fulfill the role of vyas in the special sense explained earlier. It seems fitting that the Vyas Temple, which claims a direct link with the archetypal mediator of sacred text, should serve as the symbolic cornerstone of a palace whose occupants have long affirmed their royal status through the mediation of the Manas epic.

The great flowering of Manas patronage at the Ramnagar court began in the reign of Balvant Singh's grandson, Udit Narayan Singh (1783-1835), who commissioned the massive Citra ramayan^[*] (a lavish illuminated manuscript of the epic) and reorganized the local Ramlila into an elaborate month-long performance cycle. His son, Ishvariprasad Narayan Singh (1821-89), was himself the author of a commentary on the epic and made the court the preeminent seat of Manas patronage and scholarship; his reign has been called the "Golden Age of the Manas ."^[51] The legendary Ramayani-satsangs he sponsored were graced by the "nine jewels" of the court—the most renowned Manas scholars of the day. Ishvariprasad's successor, Prabhu Narayan Singh (1855-1931), arranged for the publication of the great three-volume commentary commissioned by his father. By his time, however, the availability of printed editions had begun to create new audiences and patrons for Manas exposition, and the importance of royal patronage was starting to decline, although the family-sponsored Ramlila remained the most prestigious of Manas stagings. The proliferation of printed editions of the epic, many of which appeared with tikas^[*] composed by contemporary Ramayanis, helped spread the fame of influential expounders and contributed to the growth of an audience that was both more knowl-

[51] Chaube, "Ramcaritmanas ," 121.

edgeable with respect to the text and more discriminating with respect to oral exposition.

Even though no other court could match the luster of Kashi, with its ancient sacral status and its intimate associations with both the principal narrators of the epic—Tulsidas and Shiva—other princely states were also active in Manas patronage. Of special note was the court of Rewa (on the Uttar Pradesh-Madhya Pradesh border) under Vishvanath Singh (1789-1854) and his son Raghuraj Singh (1823-79), both of whom were poets. The former is credited with thirty-eight works, nearly all on Ram-devotional themes, including a commentary on Tulsi's Vinay patrika ; the latter, who was a close friend of Raja Ishvariprasad of Banaras, was only slightly less prolific, with thirty-two poetic works to his credit.^[52] Another center of Manas patronage was the court of Dumrao, near Baksar in Bihar. Its ruler, contemporary with Udit Narayan of Banaras, was Gopal Sharan Singh, who patronized the legendary expounder Shivlal Pathak and himself composed a tika^[*] on the Manas in the 1830s.

The cultural challenge presented by British rule was undoubtedly one factor in causing these nineteenth-century princes to turn to the study and promotion of their cultural epic. It is also worth noting, however, that it was the "Pax Britannica" that relieved these small kingdoms of the sovereign Kshatriya responsibility of engaging in incessant internecine warfare and permitted their lords the leisure to compose poetic commentaries, make pilgrimages to Ayodhya and Chitrakut, and identify with one another not as enemy sovereigns but as fellow devotees, defenders of the faith, and patrons of an emerging "Hindu renaissance."^[53]

The Tulsi-Parampara

The guru-sisya^[*] (teacher-disciple) relationship is as central to the art of Katha as it is to other Indian performance traditions, and most expounders conceive of themselves as belonging, however symbolically, to a parampara (chain, or succession) that ultimately extends back to the very sources of the tradition. Anjaninandan Sharan identifies two main

[52] Biographical sketches of both men, including lists of their writings, are given in Singh, Rambhaktimem^[*]rasik sampraday ; that of Vishvanath Singh is on pages 431-36; that of Raghuraj Singh is on pages 469-74.

[53] A similar observation has been made by Peter van der Veer, who attributes the upsurge in royally patronized temple building in Ayodhya to the leisure and security provided by British overlordship; Gods on Earth , p. 39.

Figure 15.
The Tulsi-parampara according to Anjaninandan Sharan.
Source: Sharan, "Manas ke pracin tikakar^[*] ," 910. Names followed by an asterisk are
those of famous expounders to whom additional reference is made in the text.

"schools" of Manas interpretation, which may be labeled the "Tulsi" and the "Ayodhya" traditions respectively. The first traces itself back to Tulsidas (and ultimately to Shiva, the first narrator of the Manas ), but historically it can be most clearly traced through its two branches, which represent the traditions of Shivlal Pathak and Ramgulam Dvivedi, influential expounders of the early nineteenth century. Banaras was the most important center for this tradition, and most of its major figures enjoyed, at one time or another, the patronage of the Ramnagar kings. The Ayodhya parampara , on the other hand, was the Katha tradition of the various Ramanandi ascetic lineages that had their base in Ram's holy city; Sharan, himself an Ayodhya sadhu, did not attempt to trace this tradition back to the time of Tulsidas, but each of the sadhu lineages has its own chain of transmission, usually leading back to Ramanand and sometimes including Tulsi, if the sadhus claim him as a member of their order.^[54] In the pages that follow, I discuss figures from both traditions as well as a number of commentators who do not seem to belong to either; the majority of names that I introduce, however, belong to the Tulsi-parampara . Accordingly, it is useful to begin with a chart of this tradition (fig. 15), based on one in Sharan's 1938 article but with a few additions to bring it up to date.

This diagram cannot be taken as a historical or even a strictly chronological schema; rather it is a symbolic representation of a tradition as some of its practitioners conceive of it. In certain cases, successive figures on the chart were indeed connected by a teacher-disciple relationship that spanned many years of intensive instruction in Manas interpretation. In other cases, a pupil's contact with a given teacher may have been fleeting; he may have had the darsan (auspicious sight) of the guru, perhaps heard him expound on several occasions, and received (or felt that he received) his blessing (asirvad ). The situation is complicated by that fact that a pupil may have several gurus: a siksa-guru^[*] , who imparts teachings; a diksa-guru^[*] , who initiates and bestows a mantra; and additional gurus for specialized instruction. He may choose to place himself in the lineage of any or all of these.

