(२७६) office of DEWAN to the RAJA of that city : his spiritual preceptor was JAGANNATH DAS, a pupil, as well as NABHAJI, Of AGRA. DAS: he followed his teacher to GOVAR- DHAN, near BRINDAVAN, but afterwards returned to Benares, and there commenced his Hindi version of the RAMAYAN, in the year of Samvat 1631, when he was thirty-one years of age. Besides this work, which is highly popular, TULSI DAS is the author of a SATSAI, or collection of one hundred stanzas on various subjects : of the RAM GUNAVALI, a series of verses in the praise of RAMA, of a GITAVALI, and VINAYAPATRIKA, poetical compositions of a devotional or moral tendency, and of a great variety of HYMNS-as RAGAS, kavits, and PADAS, in honour of his tutelary deity and his consort, or RAMA and SITA. TULSI DAS continued to reside at Benares, where he built a temple to SITARAMA, and founded a MATH adjoining, both of which are still in existence : he died in the year of the SAMVAT era, 1680, or A. D. 1624, in the reign of JEHANGIR, and the legendary stories of his intercourse with SHAH JEHAN, is conse- quently an anachronism.
