Ramcharitmanas by Tulsidas

Shri Ramcharitmanas is an epic poem in Awadhi, composed by the 16th-century Indian poet Goswami Tulsidas. Ramcharitmanas literally means "lake of the deeds of Rama". Tulsidas compared the seven Kandas of the epic to seven steps leading into the holy waters of a Himalayan lake (Manasa, as in Lake Manasarovar) which "purifies the body and the soul at once".


The core of the work is a poetic retelling of the events of the Sanskrit epic Ramayana, centered on the narrative of Rama, the crown prince of Ayodhya. The poem is also called Tulsikrit Ramayan (literally, The Ramayan composed by Tulsi or, loosely, The Ramayan of Tulsidas).