Tulsidas one of the greatest saints and poets of ancient is famed for his devotion towards Lord Ram. He wrote several popular works in Sanskrit and Awadhi; he is best known as the author of the epic Ramcharitmanas, a retelling of the Sanskrit Ramayana based on Rama’s life in the vernacular Awadhi dialect of Hindi.
Tulsidas was married to Ratnavali on the thirteenth day of the bright half of the Jyeshta month (May–June) in Vikram 1583 (1526 CE). Ratnavali was the daughter of Dinbandhu Pathak, a Brahmin of the Bharadwaja Gotra, who belonged to Mahewa village of Kaushambi district.
Once when Tulsidas had gone to a Hanuman temple, Ratnavali went to her father’s home with her brother. When Tulsidas came to know this, he felt an intense urge to meet his wife. It was raining heavily and the River Yamuna was overflowing causing a lot of damage to its course.
Not knowing what to do, when Tulsidas stood there on the banks, he found a dead body floated in the waters. The impatient Tulsodas, held the dead body and swam across the Yamuna river in the night to meet his wife.
Knowing the whole story, Ratnavali chided Tulsidas and remarked that if Tulsidas was even half as devoted to God as he was to her body of flesh and blood, he would have been redeemed. The words of his wife not only were shocking but were sufficient to bring a major transformation in his life.
Epic says that Tulsidas left her instantly and travelled to the holy city of Prayag where he renounced the Grihastha (householder’s) life and became a Sadhu, Hindu ascetic who blessed Indian Literature with his greatest works and filled the hearts with devotion and love.
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