Tulsi and Tunchan

Tulsi and Tunchan
Two Parallellines that met

Goswamy Tulsidas and Tunchath Ramanujan Ezhuthachhan are two great poets who have immortalised Rama in Hindi and Malayalam respectively and have thereby immortalised themselves. Strangely a keen student of their lives and activities will find that they share many characteristics in common in the circumstances in which they lived and worked in their poetic genius in their philo­sophical outlook and in their devotional fervour. Though sepa­rated by a distance of about two thousand miles both were moved by the same social and religious compulsions and were motivated by the same mission in life which they fulfilled with the same zeal and sincerity under almost identical circumstances. They were co-travellers through and through with the same goal ahead.

Tulsi, author of the Ramcharit Manas and Tunchan of the Adhyatma Ramayana (in Malayalam) were contemporaries; they lived in the 16-17th century A.D. Both had to fight against odds from childhood until they could settle in their chosen career. Both had to suffer indignities from their early days; Tulsi, as historians would have it, was born under an inauspicious star of the Zodiac and Ezhuthachhan had his mother from a community with a social disadvantage.

Of Tulsidas it is said that when he was born he did not cry, instead he was chanting the name of Rama and had developed all the thirty-two teeth. He was as good as a five-year-old child. As his mother died quite early and his father forsook him, he was looked after by the servant-maid who loved him with all her heart. But since her death after five years Tulsi had to pass through many vicissitudes till his youth. His condition was made worse since his marriage. One day he received a bitter rebuff from his wife Ratnavali for his over-attachment for her. She chastised him in a couplet – “Had you diverted your love for this body which is but a bundle of ‘bones and skin’ to Sri Rama you would not have had the fear of this earthly entanglement”. This reproach from his most beloved one stirred Tulsi to his very being. He took leave of her and set out on a long journey, trekking from place to place visiting religious centres and men of knowledge until at last he settled down at Chitrakut. It was here that he produced his master­piece. He visited Ratnavali again in his old age, but did not reunite with her.

Ezhuthachhan was born, as it has been culled out from a multiplicity of theories, of a Nambudiri Brahmin who was a temple priest and a Chakkala Nair woman, a maid in the temple. The low standing of his mother’s community gave the Nambudiris an alibi to direct all their scorn towards Ezhuthachhan. He was taun­ted, teased, humiliated and insulted by the highbrows of his com­munity for his low birth. There was yet another snag about Ezhuthachhan. In his boyhood he was a little dull-headed. So with a view to improving his brain power, his father trained him in gulping small doses of an indigenous liquor. In course of time Ezhuthach­han became an addict, of course within limits. This made him a regular target of the slanderous attacks of his fellow Nambudiris. At last he left home for a long period of travels and learning with a view to widening his mental horizon. He visited Tamil Nadu, Andhra Desa and Karnataka and gained commendable mastery over Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. These travels took him nearly ten years and he returned home as a more enlightened person. But again he had to face the hostilities of his people arising out of personal envy. One day a Nambudiri reportedly asked Ezhuthach­han, “O, Tunchan! how much will your oil press squeeze?” This insinuating question contained a crude reference to the profession of his mother’s community, as in those days it was given to oil trade. But Ezhuthachhan replied promptly, “it squeezes four and six”, the allusion being to his knowledge of the four Vedas and six Sastras, like any other Nambudiri’s. Now being better armed to face any hostility, he could enter into his career undaunted. He could also secure the help and co-operation of a few well-wishers like Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri, author of the famous Naraya­neeyamof later years.

A poet, as the maxim goes, is the product of his times. This may be interpreted in two ways. He may either join snugly the prevailing chorus, or create a new tune for others to join in chorus. The latter is not an easy task. A poet of this mettle must be a revolutionary, who wants to recast society after the pattern che­rished by him. Both Tulsi and Tunchan belonged to this category of poets. Strangely the societies in which they were born and which they were destined to reform were identical in many respects.

Dr. Hazari Prasad Dwivedi, historian of Hindi literature, reflects on the plight of the society in which Tulsidas was born and worked in the following strain.

