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Mirabai

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M. S. Subbulakshmi as Meera in a 1945 film.

For others with the same name, see Meera (disambiguation)

Mirabai (मीराबाई) (c.1498-c.1547CE) (alternate orthographies: Meera; Mira; Meera Bai) was an aristocratic Hindu mystical singer and devotee of Rajasthan and one of the most significant figures of the Sant tradition of the Vaishnava bhakti movement. Some 12-1300 prayerful songs or bhajans attributed to her are popular throughout India and have been published in several translations world-wide. In the bhakti tradition, they are in passionate praise of Krishna.

Details of her life, which has been the subject of several films, are pieced together from her poetry and stories recounted by her community and are of debatable historical authenticity, particularly those that connect her with the later Tansen. On the other hand, the traditions that make her a disciple of Ravidas who disputed with Rupa Goswami are consonant with the usual account of her life.

Biography

Meera, a Rajput princess was born in Kudki , a little village near Merta, which is presently in the Pali district of Rajasthan in northwest India. Her father, Ratan Singh, was a warrior of the Rathore clan, the son of Rao Jodha of Mandore (1416-1489 ), founder of the city of Jodhpur in 1459.

As an infant Meera became deeply enamoured of an iconic doll of Krishna owned by a visiting holy man.

Meera’s marriage was arranged at an early age, traditionally to Prince Bhoj Raj, the eldest son of Rana Sanga of Chittorgarh. Her new family did not approve of her piety and devotion when she refused to worship their family deity and maintained that she was only truly married to Krishna.The Meera Museum in Merta City. The Rajputana had remained fiercely independent of the Delhi Sultanate the Islamic regime that otherwise ruled Hindustan after the conquests of Timur. But in the early 16th century the central Asian warlord Babur laid claim to the Sultanate and some Rajputs supported him while others ended their lives in battle with him. Her husband's death in battle (in 1527 ) was only one of a series of losses Meera experienced in her twenties, including the death of her parents. She appears to have despaired of loving anything temporal and turned to the eternal, transforming her grief into a passionate spiritual devotion that inspired in her countless songs drenched with pain and separation from her Krishna.

Meera's devotion to Krishna was at first a private thing but at some moment it overflowed into an ecstasy that led her to dance in the streets of the city. Her brother-in-law, the new ruler of Chittorgarh, was Vikramjit Singh, an ill-natured youth who strongly objected to Meera's fame, her mixing with commoners and carelessness of feminine modesty. There were several attempts to poison her. Her sister-in-law Udabai is said to have spread defamatory gossip.

At some time Meera declared herself a disciple of the guru ravidas . She considered herself to be a reborn gopi, Lalita, mad with love for Krishna. However the priest in charge of the temple of Mathura sometimes identified as Rupa Goswami, a disciple of Chaitanya is said to have refused allow Meera to enter the temple because she was a woman. Mirabai replied there was only one real man in Vrindavan, Krishna; everyone else was a gopi of Krishna. She continued her pilgrimage, "danced from one village to another village, almost covering the whole north of India" One story has her appearing in the company of Kabir in Kashi, once again causing affront to social mores. She appears to have spent her last years as a pilgrim in Dwarka inGujarat.

Poetry

Meera's songs are in a simple form called a pada ("foot" or verse"), a term used for a small spiritual song, usually composed in simple rhythms with a repeating refrain. Her collection of songs is called the Padavali. The extant versions are in a Rajasthani dialect of Hindi, Braj, a dialect of Hindi spoken in and around Vrindavan (the childhood home of Krishna), sometimes mixed with Rajasthani, and in Gujarati:

That dark dweller in Braj
Is my only refuge.
O my companion, worldly comfort is an illusion,
As soon you get it, it goes.
I have chosen the indestructible for my refuge,
Him whom the snake of death will not devour.
My beloved dwells in my heart all day,
I have actually seen that abode of joy.
Meera's lord is Hari, the indestructible.
My lord, I have taken refuge with you, your maidservant

Although Meera is often classed with the northern Sant bhaktis who spoke of a formless divinity,[1] there is no doubt that she presents Krishna as the historical master of the Bhagavad Gita who is, even so, the perfect avatar of the eternal, who is omnipresent but particularly focussed in his icon and his temple. She speaks of a personal relationship with Krishna as her lover, lord and master. The characteristic of her poetry is complete surrender. Her longing for union with Krishna is predominant in her poetry: she wants to be "coloured with the colour of dusk" (the symbolic colour of Krishna).

The bhajans of Meera have been translated by Robert Bly in his Mirabai Versions (New York; Red Ozier Press, 1984). Composer John Harbison adapted Bly's translations for his Mirabai Songs. There is a documentary film A Few Things I Know About Her by Anjali Panjabi.[2] Two well-known films of her life have been made in India.Also a new tv show has been made based on meera's life history called MEERA which is produced by sagar arts (famous for producing tv shows ramayana and mahabharata).This show was started on 27th july 2009 and is shown at 8pm IST from monday to friday on ndtv imagine.Aashika Bhatia plays the role of 9yr old meera in this show.[3]

Bibliography

  • Caturvedī, Ācārya Parashurām(a), Mīrāʼnbāī kī padāvalī,(16. edition),
  • Alston, A.J., The Devotional Poems of Mīrābāī, Delhi 1980
  • Bly, Robert / Hirshfield, Jane, Mīrābāī: Ecstatic Poems, Boston, Massachusetts 2004
  • Levi, Louise Landes, Sweet On My Lips: The Love Poems of Mirabai, New York 1997
  • Schelling, Andrew, For Love of the Dark One: Songs of Mirabai, Prescott, Arizona 1998
  • Goetz, Hermann, Mira Bai: Her Life and Times, Bombay 1966
  • Mirabai: Liebesnärrin. Die Verse der indischen Dichterin und Mystikerin. Translated from Rajasthani into German by Shubhra Parashar. Kelkheim, 2006 (ISBN 3-935727-09-7)
  • Hawley, John Stratton. The Bhakti Voices: Mirbai, Surdas, and Kabir in Their Times and Ours, Oxford 2005.
  • Snell, Rupert. The Hindi Classical Tradition A Braj Bhasa Reader, London 1991, pp 39, 104-109. (poems are in both Braj Bhasa Hindi and English)

See also

References

  1. ^ Gavin Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism, Cambridge 1996, page 144
  2. ^ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/25053908.cms
  3. ^ http://ndtvimagine.com/shows/index.php?id=130
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