Rare Pandulipi (manuscript) of Sri Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas at Hanuman Temple in Akhara Goswami Tulsidas on Tulsi Ghat in Varanasi

The only original pandulipi (manuscript) of Sri Ramcharitmanas (also referred to as the Tulsi Ramayana) dated Samvat 1704 (1648 AD) and a few precious articles of its writer, Goswami Tulsidas is kept at the Hanuman Temple in Akhara Goswami Tulsidas on Tulsi Ghat in Varanasi. The articles are displayed now only on the Tulsidas Jayanti which falls on the sixth day during the waxing phase of moon in Shravan month as per traditional Hindu lunar calendar followed in North India.

Earlier, the manuscripts were only display on all days but it was restricted to a single day after a theft in 2011.

The Hindu reports 

Those seven months till the police recovered the rare manuscript of Sri Ramcharitmanas led to an interesting development. “As the chances of recovering the original manuscript dwindled with each passing day, I decided to collect as many manuscripts of Goswami Tulsidas works as possible, including Sri Ramcharitmanas, from whatever source I could,” says Dr. Vijay Nath Mishra, a leading neurologist and younger son of Professor Veer Bhadra Mishra. “And since then I have collected 173 handwritten manuscripts from all over India. These include the Ramayana and other works of Goswami Tulsidas. I also found Sri Ramcharitmanas in Urdu that was printed in a Lahore press 90 years ago, which contains rare handmade pictures related to the Ramayana. I even have manuscripts in Farsi and Awadhi,” says Dr. Mishra.