2 F. S. Growse—TJie Prologue to the Bdmaycma of Tulsi Das, {No. 1 



unmitigated prose. It must also be noted that it is in no sense a transla- 

 tion of the earlier work : the general plan and the management of the in- 

 cidents are necessarily much the same, but there is a difference in the 

 touch in every detail ; and the two poems vary as widely as any two dramas 

 on the same mythological subject by two different Greek tragedians. Even 

 the coincidence of name is an accident ; for Tulsi Das himself called his 

 poem " The Ram-charit-manas'', and the shorter name, corresponding in form 

 to the Iliad or iEneid, was only substituted by his admirers as a handier 

 designation for a popular favourite. 



The passage, of which a translation is here submitted, forms the In- 

 troduction to the first book. It is at once of less obvious interest and also 

 of much greater difficulty than the narrative portions of the poem. It is 

 valuable, however, as a .resume of popular Hindu theology and metaphysics, 

 and it supplies some personal details of the author's life. Thus we learn 

 from it that he studied at S o r o n, and commenced writing at Ayudhya 

 on the festival of Rama's birthday in the Sambat year 1631, corresponding 

 to 1575, A. D. We need not suppose that he remained long at Ayudhya, 

 for according to tradition the main body of the poem was composed at 

 Chitrakut. His vindication of himself against his critics is a curious 

 feature. They attacked him for lowering the dignity of his subject by cloth- 

 ing it in the vulgar vernacular. However just his defence may be, it did 

 not succeed in converting the opposite faction ; and the professional Sans- 

 krit Pandits, who are their modern representatives, still affect to despise his 

 work as an unworthy concession to the illiterate masses. With this small 

 and solitary exception the book is in every one's hands, from the court to 

 the cottage, and is read or heard and appreciated alike by every class of the 

 Hindu community, whether high or low, rich or poor, young or old. The 

 purity of its moral sentiments and the absolute avoidance of the slightest 

 approach to any pruriency of idea — which the author justly advances among 

 his distinctive merits — render it a singularly unexceptionable text -book for 

 native boys. For several years past I have persistently urged its adoption 

 upon the Education Department, and — thanks to Raja Siva Prasad — extracts 

 from it have now been introduced into our primary schools. It has always 

 been prescribed as the principal test in the Civil Examination for High Profici- 

 ency and a Degree of Honour ; and it is equally well adapted for both these 

 apparently incongruous purposes. For a Hindu child generally grasps at 

 once the familiar idiom and finds no great difficulty in even the most crab- 

 bed passage ; while on the other hand both the terminology and the 

 syntactic collocation of the words are in the highest degree perplexing to 

 the European student. The reason is, that an English official as a rule 

 knows only the language of the courts, and has never studied the vernacular 

 of the people : for which neglect he has hitherto had much excuse in the 



