Birthday of Goswami Tulsidas, the 16th-century poet-saint who composed the beloved Ramcharitmanas.

Tulsidas Jayanti, on the Shukla Paksha Saptami of Shravan, marks the birth of Goswami Tulsidas, the sixteenth-century poet-saint who composed the Ramcharitmanas. Born in Rajapur in what is now Uttar Pradesh, he retold the Ramayana in Awadhi rather than Sanskrit — a decision that drew censure from the orthodoxy of his time and put the story into the hands and mouths of ordinary people. The Ramcharitmanas became the most widely read devotional text of North India, and the Hanuman Chalisa, also his composition, is among the most recited prayers in the world. He is credited with founding the Sankat Mochan temple at Varanasi. The day is kept with recitation of the Ramcharitmanas and the Hanuman Chalisa in homes and temples.

No formal fast is prescribed. Many devotees keep a satvik diet through the day and eat after the recitation is complete.