Overview
Ramcharitmanas (Devanagari: रामचरितमानस) is an epic poem in the Awadhi language composed by the 16th-century bhakti poet Tulsidas. The title literally means "Lake of the deeds of Rama", and the work is popularly also referred to as the Tulsi Ramayana, Tulsikrit Ramayana or simply Manas. Its principal inspiration is the Sanskrit Ramayana of Valmiki, though Tulsidas drew upon several other sources as well.
Tulsidas, who was himself a scholar of Sanskrit, chose to compose the text in Awadhi, a vernacular tongue, in order to make the narrative of Rama accessible to ordinary people. According to tradition, this decision drew criticism from Sanskrit scholars at Varanasi, but Tulsidas continued with his resolve to render the wisdom of the Vedas, Upanishads and Puranas in a form that the wider public could engage with. His work eventually gained wide acceptance and is regarded as one of the most influential works of Hindu devotional literature.
The Ramcharitmanas made the story of Rama available for singing, recitation, meditation and dramatic performance. Its composition contributed to the growth of several cultural traditions, most notably the Ramlila, the dramatic enactment of episodes from the text performed across northern India. The work is generally placed within the Saguna school of the Bhakti movement in Hindi literature, which emphasises devotion to a personal form of the divine.
In May 2024, during the tenth meeting of the Memory of the World Committee for Asia and the Pacific, manuscripts of the Ramcharitmanas were added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Asia-Pacific Regional Register. One of the inscribed manuscripts is attributed to Tulsidas himself, while another is an 18th-century manuscript written in Arabic, reflecting the cross-cultural reception of the text.
References
Adapted from the English Wikipedia article on Ramcharit