Tulasis bharata.

 Tulsi's Rama does not doubt Bharata as does Valmiki's,  Rama knew all about Bharata from Hanuman who had met him beforehand. Hence, Rama appreciates Vibhishana's hospitalities but is eager to return to Ayodhya and meet Bharata. In Ramacharita Manasa also Hanuman is asked to reach Ayodhya in advance but here the reason is different. Rama fears that Bharata might even end his life if he fails to reach Ayodhya on the day the period of exile completes. Tulsi's is the vision of a devotional mind, Valmiki's, of a religious biographer. Valmiki unfolds Bharata's life quite objectively. He respects him as prince of Ayodhya and a saintly soul but does not have for him any kind of personal attachment or feeling. On the contrary, Tulsi is quite subjective and becomes even emotional when portraying Bharata. Indeed, he finds Bharata in him, or finds his devotionalism manifest in Bharata. Often, in Bharata's acts and words Tulsi appears to be recording his own devotional crisis.

 

Men in authority and even those of common lot always doubted or even disapproved Tulsi's devotionalism so much so that it sometimes irritated him : 'Kahu ki beti saun beta na byahan, kahu ki jata bigara no soyi' (Kavitavali) - not wedding his son to anyone's daughter, or spoiling anyone's caste. He was, however, confident that his Lord Rama was with him and knew the genuineness of his devotion. Bharata, manifestation of his devotionalism, was not so fortunate. He suffered both ways. Not merely sage Bharadwaj, representing authority, and Guha, representing common man, doubted Bharata's loyalty but even Rama and mother Kausalya did so. As in his own case, in regard to Bharata too, Tulsi retains the doubtful minds of sage Bharadwaj and Guha but changes Rama's and mother Kausalya's, obviously to correspond to his analogy. Tulsi's Rama has in Bharata same confidence as in Lakshmana and hardly any doubt persists in the mind of mother Kausalya. Tulsi's Bharata is sublimity incarnate. The words : 'Kabanhu ki kanjee seekarani chhirasindhu binasai' (Ayodhya kanda, 231) - 'could the drops of 'kanjee', fermented mustard, ever destroy 'chhirasagara', the ocean of milk', that Rama utters to calm Lakshmana's anger reveal Tulsi's estimation of Bharata. He is not merely the ocean with immeasurable width and depth but the ocean of milk - virtues.