The Ramanandi sect believes that it was Valmiki himself who incarnated as Tulsidas in the Kali Yuga. Nabhadas writes in his Bhaktamal (literally, the Garland of bhakt or devotee) that Tulsidas was the re-incarnation of Valmiki in the Kali Yuga. Bhavishyottar Purana, Pratisarga Parva, 4.20.
O Goddess ! Valmiki will become Tulsidas in the Kali age, and will compose this narrative of Rama in the vernacular language. Rāmacandrakathāmetāṃ bhāṣābaddhāṃ kariṣyati ॥
Vālmīkistulasīdāsaḥ kalau devi bhaviṣyati । In the Hindu scripture Bhavishyottar Purana, the god Shiva tells his wife Parvati how Valmiki, who got a boon from Hanuman to sing the glory of Rama in vernacular language, will incarnate in future in the Kali Yuga (the present and last Yuga or epoch within a cycle of four Yugas). He is believed by many to be a rebirth of Valmiki. Together, these five works form a set of traditional biographies on which modern biographies of Tulsidas are based. The accounts published later are not considered authentic by some modern scholars, whereas some other scholars have been unwilling to dismiss them. Krishnadatta Misra's father was a close companion of Tulsidas. In the 1950s a fifth ancient account was published based on an old manuscript, the Gautam Chandrika composed by Krishnadatta Misra of Varanasi in 1624. The work by Bhavanidas presented more narratives in greater detail as compared to the work by Priyadas. Veni Madhav Das was a disciple and contemporary of Tulsidas and his work gave a new date for Tulsidas' birth. During the 1920s, two more ancient biographies of Tulsidas were published based on old manuscripts – the Mula Gosain Charit composed by Veni Madhav Das in 1630 and the Gosain Charit composed by Dasanidas (also known as Bhavanidas) around 1770. Priyadas' work was composed around a hundred years after the death of Tulsidas and had eleven additional stanzas, describing seven miracles or spiritual experiences from the life of Tulsidas. Nabhadas was a contemporary of Tulsidas and wrote a six-line stanza on Tulsidas describing him as an incarnation of Valmiki. Till late nineteenth century, the two widely known ancient sources on Tulsidas' life were the Bhaktamal composed by Nabhadas between 15, and a commentary on Bhaktamal titled Bhaktirasbodhini composed by Priyadas in 1712. Tulsidas himself has given only a few facts and hints about events of his life in various works. Picture of Tulsidas published in the Ramcharitmanas, by Sri Ganga Publishers, Gai Ghat, Benaras, 1949 The name is a compound of two Sanskrit words: Tulasī, which is an Indian variety of the basil plant considered auspicious by Vaishnavas (devotees of god Vishnu and his avatars like Rama), and Dāsa, which means slave or servant and by extension, devotee. The lost vowels are an aspect of the Schwa deletion in Indo-Aryan languages and can vary between regions. Using the Hunterian transliteration system, it is written as Tulsidas or Tulsīdās reflecting the vernacular pronunciation (since the written Indian languages maintain the vestigial letters that are no longer pronounced). Using the original Sanskrit, the name is written as Tulasīdāsa. The Sanskrit name of Tulsidas can be transliterated in two ways.