“The age that gave birth to him (Tulsidas) did not have any high ideal before it. The higher ups in society were lost to a life of ease and pleasure. People in the lower strata were poor, illite­rate and sickly. It was quite common for such people to become ascetics.......Society did not have any sort of contact with scholars and men of supreme knowledge. The whole society was getting disorganised and was without any ideal or aim. The need for such a person was felt as could tie the pieces that were falling apart in a thread of unity. It was at this juncture that Tulsidas came to the scene.

Following was the condition of the society which gave birth to Tunchat Ezhuthachhan as described by Sri P. K. Parameswaran Nair.

“The social order of those days was not at all commendable. Kerala was divided into a number of small principalities. There used to be frequent wars among their rulers and also among their feudal lords. Social life was subjected to many kinds of stresses and strains and moral degradation owing to the commercial diplomacy followed by the foreign powers (the Portugese, the Arabs and others) who helped the natives in their mutual wars. This affected consi­derably the educational and cultural conditions of the people. In the realm of culture Kerala felt, more than at any other time, the need for a guide – an intellectual genius capable of co-ordinating the contradictions and diversities. Ezhuthachhan was the noble soul competent to fulfil that need”.

The literary movements that preceded these poets were also similar in respect of the desideratum in both. Before Tulsi the ruling ideology was Nirguna Bhakti represented by Kabirdas, Malik Mohamed Jayasi and others. Kabir propagated the idea of an all-­pervading Almighty God without form or quality and spurned all sorts of rituals including idol worship, pilgrimage, etc., of the Hindus and “roza”, “namaz” and other religious practices of the Muslims. His ideal could be followed only by those who could rise above commonplace religious dogmas. Jayasi’s “Padmavat” was a love epic and so it could not provide an all-comprehensive picture of life. The lyrical poems of Surdas, though the poet belonged to the Saguna School, struck only at a single chord, i.e., “Madhurya” as the entire fabric or his poetry was woven around the world-­fascinating beauty and charm of the child Krishna and his many sports and heroic exploits in Vrija or Gokul. He did not touch the more serious aspects of life. There was something like a void in the hearts of the people and it could only be filled by Tulsidas by propagating devotion to Rama whom he presented as the pro­tector of the entire humanity and the embodiment of all virtues. And his Ramcharit Manas was all-comprehensive in respect of the problems of life and their solutions it offered.

Before Ezhuthachhan there were two works in Malayalam on the Ramayana theme –“Ramacharitam” by Srirama Kavi and Kannassa Ramayana and two works on the Krishna theme ­Kannassa Bhagavatham, and Krishna Gatha of Cherussery. During the period of Ramacharitam, Malayalam was dominated by Tamil. The Kannassa Ramayana had absorbed a greater percentage of Sanskrit words, yet Keralites as a whole could not own it because of the language hurdles it presented. “Krishna Gatha” with all its sweetness was littered with satirical and errotic contexts. The ele­ment of devotion was practically absent. So, serious-minded people naturally looked askance at it. The religious scene was further vitiated by the Tantric practices of a sect in Hinduism which involved free use of fish, meat, women and alcohol. So by all means it was left to Ezhuthachhan to open a new vista before the people. This he did in a manner most pleasing to them. He identified the problems lying hidden in the various contexts of the story of Ramayana with those of his own people and awakened them to a life of piety and righteousness.

Historians of Tulsidas are unanimous that his Ramcharit Manas is a grand attempt at co-ordinating diversities – devotion and knowledge, household life and asecticism, Brahmin and Chandala, and language (of the people) and Sanskrit. The same is said of Ezhu­thachhan and his historians have used the same terminology “Saman­waya” as in the context of Tulsidas.

Tulsidas reflects in the beginning of Ramcharit Manas that he is narrating the story of Rama which has been authenticated in the various Puranas, Nigamas and Agamas, the Ramayana and also in some other works, in Bhasa (Hindi) for the solace of his own soul (swantasukhaya) Ezhuthachhan has also a few words on the purpose of his writing his Ramayana in Bhasha (Malayalam) and he has prefaced Chintaratnamrather apologetically that the great men who are erudite in the Sastras and the Kavyas should not despise his work as it is in the language. It is evident that both the poets had to face hostilities from the Sanskrit-educated elite for their revolutionary deviation–a fact which underscores the pre­dominance of Sanskrit all over India.

