Mira

Lore & Background

Mirabai was born into a Rathore Rajput royal family in Kudki (modern-day Beawar district of Rajasthan), and spent her childhood in Merta. She was the daughter of Ratan Singh Rathore and granddaughter of Rao Dudaji of Merta, making her a great-granddaughter of Rao Jodha and a cousin of Jaimal Rathore. Mirabai had an arranged marriage with Bhoj Raj, the crown prince of Mewar, in 1516. Her husband was wounded in one of the ongoing wars with the Delhi Sultanate in 1518, and he died from battle wounds in 1521. Both her father and father-in-law (Rana Sanga) died a few days after their defeat in the Battle of Khanwa against Babur, the first Mughal Emperor. After the death of Rana Sanga, Vikram Singh became the ruler of Mewar. According to a popular legend, her in-laws tried to assassinate her multiple times. These attempts included sending Mirabai a glass of poison and telling her it was nectar, and sending her a basket with a snake instead of flowers. According to hagiographic legends, she was not harmed in either case, with the snake miraculously becoming, depending on the version, a Krishna idol or a garland of flowers. In another version of these legends, she was asked by Vikram Singh to drown herself. When she attempts to do so, she merely floats on the water. Yet another legend states that the third Mughal emperor, Akbar, came with Tansen to visit Mirabai and presented her with a pearl necklace. Scholars doubt this happened, as Tansen joined Akbar's court in 1562, 15 years after Mirabai's death. Similarly, some stories state that Ravidas was her guru (teacher), but there is no corroborating historical evidence for this. As of 2014, the three oldest records that mention Mirabai are all from the 17th century and were written within 150 years of Mirabai's death. None mention anything about her childhood, the circumstances of her marriage to Bhojraj or whether the people who persecuted her were her in-laws or from some Rajput royal family. Nancy Martin-Kershaw states that to the extent that Mirabai was challenged and persecuted, religious or social conventions were unlikely to have been the cause, rather the likely cause was political chaos and military conflicts between the Rajput kingdom and the Mughal Empire. Other stories state that Mirabai left the kingdom of Mewar and went on pilgrimages. In her last years, Mirabai lived in Dwarka or Vrindavan, where legends state she miraculously disappeared by merging into an idol of Krishna after being poisoned by her brother-in-law in 1547. While miracles are contested by scholars for the lack of historical evidence, it is widely acknowledged that Mirabai dedicated her life to Krishna, composing songs of devotion, and was one of the most important poet-saints of the Bhakti movement period.

