What was Srila Prabhupada’s position on Goswami Tulasidas?

From: Sanit Kumar Vishwakarma

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
in our activities question from Sanath Kumar Vishwakarma, I want to know about the stand of Srila Prabhupada towards Tulsidas because in the North India a lot of followers of his are there and how do we promote them to read Srimad Bhagavatam and Vaishnava literature, answer Tulsidas has been responsible for creating a massive wave of Ramabhakti that originated in the medieval times when he wrote the Ramcharitmanas and that has continued even to this day and basically as Bhakti was always there in the Vedic literature but historically speaking there was a renaissance and resurgence of Bhakti that happened in the medieval times and one of the ways in which it happened was through the vernacularization of the themes that were mentioned in the Vedic Sanskrit scriptures so in different parts of the country there were various Bhakti saints who rendered into the local vernacular languages the traditional literature that were originally in Sanskrit just as Tukaram Maharaj did through his Abhangas in Maharashtra similarly in North India Tulsidas rendered Ramayan in Ramcharitmanas and in terms of appeal popularity and accessibility to people the vernacular language version is always far far more widespread in that area of the vernacular language than is the Sanskrit version so Shilpa Prabhupada emphasized Vaishnavism no doubt and he was quite broad in his explanation of Bhakti so even Jesus Christ taught Bhakti, taught love for God now there are several places where Shilpa Prabhupada quotes Tulsidas in triple light and so we can look at where Prabhupada’s quote is especially during a lecture on Radhashtami in August 30, 1968 Shilpa Prabhupada stated the full verse quoted by composed by Tulsidas Tulsidas this is a verse composed by a great devotee Tulsidas he was a devotee of Lord Ramachandra so it’s interesting that Shilpa Prabhupada started the lecture with this verse of Tulsidas so that means Shilpa Prabhupada considered his him to be a devotee of Lord Ram and prayer composed by him as an authority enough to start his class with apart from that there are other quotes where Shilpa Prabhupada does differentiate between Ramcharitmanas and Ramayana and Prabhupada emphasizes this point that the original Sanskrit Sanskrit of the stories of Lord Ram as given in Valmiki Ramayana is irreplaceable and Prabhupada said the real Ramayana is Valmiki’s Ramayana so that would be one point which Shilpa Prabhupada made that the vernacular should not replace the original and in that sense Shilpa Prabhupada would sometimes point out there are 2-3 lectures that Prabhupada said this is not the original Ramayana because Ramcharitmanas became so popular that many people started thinking of itself as authority now Shilpa Prabhupada in one letter to one devotee seems to speak negatively about this so this is a letter which Shilpa Prabhupada wrote to one devotee called Raktaka in 1969-67 September so Shilpa Prabhupada there seems to say that Ramcharitmanas is not very authorized regarding the 2 books you have mentioned Ramcharitmanas by Swami Tulsidas and Ramayana is authorized one thing is though you have got enough books to study did you appear in the examination held on Janmashtami day, why should you go to Ramayana when you have got Bhagavad Gita, Srimad Bhagavatam which is of Lord Chaitanya don’t divert your attention in that way and then Prabhupada goes on to say the author of Ramcharitmanas Goswami Tulsidas has a change of Mayavadi philosophy he belongs to the Ramayana they are mixed up combination of personalist and impersonalist therefore the author is not considered as pure Vaishnava pure Vaishnava is free from all material contamination of fruitive activities and mental speculation pure Vaishnava is simply purely disposed to transcendent loving service to Krishna pure Vaishnava rejects anything which has no pure idea of serving the personality of Godhead so here to one point Prabhupada makes not authorized because there is some mix of personalism and impersonalism now if we actually read the Ramcharitmanas Gaur Govind Maharaj asked about this and he was brought up in a traditional culture where Ramcharitmanas was immensely popular and the same applies to many other devotees within his school and Gaudiya Vaishnavas outside his school also like Prabhupada’s god brother Puri Maharaj and they have said that actually the bhakti sentiments in Ramcharitmanas are quite intense and there are many beautiful verses there which talk about mother Sita’s separation from Ram where she is saying that there is a fire that is burning within me and this fire it is burning within me but it is not burning me it is burning within me because I am separated from you but it is not burning me because I have the hope of seeing you sometime in the future like that there are many quotes which are intensely devotional so therefore in general people have a preconception of