In this context, it is important to understand that it is not primarily intellectual knowledge of empirical information that is communicated through the teacher-pupil succession, but rather authority (adhikar )—the authority to practice a particular sadhana and repeat a mantra, or to interpret and expound a particular text. Such authority may also be the

[54] Charts of these lineages are given in Singh, Rambhaktimem rasik sampraday , 333-56.

outcome of "grace" (krpa^[*] ), and the guru who imparts it may not be a human being at all; many expounders attribute their understanding of the Manas to the grace of Hanuman, the special patron of their tradition, bestowed in an extraordinary spiritual encounter.

Mahant Ramcharand as and Jnani Sant Singh

It is said that the first "commentary" on the Manas was a Sanskrit translation of the poem made in about 1603 by a disciple of Tulsi, Ramukar Dvivedi.^[55] The first complete Hindi tilak on the epic, however, is not thought to have been composed until nearly two centuries later and is credited to Ramcharandas of Ayodhya (not included in figure 15), a Ramanandi sadhu. Born in a Brahman family in the area of Pratapgarh, U.P., in about 1760, Ramcharandas is said to have been in the service of a local raja for some time; but a spiritual experience caused him to renounce the world and go to Ayodhya,^[56] where his humility and service to other sadhus earned him the title Karunasindhuji—"the ocean of mercy." Eventually he rose to a position of authority as mahant , or leader, of his own gaddi (literally "couch" or "throne" but by extension a religious establishment that contains the "seat" of a powerful mahant ) on Janaki Ghat, where he gave Manas-katha daily to great numbers of sadhus and lay devotees. It is said that Asaf ud-Daula, the Muslim nawab of Oudh, made a gift of several villages for the maintenance of Ramcharandas's establishment. Raja Vishvanath Singh of Rewa was so taken with his Katha that he urged the mahant to commit it to writing and provided twelve pandits to assist in this task. Their labors, it is said, occupied twelve years and resulted in the tilak entitled Ramanandlahari (Waves of the joy of Ram), which was completed in

[55] Jhingaran, "Ham sevak," 20. Interestingly, the second complete tika^[*] was a Persian translation by Devidas Kayasth, of which a manuscript dated 1804 is in the British Museum; Mishra, ed., Ramcaritmanas , 575.

[56] According to Singh, he worked in a palace office and was charged with overseeing royal documents. One morning he became so absorbed in worship that he failed to go to work at the appointed time. Later he hurried to court and confessed his oversight, only to find his listeners uncomprehending; he had, they said, been there all along. They even showed him documents prepared that morning, bearing his signature. Realizing that the Lord, in his compassion, had appeared in his place, Ramcharandas immediately submitted his resignation and set out for Ayodhya; Rambhaktimem^[*]rasik sampraday , 418-19. The theme of the Lord's standing in for a devotee is common in Vaishnava hagiographies; in Maharashtra in 1975, I was told an almost identical story concerning a twentieth-century Krishna devotee who had worked in a railway office.

about 1805 and published many years later.^[57] It divides the epic into episodes, each of which is referred to as a "wave" (tarang^[*] ); the image is of course derived from Tulsi's theme-allegory of the Manas Lake. According to Sharan, it is composed in rustic dialect and does not provide commentary on "easy" or straightforward verses but only on those that are poetically or theologically complex. He adds that when the book was completed, "its Katha was expounded from beginning to end, on Janaki Ghat in the assembly of saints, over the course of three years."^[58] Thus, the tilak , like its source text, became the basis for expanded oral exposition; as we shall see, this has remained a primary function of Manas commentaries.

A further point of interest regarding this early commentary is that Ramcharandas claimed, in his opening verses, to have before him a manuscript in Tulsi's own hand. Such an "authentic" or autograph (pramanik^[*] ) manuscript remains to this day the Holy Grail of Manas scholarship;^[59] early expounders and commentators, not yet influenced by Western textual criticism, put great emphasis on obtaining the earliest and most authentic manuscripts so as to identify the mul text and purge it of any "interpolations" (ksepak^[*] ).^[60] As I have already suggested, these scholars were only carrying out what they regarded as Tulsi's injunction that they serve as "diligent guardians" of the Manas Lake.

Another early nineteenth-century figure who does not appear on the parampara chart—who indeed seems to have been something of an anomaly in the Manas tradition—was Jnani Sant Singh, known as Panjabi-ji, a Sikh who was the mahant of an establishment known as Nanakshahi in the vicinity of Amritsar. According to his own account, he was ordered by Hanuman in a dream to compose a tilak on Tulsi's

[57] Mahant Ramcharandas, Ramayan^[*] Tulsidaskrt^[*]satik^[*] , 7 vols. (Lucknow: Naval Kishor Press, 1882).

[58] Sharan, "Manas ke pracin tikakar^[*] ," 914.

[59] At present there exist three manuscripts for which such claims are made, but all are incomplete: the Shravankunj (Ayodhya) MS. of Balkand^[*] (1604); the Rajapur Ayodhyakand^[*] (undated); and the Dulhi Sundar kand^[*] (1615). See Poddar's introduction to Kalyan^[*] : Manasank , 4; also Mishra's introduction to the Kashiraj edition, 11-12.

[60] Concern with the authenticity of manuscript sources is expressed on the title pages of some of the earliest printed editions; see Chaube, "Ramcaritmanas ." As early as 1846 the maharaja of Banaras initiated a project to assemble a "critical edition" of the epic based on fifteen of the most authentic manuscripts, which were to be entered on grid-patterned sheets to display variations on each line. The project, though never completed, testifies to the sophistication of Manas scholarship in the middle of the nineteenth century. Two sample sheets are shown in Mishra's introduction to the Kashiraj edition (plate opp. p. 10), and the project is described on pages 5-6.