In Their Own Story

Scholarly analysis of Mirabai's hagiography shows significant regional variation. In contrast to the traditional Mewari depiction of Mirabai traveling to Vrindavan and Dwarka after conflicts with her in-laws at Chittor, an early 18th-century Punjabi text written in Gurmukhi titled Prem Ambodh Pothi ('Ocean of Love', composed c. 1693 CE and related to the court of Guru Gobind Singh) portrays her as sedentary and residing in Udaipur. In this version, she is married to a man named Giridhar (Mountain Lifter) and her own father attempts to kill her with a poison and then a sword, the action of which is thwarted after Krishna manifests wielding the sudarshan chakra. The earliest datable reference to Mira is a poem in her praise in Nabhadas's Bhaktamal, a hagiographical anthology composed in about 1600. A number of compositions by Mirabai continue to be sung today in India, mostly as devotional songs (bhajans) towards Krishna, though nearly all of them have a philosophical connotation. Her poems describe her love, salutation, and separation from Krishna, and her dissatisfaction with the world. One of her most popular compositions remains 'Payoji maine Ram Ratan dhan payo' (पायो जी मैंने राम रतन धन पायो।, 'I have been given the richness of God's name blessing'). Mirabai's poems are lyrical padas (metric verses) in the Rajasthani language. Several meters are used within her padas, but the most common meter found is the mātric (syllabic) poetic line. Rāgas or melodies are attributed to these padas, allowing them to be sung. Her poetry frequently invokes the epithet Girdhar nagar (the gallant 'Mountain bearer') and emphasizes her total surrender to him as her only true spouse. In her poignant poems of separation, or viraha, she occasionally characterizes Krishna as a detached yogi or renouncer who seduces lovers only to leave them in agony, an emotional intensity often mirrored in her use of nature imagery - such as the arrival of the monsoon and the cries of peacocks and cuckoos - to reflect the shifting flavours of union and longing. Mirabai's appeal transcends social boundaries, resonating with high-caste individuals through her royal suffering and with low-caste groups who admire her renunciation of status and her choice of the untouchable leather-worker Raidas as her guru. By identifying with the gopis of ancient Braj, she manifested a depth of unconditional love that the hagiographer Nabhadas noted as remarkable for a 'degenerate age'. While thousands of verses are attributed to her, scholars remain divided on how many she actually penned. The manuscript record for Mira's poetry is unusually thin. Only two poems attributed to her have been found in manuscripts dating from before the early eighteenth century, a far smaller number than survives for male poet-saints of comparable stature, and a search of manuscript libraries in Rajasthan found no examples earlier than the latter half of the eighteenth century, with only a handful predating 1800. The critical edition of Parasuram Caturvedi, on which most modern assessments of Mira rest, contains no reference to the manuscripts on which it is based. Consequently, researchers often identify a specific Mirabai style of devotion, seeing her songs as inseparable from her legendary life story and representing a unique identification between the author and the subject of her devotion. The most extensive collection of Mirabai's poems exists in manuscripts from the 19th century. To establish the authenticity of the poems, scholars have looked at various factors such as the mention of Mirabai in other manuscripts, as well as the style, language, and form of the poems. John Stratton Hawley cautions, 'When one speaks of the poetry of Mirabai, then, there is always an element of enigma. [...] There must always remain a question about whether there is any real relation between the poems we cite and a historical Mira.' In her poems, Krishna is a yogi and lover, and she herself is a yogini ready to take her place by his side in spiritual marital bliss. Meera's style combines impassioned mood, defiance, longing, anticipation, joy and ecstasy of union, always centred on Krishna. Mirabai speaks of a personal relationship with Krishna as her lover, God and mountain lifter. The characteristic of her poetry is complete surrender. Mirabai is often classed with the northern Sant bhaktis, who spoke of Krishna. There is a small chhatri (pavilion) in front of Meera's temple in Chittorgarh district of Rajasthan which bears Ravidas' engraved footprint. Legends link him as the guru of Mirabai, another major Bhakti movement poet. Mirabai composed a song dedicated to Guru Ravidas, in which she mentioned him as her Guru: 'I got a guru in the form of Sant Ravidas, there by obta' (source text cuts off).

Reader's Guide

Mirabai's poetry is characterized by the madhurya bhava towards Krishna, expressing a personal relationship with him as her lover, God, and mountain lifter. Her poems are lyrical padas in the Rajasthani language, with the most common meter being the mātric (syllabic) poetic line, and rāgas attributed to allow singing. Key themes include love, salutation, separation (viraha), and dissatisfaction with the world. Her poetry frequently invokes the epithet Girdhar nagar ('Mountain bearer') and emphasizes total surrender. In viraha poems, she occasionally characterizes Krishna as a detached yogi or renouncer who seduces lovers only to leave them in agony, using nature imagery like the arrival of the monsoon and cries of peacocks and cuckoos. One of her most popular compositions is 'Payoji maine Ram Ratan dhan payo' ('I have been given the richness of God's name blessing'). Her style combines impassioned mood, defiance, longing, anticipation, joy, and ecstasy of union, always centred on Krishna. Mirabai is often classed with the northern Sant bhaktis. The earliest datable reference to Mira is a poem in her praise in Nabhadas's Bhaktamal (c. 1600). Only two poems attributed to her have been found in manuscripts from before the early 18th century; the most extensive collection exists in 19th-century manuscripts. Scholars are divided on authenticity, with John Stratton Hawley noting an 'element of enigma' about whether poems cited relate to a historical Mira.

Did You Know?

• Mirabai was born into a Rathore Rajput royal family in Kudki (modern-day Beawar district, Rajasthan) and was a great-granddaughter of Rao Jodha.
• Her husband Bhoj Raj, crown prince of Mewar, died from battle wounds in 1521; her father and father-in-law Rana Sanga died days after the Battle of Khanwa against Babur.
• Only two poems attributed to Mirabai have been found in manuscripts dating from before the early 18th century.
• The earliest datable reference to Mira is a poem in her praise in Nabhadas's Bhaktamal, composed about 1600.
• A legend states that when her in-laws attempted to murder her with poison, Mirabai tied a sacred thread on a murti of Krishna, trusting in His divine protection, through which she was saved by divine intervention.