Mirabai

at Chittor Fort, Rajasthan Primary records about Mirabai are not available, and scholars have attempted to establish Meera's biography from secondary literature that mentions her. 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 grand daughter of Rao Dudaji of Merta, thus 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. 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. are all from the 17th century and written within 150 years of Mirabai's death. Neither mentions anything about her childhood, the circumstances of her marriage to Bhojraj or that 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. Hagiographical variations 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 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. ==Poetry==

(left) and some poems include Radha (right), the chief consort of Krishna. 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. Mirabai's poems are lyrical padas (metric verses) in the Rajasthani language. There are no surviving manuscripts of her poetry from her time, and the earliest records with two poems credited to her are from the early 18th century, more than 150 years after her legendary disappearance in 1547. 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 manisfested 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. There are no surviving manuscripts from her own era, with the earliest records appearing more than 150 years after her legendary disappearance in 1547. Consequently, researchers often identify a specific Mirabai style of devotion, seeing her songs as inseperable from her lengendary life story and representing a unique identification between the author and the subject of her devotion. Hindi and Rajasthani 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 a spiritual marital bliss. Legends link him as the guru of Mirabai, another major Bhakti movement poet. Mirabai composed a song dedicated to Guru Ravidas, where she mentioned him as her Guru: Sadguru sant mile Ravidas Mira devaki kare vandana aas Jin chetan kahya dhann Bhagavan Ravidas -- "I got a guru in the form of Sant Ravidas, there by obtaining life's fulfillment." Sikh literature from the Bhai Banno recension named "Bhai Banno Vali Bir" which contains compositions of Mirabai within it. Kept at Gurdwara Bhai Banno Sahib, Kanpur Uttar Pradesh, India When the Adi Granth was compiled in 1604, a copy of the text was given to a Sikh named Bhai Banno who was instructed by Guru Arjan to travel to Lahore to get it bound. While doing so, he made a copy of the codex, which included compositions of Mirabai. These unauthorized additions were not included in the standardized edition of the scripture by the Sikh gurus, who rejected their inclusion. Prem Ambodh Pothi, a text attributed to Guru Gobind Singh and completed in 1693 CE, includes poetry of Mira Bai as one of sixteen historic bhakti saints important to Sikhism. == Mirabai's compositions ==

• Raag Govind • Govind Tika • Raag Soratha • Meera Ki Malhar • Mira Padavali • Narsi ji Ka Mayara ==Influence==

Scholars acknowledge that Mirabai was one of the central poet-saints of the Bhakti movement, a period in Indian history rife with religious conflicts. Yet, they simultaneously question the extent to which Mirabai was a canonical projection of social imagination that followed, where she became a symbol of people's suffering and a desire for an alternative. Dirk Wiemann, quoting Parita Mukta, states, {{Blockquote| If one accepts that someone very akin to the Mira legend [about persecution and her devotion] existed as an actual social being, the power of her convictions broke the brutal feudal relationships that existed at that time. The Mira Bai of the popular imagination, then, is an intensely anachronistic figure by virtue of that anticipatory radical democracy which propels Meera out of the historicity that remains nonetheless ascribed to her. She goes beyond the shadowy realms of the past to inhabit the very core of a future which is embodied within the suffering of a people who seek an alternative. The continued influence of Mirabai, in part, has been her message of freedom, her resolve and right to pursue her devotion to Krishna and her spiritual beliefs as she felt drawn to despite her persecution. From the 18th century onward, Mirabai's story was actively retold and adapted to reflect the theological and social values of different communities. These accounts focused less on historical fact and more on serving as a form of religious practice to inspire devotion. ==English translations==

English translations of Mirabai's poems titled Mystic Songs of Meera and The Devotional Poems of Mirabai have been written by A.J. Alston and V.K. Subramanian respectively. Some bhajans of Meera have been rendered into English by Robert Bly and Jane Hirshfield as Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems. Schelling and Landes-Levi have offered anthologies in the USA. Snell has presented parallel translations in his collection The Hindi Classical Tradition. Sethi has selected poems which Meera composed presumably after she came in contact with Ravidas. ==Popular culture==

Composer John Harbison adapted Bly's translations for his Mirabai Songs. The 1997 novel Cuckold, by Kiran Nagarkar, features her as one of the central characters. In 2002, Indian film director Anjali Panjabi released a documentary film about Meera, titled A Few Things I Know About Her. In 2009, Mirabai's life was interpreted as a musical story in Meera—The Lover…, a music album based on original compositions for some well known bhajans attributed to her. James, a Bangladeshi musician, dedicated his song "Mirabai" to her. The Meera Mahal in Merta is a museum dedicated to telling the story of Mirabai through sculptures, paintings, displays, and a shaded garden. Film and TV adaptations Two well-known films of her life have been made in India: Meera (1945), a Tamil language film starring M. S. Subbulakshmi, and Meera (1979), a Hindi film by Gulzar, in which she is portrayed by actress Hema Malini. Other Indian films about her include: Meerabai (1921) by Kanjibhai Rathod, Sant Mirabai (1929) by Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, Rajrani Meera/Meerabai (1933) by Debaki Bose, Meerabai (1936) by T. C. Vadivelu Naicker and A. Narayanan, Sadhvi Meerabai (1937) by Baburao Painter, Bhakta Meera (1938) by Y. V. Rao, Meerabai (1940) by Narasimha Rao Bhimavarapu, Meera (1947) by Ellis Dungan, Matwali Meera (1947) by Baburao Patel, Meerabai (1947) by W. Z. Ahmed, Meerabai (1947) by Nanabhai Bhatt, Girdhar Gopal Ki Mira (1949) by Prafulla Roy, Raj Rani Meera (1956) by G. P. Pawar, Meera Shyam (1976), Meera Ke Girdhar (1992) by Vijay Deep. Mirabai, a 26-episode series based on her life, starring Mrinal Kulkarni, was produced by UTV in 1997. Meera, a 2009 Indian television series based on her life, aired on NDTV Imagine. Shree Krishna Bhakto Meera, a 2021 Indian Bengali mythological television series based on her life, aired on Star Jalsha. Her life was also chronicled in the longest running mythological show, Vighnaharta Ganesh, where Lord Ganesh narrates her story to one of Lord Shiva's gana, Pushpadanta. Mira was portrayed by Lavina Tandon, while Krishna's role was essayed by Hitanshu Jinsi. ==See also==