Ramayan: "I replied that I didn't know that language [Avadhi] at all. Then the order came to recite it 108 times. 'From the power of that, you'll gain much knowledge of the language, and the bhav of the text will dawn on you; that you must set down in the form of a tilak .'"^[61] The mahant carried out the order, and the result was the commentary known as Bhavprakas (effulgence of feeling), composed in the early 1820s in mixed Panjabi/Hindi dialect and eventually published by Kadgavilas Press of Bankipur, Bihar (1897). Sharan gives high praise to this tilak , and his comments reveal a Manas connoisseur's point of view, especially with regard to the importance of originality: "In the presentation of interpretations and in the resolution of doubts, this commentary is in a class by itself; no one else's influence is to be found here."^[62] That Panjabi-ji should have composed this work at all is evidence of the growing influence of the Manas in the northwest by the late eighteenth century.

Shivlal Pathak and Ramgulam Dvivedi

Roughly contemporary with Mahant Ramcharandas and Jnani Sant Singh were Shivlal Pathak and Ramgulam Dvivedi; with these men the two main branches of the Tulsi-parampara enter the historical record. Each had an extraordinary impact and came to be regarded as the founder of a tradition of Manas interpretation. Pathak's tradition eventually died out, but Ramgulam's, which branched further into two "schools," remains very much alive and represents the dominant tradition of Katha in contemporary Banaras.

Shivlal Pathak was born in a village in Gorakhpur District in 1756.^[63] Because of an unhappy relationship with a stepmother, he left home at the age of nine and went to Banaras, where he worked for some time in a sweetseller's shop. Unusually bright and studious, he was eventually accepted as a student by a renowned pandit; in due time he too became famous for his knowledge of Sanskrit literature and acquired students of his own. There is a tika^[*] on the Valmiki Ramayana^[*] composed by him, dated 1818. As a Sanskrit pandit he was, according to Sharan, initially opposed to the Manas . "His attitude was the same as that of the great Sanskrit pandits of Goswami's time. He was an enemy of the Hindi language and never read or listened to Tulsi's Ramayan. But the Lord

[61] Sharan, "Manas ke pracin tikakar^[*] ," 917.

[62] Ibid.

[63] This biographical information is drawn primarily from Singh, Rambhaktimem^[*]rasik sampraday , 422-23.

had other plans [as Pathak later wrote]—'In my mind was one idea; in God's, quite another.'"^[64]

His "conversion" came suddenly, through the influence of one of his own students. Paramhams Ramprasad was a sadhu who had come from Ayodhya to seek training in Sanskrit literature, the better to enrich his Katha with quotations from appropriate Puranas and sastras . Knowing Pathak's attitude toward the Manas , he was careful to conceal his intent from his guru, but on holidays he would expound to his fellow students in some private place. Sharan offers his own vivid Katha on this famous story:

One day, the guru went off to Ramnagar, and Paramhams-ji, knowing that Pathak would not be able to return that day because of heavy rains, gave Katha in the school itself. It was such a Katha and such an assembly that all the students, intoxicated with love, forgot themselves in the hearing. No one even noticed that the sun had gone down. Pathak returned and, seeing everyone lost in devotion, stood by the doorway and watched and listened. After a little while the Katha ended and everyone rose to go home. Seeing their guru leaning against the wall in the doorway, the student audience fled in terror, supposing that now that he knew, he would fly into a rage. But Paramhams-ji guessed something of his condition. He fell at Pathak's feet and saluted him, saying, "At the urging of some devotees, the Lord's Katha was started here. You came and modestly remained standing outside. A great wrong has been committed; kindly be merciful!" Hearing this humble entreaty, Pathak threw himself full length at Paramhams-ji's feet and clutched them fervently, crying, "This head that has never bowed to anyone, has today become a bee on your lotus feet; this is the result of that elixir of Ram that you dispense." Paramhams-ji lifted him up and embraced him. . .. Guru became disciple and disciple, guru.^[65]

At Ramprasad's order, Pathak is said to have undertaken 108 nine-day Manas recitations, as a result of which the hidden meanings of the epic were revealed to him and he became an accomplished kathavacak . Another tradition holds that when he first expounded in Banaras, the effect on the audience was so powerful that 75,000 rupees were offered at arti time, all of which Pathak placed at his guru's feet. It is certain that Pathak enjoyed the favor of Raja Udit Narayan Singh of Banaras and Raja Gopal Sharan Singh of Dumrao, in whose court he stayed for some time. He composed several works on the Manas , all in verse; the most famous is Manasmayank^[*] (Moon of the Manas ), which consists of 1,968 couplets, each attached to a verse in the epic. The style of these verses

[64] Sharan, "Manas ke pracin tikakar^[*] ," 911.

[65] Ibid., 911-12. Singh offers a less melodramatic version in which Pathak's acceptance of the sadhu as his guru occurs in the same way, but it is stated that Pathak had already long been an admirer of the Manas ; Rambhaktimem^[*]rasik sampraday , 423.

has been described as "enigmatic" or "riddling" (kut^[*] ); they cannot be readily understood. Like many premodern "commentaries," Pathak's was actually an outline for oral exposition to his own students and audiences. Sharan records a tradition that Pathak was able to expound each kut^[*] verse from five different perspectives: Vedic or "scriptural" (vaidik ); yogic; logical or rational (tarkik^[*] ); metaphysical (tattvik ); and worldly or practical (laukik ). Some of Pathak's interpretations were beyond the grasp even of his own students, however, and in Sharan's view many of his most profound ideas "went with him" when he died. Nevertheless, some later expounders continued to reckon themselves in his tradition, and a published version of Manasmayank^[*] appeared in 1920, with a prose tika^[*] by Indradev Narayan that attempted to unravel some of Pathak's riddles.^[66]

Even more renowned than Shivlal Pathak was Ramgulam Dvivedi of Mirzapur; the extent to which popular tradition associates him with the Manas is suggested by a folk saying, "Valmiki was reborn as Tulsi, Tulsi as Ramgulam."^[67] I have been able to find no birthdate for him, but he was active c. 1800-1830 and like Pathak was associated with the court of Udit Narayan Singh; a manuscript of the Manas copied by him in 1818 is in the palace library at Ramnagar. Like Jnani Sant Singh, he is said to have become a kathavacak through Hanuman's intervention, which came at a time when he was working as a manual laborer to support his family. Sharan and Singh recount essentially the same story:

About two miles outside Mirzapur and on the other side of the river was a Hanuman temple; a daily visit there was his firm practice. One day by chance he forgot to go. At night when he remembered, he immediately jumped up and set out. It was raining hard, and the Ganga was in spate. There was no ferryman on the bank. Bravely resolving to swim across, he threw himself into the torrent. Halfway across, as he was sinking, Hanuman seized his arm and saved him, he gave him darsan right there, brought him to the bank, and bestowed his blessing: "In your Katha , ever fresh and original interpretations will pour from your lips."^[68]

[66] Sharan, "Manas ke pracin tikakar^[*] ," 912; Sharan is incorrect in calling this the first published edition, however. The Mayank^[*] was issued at least fifteen years earlier, by the same publisher, Khadgavilas Press of Bankipur, Bihar; Gupta, Hindi pustak sahitya , 466.

