42 
THE MODERN LTTERAUY HISTORY OF HINDUSTAN. 
[§ 128 . 
CHAPTER VI. 
TUL’SI DAS. 
\ 
128 . TfhsTt ^r, the holy master Tul’sl Das. 
FI. 1600 A.D.; D. 1624 A.D. 
Rag. We now come to the greatest star in the firmament of 
mediaeval Indian poetry, Tul’sl Das, the author of the well-known 
vernacular Ram ay an (Rag.), which competes in authority with the 
Sanskrit work of V a I ml hi. 
I much regret that the materials available are so scanty ; and it is 
the more tantalising to me that I have received information of a very 
full account of his life, entitled Gosai Charitr’, by Beni Madhab Das, 
of Pas’ha, who lived in the poet’s companionship. I have never been 
able to obtain a copy of this work, though I have long searched for 
it, and I have been compelled to base my account principally on the 
enigmatic verses of the Bhakt Mala aided by the glosses of Priya Das 
and others. The text and literal translation of these will be found 
in the introduction to Mr. Growse’s translation of the Ramayan, from 
which I have freely drawn. 
The importance of Tul’sl Das in the history of India cannot be 
overrated. Putting the literary merits of his work out of the 
question, the fact of its universal acceptance by all classes, from 
Bhagal’pur to the Panjab and from the Himalaya to the Nar’mada, 
is surely worthy of note. “ The book is in every one’s hands, 1 from 
the court to the cottage, and is read or heard and appreciated alike 
b y every class of the Hindu community, whether high’ or low, 
rich or poor, young or old.” It has been interwoven into the life, 
character, and speech of the Hindu population for more than three 
hundred years, and is not only loved and admired by them for its 
poetic beauty, but is reverenced by them as their scriptures. It is 
1 Mr. Growse (from whom this quotation is taken) states that the profes¬ 
sional Sanskrit Pandits profess to despise Tul’si Das’s work as an unworthy 
concession to the illiterate masses, but this has not been my experience. 
