1876.] F. S. Growse— The Prologue to tie Mmayana of Tutsi Bds. 25 



immeasurable grandeur is indescribable even by the pure intelligence of Sara- 

 svati. The city, exalting to Rama's heaven,* beautiful, celebrated through 

 all worlds, is so all-purifying that countless as are the number of animate 

 species that result from the four modes of birth, yet every individual that 

 is freed from the body at Avadh is free for ever. Knowing it to be in every 

 way charming, a bestower of success and a mine of auspiciousness, I there 

 made a beginning of my sacred song, which will destroy in those who hear 

 it the mad phrenzy of lust : its mere name— lake of Rama's acts— serves to 

 refresh the ear, while the soul, like an elephant escaping from a forest on 

 fire with lust, plunges into it and gains relief ; delight of the sages, as 

 composed by Sambhu, holy and beautiful ; consuming the three ill condi- 

 tions of sin, sorrow and want ; putting an end to the evil practices and im- 

 purities of the wicked world ; first made by Mahadeva and buried in the 

 deep lake of his own soul till at an auspicious moment he declared it to 

 Uma ; thus Siva looking into his own soul and rejoicing gave it the ex- 

 cellent name of Ram-charit-manas.t And this is the blessed legend that I 

 repeat ; hear it, good people, reverently and attentively. 



Doha 44. 

 Now meditating upon Uma and him who has a bull emblazoned on his 

 standard (i. e. Mahadeva) I explain the connection, shewing how it is a lake 

 and in what manner it is formed and for what reason it has spread through 

 the world. % 



Chaupdi. 

 By the blessing of Sambhu a bright idea has come into the poet Tul- 

 si's mind regarding the Ram-charit-manas, which I will state as well as I 

 can, subject to the correction of those good people whose attention I invite. 

 The heart is as it were a deep place in a land of good thoughts, the Vedas 

 and Puranas are the sea, and saints are as clouds, which rain down praises of 

 Rama in sweet, grateful and auspicious showers ; the sportive actions re- 

 lated of him are like the inherent purity and cleansing power of rain- 

 water, while devotion, which is beyond the power of words to describe, is its 

 sweetness and coolness. When such a shower falls on the rice-fields of vir- 



* The compound may also mean, — giving a home to Eama — and probably both 

 meanings are intended. 



t From this it will be seen that the name which Tulsi Das himself gave to his 

 poem was not < the Eamayana,' hut the Eam-charit-manas ; a name which may be inter- 

 preted to mean either the lake or the soul of Eama's acts. In the stanza above trans- 

 lated, the word is first taken in the one sense, and then in the other ; and as there is no 

 English word with the same double signification, some obscurity is unavoidable. 



+ The words may also bear the following secondary meaning : I relate the whole 

 history, shewing how the great soul became incarnate and why it dwelt in the world. 

 D 