[67] Jhingaran, "Ham sevak," 20. Ramgulam is not the only figure to be honored with this formulaic saying, however; Singh quotes the same line, substituting "Ramprasad" for "Ramgulam," in reference to Ramprasad Bindukacarya (1703-1804), a legendary sadhu of Ayodhya; Rambhaktimem^[*] rasik sampraday , 416.

[68] Sharan, "Manas ke pracin tikakar^[*] , 920. The motif of the hazardous river crossing is not uncommon in bhakti legends. It occurs in the traditional biography of Tulsidas (see Mulgosaim^[*]carit , passage following doha 16, in Gupta, Gosaim^[*]carit , 280), and also in the legend of Bilvamangal (see Rupkala, ed., Sri Bhaktamal , 368-71, kavitta 211-15).

Singh adds the interesting detail that Hanuman expressly forbade Ramgulam to compose any written commentary; the extraordinary interpretations (bhav ) were to come strictly "from his lips." Later, when Ramgulam discovered that some of his students were taking notes on his Katha , he is said to have cursed the writings, declaring that anyone who read them would go blind; some eighty years later, the great expounder Ramkumar Mishra, grand-pupil of Ramgulam, attributed his failing eyesight to the fact that, in his ceaseless quest for deeper insight into the Manas , he had dared to consult the forbidden notebooks. In any case, it is certain that no major tika^[*] ever appeared under Ramgulam's name. However, he assiduously assembled the best available manuscripts of Tulsi's works. An edition of the Manas prepared by him and published by Sarasvati Press, Banaras, in 1857 was considered by Grierson (writing in 1893) to be the "most accurate" then available.^[69]

Ramgulam is the first expounder of whom we note claims concerning a very extended elaboration of small passages of the text. One story tells of a meeting between the expounder and Maharaja Vishvanath Singh of Rewa at the Kumbha Mela festival in Prayag (Allahabad). When Ramgulam graciously offered to speak on any topic of the king's choosing, the raja immediately quoted the first line of the "praise of the divine name" (nam-vandana ) section of Book One.

I venerate Ram, the name of Raghubar,
the cause of fire, sun, and moon.
1.19.1

The vyas agreed to expound on this verse the following day from 3:00 to 6:00 P.M. ; but then, according to Sharan,

he went on for twenty-two days, expounding this one line with ever-new insights; and whatever bhav he would put forth on one day, he would demolish the next, saying that it was not right. Finally on the twenty-third day the raja, filled with humility, said, "You are indeed a fathomless ocean of this Manas , and I am only a householder, with all sorts of worries on my head. It is difficult for me to stay on here." Then with much praise he requested leave to depart and returned to Rewa.^[70]

Other stories link Ramgulam with his contemporary Ramcharandas of Ayodhya. It is said that the two expounders became so fond of each other that they made a pact to depart from the world at the same time. When he felt that his end was near, Ramcharandas repaired to his seat

[69] Grierson, "Notes on Tul'si Das," 129.

[70] Sharan, "Manas ke pracin tikakar^[*] ," 921.

on Janaki Ghat and gave a last katba in the midst of a great assembly of devotees. Just as he was finishing, a messenger arrived with a note from Ramgulam, also on his deathbed, asking if he remembered their agreement; the mahant smiled with pleasure at his friend's punctiliousness and peacefully breathed his last.^[71]

Raghunath Das and Kashthajihva Swami

Two other illustrious expounders of the first half of the nineteenth century need mention here, even though they do not find a place on the parampara chart. Raghunath Das "Sindhi" (fl. c. 1835-55) was the author of Manasdipika (Lamp of the Manas ), one of the most popular and frequently reprinted of nineteenth-century commentaries.^[72] His was one of the first editions to feature extensive accessory material, including a glossary and notes on mythological references, such as are standard in modern popular editions. The tika^[*] itself was brief and essentially a gloss on the verses.

Raghunath's contemporary, Kashthajihva Swami (also called Dev Tirth Swami, died c. 1855), holds a place of importance in Banaras tradition and brings us into the period of Ishvariprasad Narayan Singh (1821-89), his patron and pupil. There are various explanations of how this sannyasi got his peculiar name ("wooden-tongued" swami);^[73] in any case, it is certain that he was an influential figure at the Ramnagar court. An accomplished poet with a unique style, he composed some fifteen works as well as more than fifteen hundred songs, several hundred of which concern interpretive problems in the Manas .^[74] Like many other nineteenth-century Ram devotees, he was a srngari^[*] (a practitioner of the mystical/erotic approach to bhakti )^[75] and was closely involved in

[71] Singh, Rambhaktimem^[*] rasik sampraday , 420. This legend would place Ramgulam's death in 1831, the date given by Grierson; others place it as early as 1827 or as late as 1848; see Sharan, "Manas ke pracin tikakar^[*] ," 921n.

[72] An early edition appeared from Banaras in 1853 (publisher unknown); subsequent editions included Delhi in 1868 (Hasani Press); Banaras in 1869 (Ganesh Yantralay; two editions); Lucknow in 1873 (Naval Kishor; two editions); Delhi in 1878 (publisher unknown); and Banaras in 1880 (publisher unknown).

