Dynamics of Textual Transmission in Premodern India: The Kavitavali of Tulsidas

Large literary masterpieces often secure fame for their authors but at the same time shorter compositions by them may enjoy similar popularity. Shakespeare's sonnets are as much read as any of his great plays. Brevity, making the poem more accessible for immediate appreciation, disciplined metrical form, and a hint of a more personal voice largely contributed to the success of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets, collected by his friends and published in 1609 towards the end of his literary career.

The textual legacy of Tulsidas (1532?-1623?), a contemporary of Shakespeare, whose standing in Hindi literature matches that of the English author, presents a similar phenomenon. His Kavitavali, a series of some 350 loosely connected quatrainsin stricter meters and with a more individual approach than found in the author's other works, was compiled probably around the 1610s. Tulsi's favorite themes are collected here, and although arranged into seven cantos (kandas) according to the Ramayana tradition, it does not always follow the linear epic structure.

The collection has enjoyed immense popularity. Initially it was transmitted in handwritten books, and although no autograph copy survives, about sixty copied manuscripts have been traced in the past hundred years. Several hundreds, however, must have been prepared over the centuries. Since its first printed edition in 1815 the Kavitavali has been published about 120 times; the Gita Press alone, its most popular publisher, had issued 632,500 copies by 2001 according to the flyleaf of the edition. Apart from Tulsi's Ramcaritmanas, only his Vinay Patrika, a compilation of devotional padas (songs with refrain set to a certain rhythm, tala, and in a dominating mood, raga), and Hanumanbahuk, have sold more copies. (The latter, however, was originally part of the Kavitavali.)¹

The Kabitt Form

The force that keeps the distinct parts of the collection together is not that of a linear narrative but rather the poetic form: the entire Kavitavali is written in kabitts (quatrains). The early bhakti poets conveyed their message most effectively in padas, which normally have a loose moraic meter suitable for emotional expression through singing. The Kavitavali is a devotional work written not in padas but in the kabitt form. The importance of the form can be judged by the fact that in many manuscripts and early editions this collection is called Kabitt-Ramayan (Ramayana in Quatrains), using the word kabitt in its broad sense of "self-contained poem." This sense includes the four-line syllabic kavitt (often called ghanaksari after the name of its most widely used subgroup), which relies on sequences of stressed and unstressed syllables, the anapestic or dactylic savaiya, and the rare moraic jhulna and chappay; the latter are broken into six lines in modern editions. While the syllabic kavitts were especially suited to dhrupad singing, to which their emergence can be linked, the savaiyas were meant to be recited or written down. With their somewhat strict meter kabitts had a closer link with the written and courtly than with the oral world. Tradition holds that the Kabitt-Ramayan is Tulsi's effort to present the Rama story in a courtly style.²

While padas,written in various dialects, were the main form of devotional singing, kabitts were products of Brajbhasa. Although their early usage was linked to Krishna literature and they never ceased to be vehicles of devotional messages, along with the couplet doha they became the major meters in court poetry. The quatrain form, especially the syllabic kavitt, survived into twentieth-century Hindi poetry.

Kabitts are a somewhat more recent form than padas, which date to the beginnings of devotional Hindi literature. Although some chappays and savaiyas are attributed to Hit Harivamsh (?1502-52),³ the kabitt forms did not become popular until the late sixteenth century. Both poets at Akbar's...