impersonalism and that preconception may become reinforced if we read books that are not very unambiguously clear about personalist ideas personalist conclusions so therefore one has to be careful and there may be certain passages in the Ramcharitmanas which may give impersonalist ideas to people who have those preconceptions already and as I said there are strong bhakti teachings also but again the question comes up that when the Ramcharitmanas is made accessible into English or even into Hindi not all the Hindi that was there at that time is the same as it is now so it may be made accessible by translators who have themselves impersonalist conceptions and that may also lead to further impersonalist misconceptions being perpetuated among the audience so therefore Srila Prabhupada urged caution so the essential point is Srila Prabhupada is saying don’t get distracted to too many books but apart from this letter Srila Prabhupada quotes him quite often as authority whenever he wants to just like Srila Prabhupada quotes Chanakya Pandit he also quotes Tulsidas whenever he wants to substantiate some point which involves some worldly aspect of the teachings so therefore there is no need for as devotees to go on a mission to criticize or challenge Srila Prabhupada stands there, three parts are there Prabhupada acknowledges that he is a great devotee starts a lecture with it and he says there are some mixups of personalism impersonalism within it but then he again quotes Tulsidas as a authority on many worldly subjects so there are many quotes by Srila Prabhupada to that effect also so therefore Srila Prabhupada quotes him, considers him authority worth quoting for worldly subjects as well as for a prayer to Lord Rama, at the same time if one is going to read that book and devote oneself to that book, one may not get very clear philosophical understandings so Srila Prabhupada emphasises from that letter to Raktat Prabhu is that one should not divert oneself to too many books, so as devotees we should first get the clear siddhantic understanding from the books that are in the parampara and devotees have also, Srila Prabhupada’s disciples have also translated the Ramayana, if you want to read that we can read that, we can hear Ramayana classes given by ISKCON devotees now those who are already connected with Ramcharitmanas and Tulsi Ramayana we don’t have to ever hurt their sentiments by saying that Ramcharitmanas is Mayavadi, if you are asked to find specific sections you might find a few verses, it will be very difficult, on the other hand there are so many verses which talk about Bhakti also so rather than getting into getting into arguments over specifics which can alienate people the basic thrust should be to encourage people in their devotion so one of the things we could encourage these people is if they are devoted to Lord Ram and they are reading Ramcharitmanas is to talk about how the practice of devotional service in terms of chanting the names of the Lord in a regular diligent way is very important practicing the regulatory principles is important and then we can talk about the Srimad Bhagavatam being the Amalapurana where there is Dharmapurojita Kaitava 1.1.2 describes how all sub-religious principles are rejected so that people can come to the highest religious principles of Nirmatsaranaamsatam for the most totally non-envious people so by that understanding we can encourage them that yes, you have the pastimes beautifully narrated, there are devotional sentiments also over there and then at the same time there is the concept of Paradharma and Aparadharma there is worldly religiosity and transcendental religiosity so you can understand this transcendental religiosity most clearly by studying the Srimad Bhagavatam and in that way we can encourage them to read Srimad Bhagavatam so the key thing is not to hurt them or to alienate them by quoting Srila Prabhupada’s letter out of context and saying that Prabhupada says also it’s not very authorised, that means it’s authorised but not very authorised and taints of Mayavada so now we may think Mayavada is something very dangerous and taints of Mayavada are also dangerous that may be true but there are verses which can be made to sound impersonalistic even in the Bhagavad Gita they are not actually impersonalistic but they can be made to sound impersonalistic, like that it happens in Vedanta Sutra, even in the Upanishads quite profusely so ultimately it depends on the interpreter, so if a person has a devotional intention then this impersonal taints will not affect them but people who have impersonal preconceptions, those may get reinforced by people who focus on some sections like that and overall we should encourage people to bring the element of sadhana into the element of bhakti, sadhana means regular chanting of the names of Lord Ram and following the regularity principles and for bringing this we can talk about the difference between mundane and transcendental religious principles as is given in the Srimad Bhagavatam