[73] Sharan claims that the swami defeated a famous scholar in debate, and the latter, in disgrace, took his own life. To atone for this, the swami affixed a kind of wooden stopper in his mouth; "Manas ke pracin tikakar^[*] ," 918. A similar story is told by Chaube; "Ramcaritmanas ," 132. Singh, citing Misrabandhuvinod , states that the swami took his vow of enforced silence after a disagreement with the raja; Rambhaktimem^[*]rasik sampraday , 450.

[74] Singh gives a list of the swami's writings and praises his language in the following terms: "The khicri^[*] ["mixture"—literally a dish of mixed rice and dal] of Bhojpuri, Khari Boli, and Avadhi in his dialect produces an extraordinary sweetness, not found in the speech of many devotees these days"; Rambhaktimem^[*]rasik sampraday , 451.

[75] See Chapter 5, Ramlila and Devotional Practice.

the development of the Ramnagar Ramlila pageant, the performance script of which still contains a number of his songs. At Ishvariprasad's urging, he wrote a short tika^[*] entitled Ramayan^[*]paricarya (Service of the Ramayan), which the maharaja then expanded with his own Parisist^[*] (Appendix). These texts, however, like Shivlal Pathak's verses, were little more than notes for oral exposition and were written in an obscure style; to clarify them, Baba Hariharprasad, a nephew of the maharaja, who had become a sadhu, composed an additional appendix entitled Prakas , or "Illumination." The complete tilak with its grand composite title (Ramayan^[*]paricaryaparisist^[*]prakas ) was eventually published in two volumes by Khadgavilas Press (1896-98) and was held in high regard by Ramayanis of the period.

Vandan Pathak, Chakkanlal, and Ramkumar

The next generation of expounders brings us into the twentieth century and includes the "founding fathers" of contemporary Banaras Katha , all represented on the parampara diagram. Vandan Pathak was born in Mirzapur in about 1815 but spent most of his long life (according to Sharan, he died c. 1909) at Ramkund, in the Banaras neighborhood known as Laksa. He composed a dozen works, including a Manassankavali^[*] (collection of epic-related "problems" with their solutions or explanations). Most of his writings were based on the copious jottings he made in the margins of his own Ramayans, including one he had personally copied from the manuscript of his guru's guru, Ramgulam. He used the title Manasi (Manas specialist) and won great fame for the brilliant ingenuity of his Katha . He was frequently called to Ramnagar to expound before the maharaja, and on one occasion, the poet Bharatendu Harishchandra is said to have presented him with two hundred gold pieces in appreciation of his Katha on the flower-garden episode. Later critics, however, have been inclined to temper their praise with criticism of some of Pathak's more far-fetched interpretations. According to Sharan, "many of his interpretations were sheer rhetorical display; he indulged in much twisting of words; yet many of his bhavs on various episodes are of the highest order and filled with the flavor of bhakti. "^[76] Another author has characterized Pathak's performance style as follows:

Vandan Pathak created an entirely new style of Katha performance, which was distinct from Ramgulam's tradition. He would playfully attribute new meanings to Manas verses. Breaking apart words and compounds, he put

[76] Sharan, "Manas ke pracin tikakar^[*] ," 923.

forward unusual interpretations which were quite new to listeners. . .. He possessed an extraordinary gift for formulating meanings and establishing correspondences [i.e., between verses]. If a novice uses this technique, the result will appear merely bizarre.^[77]

Another venerable nineteenth-century expounder was Munshi Chakkanlal, a member of the Kayasth, or scribal, caste and a disciple of the great Ramgulam. Chakkanlal flourished in the latter half of the nineteenth century, contemporary with Ishvariprasad Narayan Singh, whose court he frequented and who provided him with a regular stipend to pursue his Ramayan studies. Chakkan was famed for his keen intelligence and prodigious memory, qualities that endeared him to Ramgulam. It is said that the latter came to consider Chakkan his principal "hearer" (srota ) and would not begin expounding until he had arrived, a show of preference that irritated other regular listeners. Sharan relates that once when the Katha was resumed after a lapse of some days, Ramgulam pretended to have lost his place and asked the audience to tell him where he was in the text. In the whole assembly, there was not one who could remember precisely, but when Chakkan arrived and was told the problem, he immediately gave the date on which the Katha had last been held, the episode then being expounded, and the last sequence of interpretations presented. "You see?" Ramgulam smilingly told the embarrassed crowd, "That is why I never begin without him, for even among all these listeners one cannot find a single katha-adhikari to equal him."^[78]

This story underscores the notion that the principal listener at a Katha should rightfully be its adhikari —a term for one possessing "mastery" or "authority"—and again suggests the transactional nature of the performance. Listeners do not constitute merely a random and passive audience for a rhetorical display but ideally are accomplished devotees capable of receiving in its full depth and import the fruit of the expounder's intellectual and mystical discipline and of integrating it into their own devotional practice. In more secular artistic terms, an adhikari is also a connoisseur, and his presence is necessary to bring out the best in the performer. For whereas an amateur or poor expounder may hope for an audience that is ignorant of his art, the more easily to impress it with tricks and hide shortcomings, a great expounder will desire just the opposite: a group of discriminating listeners who will be adhikaris of his Katha .

[77] Jhingaran, "Ham sevak," 20.

[78] Sharan, "Manas ke pracin tikakar^[*] ," 924.

Like his guru Ramgulam, Chakkanlal seems to have composed no written commentary on the Manas ; but he did train a pupil, the great adhikari of his own Katha , Ramkumar Mishra (c. 1850-1920), who came to him, it is said, when Chakkan was ninety-five years of age. A native of Bundelkhand, Ramkumar was a learned Brahman whose childhood love of the Manas was supplemented by the study of Sanskrit literature; this led him to develop a style of Katha utilizing abundant quotations from Sanskrit texts as "proofs" (praman^[*] ) of Manas verses. Throughout his career, Ramkumar assembled notes (kharra ) on sheets of foolscap; Sharan remarked that the early notes, which he had seen, were heavily influenced by older written commentaries: "It is dear from them that his Katha in those days was merely based on tikas^[*] ."^[79] Later, Ramkumar moved to Banaras and began to attend the legendary Ramayani-satsangs organized by Maharaja Ishvariprasad in Ramnagar. It was there that he first heard Chakkanlal and decided that none other than the aged Kayasth should be his own Manas-guru . Although Ram-kumar was living and working in Banaras, he made the long and tiring journey across the Ganga to Ramnagar each evening and devoted his nights to a systematic study of the epic under Chakkan's direction. An affectionate relationship developed between the two men. Because of the pains of old age, Chakkan had become addicted to opium, and despite the old teacher's protests Ramkumar would fill his pipe and perform other menial tasks. Sitting by Chakkan's bed, he would recite from a pocket edition of the Manas and then fill its margins with notes as the teacher expounded each line in turn.

