Ramcharitmanas

Tulsidas wrote his Ramayana in Awadhi, the language people actually spoke, not Sanskrit. Tradition holds that choice made him some powerful enemies among Sanskrit-literate orthodoxy.

The site on the Ganga near Hanuman Ghat, Varanasi, traditionally held to be where Tulsidas composed much of the Ramcharitmanas and the Hanuman Chalisa. Photo via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

A Sanskrit Epic, Retold for Everyone

MedHist0053

c. 1532–1623 CE

Tulsidas’s Lifetime

Poet-saint of the Saguna school of the Bhakti movement

1574 CE

Composition Begins

Started in Ayodhya, on Ram Navami; finished at Varanasi and Chitrakoot

7 KANDS

The Text Takes Shape

About 12,800 lines, in 1,073 stanzas, across seven books

2008 CE

UNESCO Recognition

Ramlila, the staged retelling based on the text, joins UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list

Not a translation: Tulsidas didn’t just render Valmiki’s Sanskrit Ramayana into Awadhi. He retold it, infused with Bhakti-style devotion to Rama as supreme God, not just an epic hero.

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📑 Contents

1Timeline
2A Vernacular Retelling
3Structure and Legacy
4Test Yourself
5A Contested Choice, By Tradition

Timeline

c. 1532–1623 CE: Tulsidas lives and writes, a leading poet-saint of the Saguna school of the Bhakti movement. Some sources give a different birth year, so this range is a widely used convention, not a settled fact.
1574 CE: He begins the Ramcharitmanas in Ayodhya, on Ram Navami. He completes it roughly two and a half years later, at Varanasi and Chitrakoot.
Composed over 1574–1576 CE: The finished text runs to about 12,800 lines, in 1,073 stanzas, organised into seven books, or kands.
2008 CE: UNESCO inscribes Ramlila, the traditional staged retelling of the Ramayana based on the Ramcharitmanas, on its Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

A Vernacular Retelling Need to Know

The Ramcharitmanas is an epic retelling of the Rama story, composed by Tulsidas in the 16th century CE.
It is written in Awadhi, a vernacular Eastern Hindi dialect, not in Sanskrit.
It is a devotional retelling, not a direct translation, of Valmiki’s Sanskrit Ramayana.
Valmiki’s Rama is chiefly an ideal man. Tulsidas presents Rama explicitly as supreme God, reflecting Bhakti-era devotional theology.
The Ramcharitmanas is considered a major work of the Saguna school of the Bhakti movement in Hindi literature.
Writing in the common people’s own language, instead of Sanskrit, helped make the Rama story accessible far beyond a small Brahminical, Sanskrit-literate elite.

Structure and Legacy Good to Know

Tulsidas began the Ramcharitmanas in Ayodhya in 1574 CE, on Ram Navami, Rama’s traditional birthday. He composed it across Ayodhya, Varanasi, and Chitrakoot.
The text has seven kands (books): Bal, Ayodhya, Aranya, Kishkindha, Sundar, Lanka, and Uttar. Tulsidas compared them to seven steps into a purifying holy lake.
The first two kands, Bal and Ayodhya, together make up more than half the entire work.
The Sundara Kanda, centred on Hanuman’s journey to Lanka, is widely recited on its own, independent of the full text.
Tulsidas wrote around a dozen other works too, including the Vinaya Patrika, a devotional collection of hymns, and the widely recited Hanuman Chalisa.
Ramlila, the traditional staged dramatisation of the Ramayana based on the Ramcharitmanas, is performed across North India, especially around the Dussehra festival.
UNESCO inscribed Ramlila on its Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2008.

Test Yourself

A Contested Choice, By Tradition Great to Know

Choosing Awadhi over Sanskrit challenged the idea that only Sanskrit was fit to carry sacred stories.
Tradition holds this choice put Tulsidas at odds with Sanskrit-literate Brahminical orthodoxy of his day, though no contemporary record documents organised opposition.
The Ramcharitmanas fits a wider Bhakti movement pattern: vernacular devotional literature written for ordinary worshippers. It made complex philosophical and religious ideas accessible, not just to a Sanskrit-trained elite. See MedHist0011 — The Bhakti Movement for that broader picture.
The Ramcharitmanas belongs to the same Bhakti current as the Marathi poet-saint Sant Tukaram, though the two worked in different regions, languages, and generations. See MedHist0048 — Sant Tukaram for a comparable poet-saint’s story.
Ramlila’s continued popularity shows how a 16th-century literary retelling can still shape lived religious and cultural practice centuries later, well beyond its original written form.