Both the poets narrate the story as told by Shiva to His spouse, Parvati, but while Tulsi gets it as related to him by Kaka­bhusundi, Tunchan has it sung by his famous song birds – the parrot and the mynah.

The trend and temper and the devotional content of the works of both the poets in general bear an astonishingly close resemblance to one another. Twelve works of Tulsidas have been recognised as authentic – Dohavali, Kavitavali, Geetavali, Ramagya Prasna, Vinay Patrika, Ram Charit Manas, Ram Leela Nahachhu Vairagy Sandipini, Parvati Mangal, Janaki Mangal, Barve Ramayan and Krishna Geetavali.

Following are the works of Ezhuthachhan which have gained authenticity – Harinama Keerthanam, Devi Mahatmyam, Irupathi­nalu vritham (an abridged story of the Ramayana in twenty-four chapters of twenty-four different meters), Chintaratnam, Kaivalya­navaneetam, Adhyatma Ramayanam, Mahabiharatam, Sivapuranam and Bhagavatam(the last two, are however, still under dispute).

A cursory view of these works would reveal the fact that both the poets were ardent devotees of Lord Vishnu, and in their devo­tion to Rama in particular they have vied with each other. Tunchan could not simply mention the name of Rama (or Krishna). Instead he would exercise into a whole repertoire of synonyms of adoration and sometimes add “the God enthroned in my heart” (ennude unlil vilangunna deivatam.) Tulsi has gone a step further and walked straight into the company of Rama, Sita and Lakshmana!

There is an intriguing episode in the Ramacharit Manas in which Tulsi refers to an aged hermit (“tapasa”) whom Rama, Sita and Lakshmana “met” on their way to the forest. No other author of the Ramayana has brought in an unnamed “tapasa” in flesh and blood to meet Sri Rama. Most critics are therefore agreed that the “tapasa” is none other than Tulsidas himself. How­ever this episode, most puzzling and fantastic as it is, has helped scholars in locating the place of birth of Tulsidas at Rajapur where the hermit was described to have had emerged from nowhere.

Both Tulsi and Tunchan were drunk deep in the Nondualit (Advaita) philosophy of Sankara. The essence of the philosophy is that Jeeva and Brahman are one and the same, but what gives them separate identities is “Maya” (the Eternal Illusion). The concept of Maya has been elucidated by both poets with the help of the serpent–rope metaphor–“The world is an illusion but it is taken for real as a piece of rope is mistaken for a snake”. UP­holding this concept both poets have underscored the transcience and nothingness of life. Tulsi has compared it to a dream in which one lives a happy and splenderous life in a palace but everything fades into nothingness as he wakes up. Ezhuthachhan has driven home the idea by striking a few similes–wayfarers assembling in an inn to spend a night and dispersing, pieces of driftwood floating in a river, water contained in an unbaked earthen pot, etc. It is difficult to ascertain who has excelled the other in delineating the Maya concept.

A few points of difference: Ramcharit Manas is an original work of Tulsidas which he accomplished in his old age when his poetry had crystallized, but Adhyatma Ramayana is a translation of a work of the same name in Sanskrit. But Ezhuthachhan has taken his characteristic freedom to improve on the work wherever necessary and even to correct the author where he has gone wrong unwittingly. Ezhuthachhan’s embellishments on the original have given it the semblance of an original work so much that today no Keralite is prepared to take Adhyatma Ramayana as a translation. The personality of Ezhuthachhan has gone into the work so inextri­cably that neither the work nor its author can be thought of in isolation.

The Ramcharit Manas is the Magnum Opus of Tulsidas while among the works of Tunchan that position is enjoyed by his Mahabharata. Further, the Adhyatma Ramayana ushered in the modem period in the history of Malayalam literature and Ezhuthachhan is hailed as the father of modern Malayalam. The Ramcharit Manas written in Avadhi, a local variation of Hindi, belongs to the early medieval period or the period of Devotion which was the Golden Age in the history of Hindi literature.