Sometimes Lala-ji [Chakkan] would become unconscious, but Ramkumar would remain seated and go on writing and pondering and wouldn't waken him. After some time, when Lala-ji opened his eyes again, he'd see him still sitting there and say in a very sweet and humble voice, "Oh, Pandit-ji, are you still here? I must have dozed off—it's old age. Very well, write . . . where were we?" Then he would resume dictating. In this way—reading, listening, writing—sometimes the whole night would pass.^[80]

According to Sharan, Chakkan would often express regret that his best student had come to him only in his old age.

"Pandit-ji, have you come to study at my deathbed? If only you'd come sooner, then I could have given you a real taste of this nectar! Now I can only offer a peep into the treasurehouse." At this Ramkumar would say, "Lala-ji,

[79] Ibid., 925.

[80] Ibid., 925-26.

such as it is, it's more than enough. With these small jewels you've given me, I will become a millionaire! And in the future, with more effort along this same path I'll uncover still more treasure."^[81]

This assessment was shared by Ramkumar's contemporaries and the later tradition, for he became unquestionably the preeminent vyas of the turn-of-the-century period. Like Vandan Pathak, he developed a new style of Katha , which influenced many later expounders—the nonsequential style now associated with urban festival performances. Ramkumar differed from most other expounders in that he performed very little—according to Sharan, for no more than one or two months out of a year. The remainder of the year was spent preparing the topic by reading, thinking, and drawing up detailed notes. Sharan describes his intense manner of working:

He always lived by himself and didn't socialize. If someone came by, he would straightaway put his sacred thread over his ear and announce that his stomach was upset and he needed to relieve himself.^[82] Then the moment the visitor had departed he would plunge back into thought. When he went out to bathe or shop for necessaries he carried pencil and paper in his shirt pocket. While walking he'd always be pondering some episode or other, and if a bhav occurred to him, he'd immediately sit and write it down and only then continue on. Even while attending to the call of nature and so forth, he remained engaged in his work.^[83]

The episode thus prepared would be presented to the public in a series of daily installments, often lasting a month, and as Ramkumar's fame grew, his annual Katha series became a celebrated event. Connoisseurs from other cities would flock to Banaras and hire accommodations for the duration, just as some devotees still do for the Ramnagar Ramlila . So great were the crowds that organizers were forced to make arrangements for people to reserve space in advance, to insure getting a place to sit. The audiences included many aspiring Ramayanis, and the effect of Ramkumar's performances on them is illustrated by another of Sharan's anecdotes:

Among the listeners there was one Ramayani, Baba Ramdas of Ayodhya, who always came to Kashi and stayed at Chauka Ghat. He would go every day to hear the Katha and afterward would stay on in the hall, pondering and digesting it all, and then late at night he'd go back to his place and make notes:

[81] Ibid., 925.

[82] The janeu , or sacred thread, of the twice-born is hooked over the ear when going to the latrine, to protect it from possible pollution. The gesture would suffice to get rid of a visitor.

[83] Sharan, "Manas ke pracin tikakar^[*] ," 926.

on it. Many indeed were the expounders who memorized these notes and then sat on the vyas seat and presented them as Katha , and they guarded these notes like life itself and kept them secret.^[84]

By all accounts, Ramkumar's performances were highly original, as he is said to have considered it a waste of listeners' time to repeat what others had already said. At the same time they were free of the kind of tortuous and contrived interpretations ascribed to Vandan Pathak. Rupkala of Ayodhya reported that Ramkumar presented each phrase from the Manas along with parallel quotations from Sanskrit literature and not only skillfully demonstrated their commonality of meaning but also convinced listeners that, in each case, Tulsidas had conveyed the idea better. Sharan adds that the great vyas eschewed mere rhetorical tricks and that his Katha was always "sparse, to the point, and very powerful."

Another cause for the high regard in which Ramkumar is held was his refusal to make personal profit from his Katha . Although the offerings at some of his mass programs reportedly amounted to thousands of rupees, he would turn all but a nominal portion over to some pious person with instructions that it be used for charitable work, such as the feeding of sadhus. His personal life-style was summed up by the formula "Wear coarse cloth, eat coarse food; you are entitled to only enough [of the offering] to keep this body alive."^[85] To explain his attitude (since in his day Katha was already becoming a profitable business for performers who did not share Ramkumar's taste for the simple life), he would sometimes quote the verse in which Katha is compared to the goddess who arose from the churning of the primordial ocean.

Like Lakshmi, born from the ocean of the saints' assembly. . . .
1.31.10

From this he reasoned that Katha was the expounder's "daughter" and that it would be a sin to "sell" her for money.^[86]

Once, at the invitation of prominent sadhus, Ramkumar went to Ayodhya and gave Katha in the great plaza of Kanak Bhavan Temple, expounding the whole of Sundar kand^[*] in two months to a daily audience of thousands. It is said that the maharaja of Tikamgarh, chief patron of the temple, had planned to attend the program on the final day but was delayed in transit and sent a telegram announcing that he would arrive one day late. It was assumed that Ramkumar would extend his program for the extra day, particularly in view of the handsome gift that the

[84] Ibid.

[85] Ibid., 926-27.

[86] C. N. Singh, interview, July 1983.

maharaja was certain to bestow on him; however, the vyas refused to alter the schedule, despite the pleadings of the organizers. Quoting a line spoken by Ram in Book Seven,

Calling himself my servant, if he depends on any man,
tell me, what sort of faith does he possess?
7.46.3

Ramkumar argued that as the duration of the program had been fixed and announced in Ram's own darbar (his "court" in Kanak Bhavan, which is supposed to mark the site of Ram and Sita's palace), it could not be changed to suit the convenience of a mere earthly king.^[87]

Although printed commentaries on the Manas had already become commonplace, none appeared in Ramkumar's name during his lifetime. The reply he is said to have given to admirers who urged him to write a tika^[*] is eloquently expressive of the emergent nature of Katha : "My tika^[*] would be endless, because whenever I repeat myself, some new bhav always begins coming to me."^[88]

Among Ramkumar's students were three young men, Rajaram Nagar and the two brothers Purushottam and Dharmdatt, all of whom had played the role of Ram in the Ramnagar Ramlila . It is said that Ramkumar never forgot Dharmdatt's lila -persona and, even though he was the boy's guru and much senior to him, would always prostrate himself at Dharmdatt's feet when the boy came to study with him. Both Dharmdatt and Rajaram died young and their loss caused much grief to the old vyas . Another disciple was a poor Brahman youth named Devipalat Tivari, who was accepted as a student only after he had carried out the familiar command to complete 108 Manas recitations. He became a vyas in his own right, and Sharan, who had heard him, describes how he used to perform in Ayodhya on Ram Navami day. The account is richly suggestive of the tour-de-force quality of some vyas oratory.

All day until sunset he would sit by the birthplace, in the shade of a tree near Sita's well, and listeners, curiosity seekers, and devotees alike would be continually drenched by the steady and torrential downpour of bliss [i.e., his Katha ]. Indeed, I had never before witnessed such a torrent. A tongue? No, it was a "machine"! He went on speaking and never tired, and whenever anyone raised a textual problem, he would immediately resolve it.^[89]

[87] Sharan, "Manas ke pracin tikakar^[*] ," 927.

[88] Ibid.

[89] Ibid., 928.

The Manas Piyus^[*]

Before his death Ramkumar committed his voluminous notes to his student Purushottam Datt of Ramnagar. The latter, troubled by Ramkumar's relatives who wanted to obtain them in order to capitalize on the famous expounder's name, vowed that they would go with his own body to the funeral pyre. In 1926, however, Purushottam met Anjaninandan Sharan at the Ramnagar Ramlila ; the result was that Ram-kumar's student relinquished his vow and presented the notes to Sharan, who immediately began incorporating them into the encyclopedic Manas commentary he was then preparing.

Something must now be said about the fruit of Sharan's labors, the twelve-volume Manaspiyus^[*] (Nectar of the Manas ), which began appearing in 1925. Its compiler was a remarkable man, although his writings show a sadhu's typical reluctance to divulge personal details. Prefatory notes to the early editions are signed "Janaksutasharan Shitalsahay," but this too (like Anjaninandan Sharan) was an initiatory name.^[90] Yet he was once a householder and indeed a High Court lawyer; the preface to one volume contains a touching reference to a daughter named Mira, "who is connected to this physical body" and assisted him in editing work when his eyesight began to fail.^[91] After renouncing the world he came to Ayodhya and became a disciple of the scholarly Sitaramsharan Bhagvanprasad Rupkala, friend of George Grierson and author of the standard modern commentary on the Bhaktamal . It was Rupkala who suggested the task of assembling a great commentary on the Manas incorporating the insights of the most eminent commentators of the past culled from manuscripts and published works and arranged systematically after each verse. This would allow devotees to savor diverse interpretations and would provide an invaluable reference for expounders. The first edition (1925-32) was an immediate success and Sharan soon began work on a second. His task was compounded by enthusiastic readers who continually sent additional materials, such as more unpublished commentaries and notes on Katha sessions. The single greatest contribution was Purushottam's gift of Ramkumar's notes, but other famous expounders, such as Vijayanand Tripathi, Jayramdas Din,

[90] "He who has taken shelter in Anjani's son"; Anjani was the name of Hanuman's mother. On the use of the suffix "Sharan" to indicate initiation in the rasik tradition, see Singh, Rambhaktimem^[*]rasik sampraday , 182.

[91] Sharan, Manaspiyus^[*] 1:6. In Ayodhya in July 1987 I had the privilege of meeting Mira, who graciously shared her memories of her father's last years—he died in 1970 at the age of nearly ninety—and presented me with a photo of the revered Manasi .

and Ramkumar Das sent their own bhavs , and so the text continually grew. The commentary on Balkand^[*] grew to five volumes and went through four revisions; the other volumes through two. The Manaspiyus^[*] became an institution, and Sharan labored on tirelessly into his seventies. The introductions to later editions hint at endless frustrations—failing health and cataracts (undoubtedly not helped by countless fifteen-to-twenty-hour days of squinting at manuscripts and proofs), dishonest and recalcitrant printers, and even floods and white ants (which destroyed a substantial portion of one edition before it could be released!). After being out of print for some years, the Piyus^[*] was later reissued at popular demand by Gita Press in seven massive volumes.^[92]

Although the Manaspiyus^[*] is essentially a devotional rather than a scholarly work in the Western sense and although Sharan was often forced to work from poor-quality bazaar editions of older commentaries or to paraphrase what he had heard in live performance, his voluminous and impressively organized work is a masterpiece of traditional Manas scholarship. For more than half a century it was the standard reference work and training manual for aspiring expounders, and its very existence contributed both to the increase in their numbers and to the development of more discriminating audiences and patrons for their performances. But the fact that this commentary-of-commentaries itself became another performance script should by now come as no surprise. When Sharan wrote, in the introduction to one of the later editions, of various groups of people who would appreciate the Piyus^[*] , he concluded with a reference to what was undoubtedly his most important audience—"But to kathavacaks , truly this tilak is all-in-all."^[93]

The Later Tulsi-Parampara

According to Sharan's information, with Devipalat Tivari's death in 1932 the line of Ramkumar came to an end. Banaras tradition holds otherwise, however, and identifies Vijayanand Tripathi (1881-1955), one of the most renowned Ramayanis of the middle of the twentieth century, as another of Ramkumar's disciples. Thus, the numerous contemporary expounders who claim to be Tripathi's pupils can assert their

[92] This edition too has gone out of print, but so valued is the Piyus^[*] by connoisseurs that individual volumes, originally priced at Rs 7 or Rs 8, sold in 1984 for Rs 250-300.

[93] Sharan, Manaspiyus^[*] . 4:3.

continuity with a parampara that stretches back through Ramkumar and Ramgulam Dvivedi to the very roots of the tradition. Tripathi himself has written that he was blessed to be able to study Sundar and Kiskindha^[*]kands^[*] systematically at Ramkumar's feet and that he studied certain other episodes with Devipalat Tivari. His guru for Ayodhyakand^[*] was the Ramayani Bhushan-ji, another famous twentieth-century expounder.^[94]

Vijayanand Tripathi was born on Vijaydashami day in 1881 and was named in honor of the auspicious festival of Ram's victory. His first exposure to the Manas was hearing the famous Atri-stuti from Aranya^[*]kand^[*] (3.4.1-24), a hymn to Ram that his father used to recite while holding the boy on his lap; the epic soon became, he says, an "addiction" for him. As a youth, Vijayanand was attracted to the Hindu "fundamentalism" of the Sanatan Dharm movement and was powerfully influenced by one of its leaders, Swami Karpatri.^[95] For six years (1936-42) he served as editor of Karpatri's monthly magazine, Sanmarg (The true path), and he also wrote a number of polemic works on Sanatani themes. Katha was his real love, however, and as he was the son of a wealthy landowner, he was spared the necessity of pursuing another trade. He owned a large house near Tulsi Ghat and on its broad stone terrace he gave daily Katha for more than thirty years, to an audience that included many of the leading men of Banaras, as well as a great number of aspiring Ramayanis who regarded themselves—with or without official sanction—as his students.

Vijayanand's Manas -related publications conform to a pattern already familiar to us from the lives of earlier expounders. His first concern, characteristically, was to bring out his own edition of the basic text (published by Leader Press, Allahabad, 1936); this established, so to speak, the credentials of his Katha by asserting the purity of its source. Much later, at the urging of his pupils and admirers (including Babu Baijnath Prasad, a retired judge, and Bankeram Mishra, mahant of the Sankat Mochan Temple), Vijayanand began work on his own tika^[*] , which was published posthumously in 1955. Comprising three volumes of more than nine hundred pages each, this Vijayatika^[*] was based on the notes used by Vijayanand in his daily Katha and included both a brief prose translation and an elaborate exposition of each epic verse.

Vijayanand's high status is suggested by the exalted title Manas

[94] Tripathi, SriRamcaritmanas , vijayatika^[*] 1:16.

[95] See below, Chapter 6, The Politics of Ramraj .

rajhams^[*] (royal swan of the Manas Lake), which is commonly prefixed to his name. This padvi (honorific, or rank) was first given to him by a sadhu, Brahmachari Sacchidanand Gitanand, and is representative of similar titles either bestowed on or assumed by other expounders. A rostrum of renowned orators—for example on a handbill announcing an exposition festival—may include such titles as Manasratna (jewel of the Manas , often applied to Dr. Shrinath Mishra), Manasmarmajña (knower of the mysteries of the Manas ), and Manasmartand^[*] (sun of the Manas , a title given to Pandit Ramkinkar Upadhyay).^[96]

Many older Banarsis still remember the daily Katha sessions at Vijayanand's house, and the centenary of his birth was observed in 1981 with an All-India Manas Festival, at which many of his disciples performed. So numerous are the members of his "school" that Vijayanand's son, Nityanand Tripathi, complained to a journalist, "As a matter of fact, most of that whole crowd of kathavacaks who nowadays call themselves Father's pupils are people who never even saw him. They just use his name to promote themselves."^[97] One might observe, however, that even though the tradition still puts great value on personal instruction imparted through the satsang^[*] of a teacher, the modern phenomenon of mass-produced commentaries increases the likelihood of a teacher's acquiring students (and imitators) whom he has never seen.

Among Vijayanand's genuine students, mention should be made of Sant Choteji (d. 1983), a sadhu who gave daily Katha under the auspices of a group called Satsang Parivar (satsang^[*] family) and who was one of Banaras's most beloved expounders. Other students included Ramji Pandey, the chief Ramayani of the Ramnagar Ramlila pageant, and the late Baba Narayankant Tripathi and Ramnarayan Shukla, both of whom performed daily at the Sankat Mochan Temple and concerning whom more is said below. Vijayanand's most successful student is undoubtedly Dr. Shrinath Mishra, an "All-India" vyas whose performances are largely patronized by wealthy industrialists in major urban centers and who consequently is away from Banaras during much of the year. He maintains a large house in the Bhadaini neighborhood, however, and has numerous pupils of his own, who regard him as the chief disciple and successor of Vijayanand. Thus the Tulsi-parampara of the

[96] The use of such tides appears to be a recent vogue, perhaps reflecting the status of academic honors (M.A., Ph.D., L.L.B., etc.) earned by university-educated scholars. The list of nineteenth-century expounders on the title page of the Manas piyus^[*] includes no titles beyond the simple appellation "Ramayani" or Manasi.

[97] Jhingaran, "Ham sevak," 20.

diagram continues to be a living tradition, still growing and extending its branches into the future.

The material presented in this section hardly represents a comprehensive history of Manas-katha . The few famous expounders concerning whom biographical and legendary information has been provided must be taken as representative of numerous others, known and unknown, whom it is not possible to treat here. That most of the data have concerned the tradition in Banaras is justifiable in that this city has always been a major center for the art, but it should not obscure the fact that great lines of Ramayanis have flourished elsewhere, particularly among the sadhu lineages of such important Vaishnava pilgrimage places as Ayodhya, Mathura, and Chitrakut. The Tulsi-parampara of Banaras and environs is representative of the tradition and, to some extent, an exemplar for it, but it is not definitive of it.