27 June 2022 – Women Poets #4

पायो जी मैंने राम रतन धन पायो

"I have been given the richness of Lord's name blessing"

Mirabai – Lover of Krishna

1498 – circa 1546

Today is the fourth post featuring women poets who changed the landscape of the art of poetry. We meet an Indian poet, Mirabai, (also known as Meera Bai, or simply Mira) who is a literary and spiritual figure of legendary proportions in India and elsewhere. Born a princess in the region of Rajasthan in 1498, Mira fought tradition and celebrated a woman's right to an independent life. Her royal family had arranged an early marriage for her, but she felt a marriage to Krishna (deity of compassionate protection and love) was more important. Most legends about Mirabai mention her fearless disregard for social and family conventions, her devotion to Krishna, her treating Krishna as her husband, and being persecuted by her relatives for her religious devotion. As a result, her life became a model of social defiance and spiritual integrity.

This sixteenth-century Hindu writer of ecstatic, mystic poems is widely known and cherished in the medieval revival of the Bhakti movement that emphasized devotion as the way to salvation. There are no surviving manuscripts of her work. As her poetry received more attention, she was (and is) credited with a passionate and blissful poetry style. Even today, her devotional songs are chanted and sung, sometimes accompanied by dance. 

During her lifetime, Mira's reputation spread across her country. She was known as a woman of immense talent and devotion. By the time she died, she was considered a saint. People across India recited and danced to her poems, and they still do today. Mirabai's poetry transcends her time and culture.

Mirabai’s poetry was unique in her day — much more straightforward, emotional, honest and vulnerable. The strength and power of her words stand to this day, a testament to her courage, and to her love-driven life.

Nothing is Really Mine

Nothing is really mine except Krishna.

O my parents, I have searched the world

And found nothing worthy of love.

Hence I am a stranger amidst my kinfolk

And an exile from their company,

Since I seek the companionship of holy men;

There alone do I feel happy,

In the world I only weep.

I planted the creeper of love

And silently watered it with my tears;

Now it has grown and overspread my dwelling.

You offered me a cup of poison

Which I drank with joy.

Mira is absorbed in contemplation of Krishna,

She is with God and all is well!

A Cowherding Girl

The plums tasted

sweet to the unlettered desert-tribe girl-

but what manners! To chew into each! She was ungainly,

low-caste, ill-mannered and dirty,

but the god took the

fruit she'd been sucking.

Why? She'd knew how to love.

She might not distinguish

splendor from filth

but she'd tasted the nectar of passion.

Might not know any Veda,

but a chariot swept her away-

now she frolics in heaven, ecstatically bound

to her god.

The Lord of Fallen Fools, says Mira,

will save anyone

who can practice rapture like that-

I myself in a previous birth

was a cowherding girl

at Gokul.

Mine is the Lifter of Mountains

Mine is the lifter of mountains, the

cowherd, and none other.

O sadhus! there is no other-I have seen

the whole world.

I left brothers, I left kindred, I left

all I had.

Sitting near the sadhus, I lost worldly shame.

I looked at the devotees and I was one with

them; I looked at the world and wept.

With tears I watered love's creeper

and it took root.

I churned the milk, drew out the ghee

and threw away the whey.

Rana sent a cup of poison; I drank it

and stayed ecstatic.

Mira's attachment is strong-what was to

happen has happened.

O friend, I cannot live without the

delightgiver.

Mother-in-law fights, my sister-in-law

teases,

The Rana remains angry.

They have a watchman sitting at the door,

and a lock fastened on it.

Why should I give up my first love,

the love of my former life?

None else pleases me.

I am Mad with Love

I am mad with love

And no one understands my plight.

Only the wounded

Understand the agonies of the wounded,

When the fire rages in the heart.

Only the jeweler knows the value of the jewel,

Not the one who lets it go.

In pain I wander from door to door,

But could not find a doctor.

Says Mira: Harken, my Master,

Mira's pain will subside

When Shyam comes as the doctor.

 

Oh my Mind

O my mind,

Worship the lotus feet of the Indestructible One!

Whatever thou seest twixt earth and sky

Will perish.

Why undertake fasts and pilgrimages?

Why engage in philosophical discussions?

Why commit suicide in Banaras?

Take no pride in the body,

It will soon be mingling with the dust.

This life is like the sporting of sparrows,

It will end with the onset of night.

Why don the ochre robe

And leave Home as a sannyasi?

Those who adopt the external garb of a Jogi,

But do not penetrate to the secret,

Are caught again in the net of rebirth.

Mira's Lord is the courtly Giridhara.

Deign to sever, O Master.

All the knots in her heart.

 

Background

Authentic records about Mira are not available and scholars have attempted to establish her biography from secondary literature that mentions her and wherein dates are sometimes found. One fact is that Mira unwillingly married Bhoj Raj, the crown prince of Mewar in 1516. He was wounded in one of the ongoing wars with the Delhi Sultanate in 1518, and he died of battle wounds in 1521. 

According to a popular legend, her in-laws tried many times to assassinate her, such as her relentless brother-in-law sending Meera a glass of poison and telling her it was nectar or sending her a basket with a snake instead of flowers. She remained unhurt through these attempts on her life. In her last years, another legend says that Mira lived in Dwarka or Vrindavan, where it is said that she miraculously disappeared by merging into an idol of Krishna in 1547. 

The three different oldest records are known as of 2014, all from the 17th century and written within 150 years of Mira's death; neither mention anything about her childhood or circumstances of her marriage to Bhoraj nor do they mention that the people who persecuted her were her in-laws or from some Rajput royal family.

Millions of devotional hymns in passionate praise of Krishna are attributed to Mirabai in the Indian tradition, but just a few hundred are believed to be authentic by scholars, and the earliest written records suggest that except for two hymns, most were written down only in the 18th century. Many poems attributed to Mira were likely composed later by others who admired her work. These hymns are a type of bhajan, a devotional spiritual writing, usually paired with music and/or dance. 

There are no surviving manuscripts of her poetry from her time and the earliest records with two poems credited to her are from early 18th-century, more than 150 years after her death. The largest collection of poems credited to her are in 19th-century manuscripts. Scholars have attempted to establish authenticity based on both the poem and Mira being mentioned in other manuscripts as well as from style, linguistics, and form. 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." 

The continued influence of Mira, in part, has been her message of freedom, her resolve and right to pursue her devotion to deity Krishna and her spiritual beliefs as she felt drawn to despite her persecution. “Her appeal and influence in Indian culture," writes Edwin Bryant, "is from her emerging, through her legends and poems, as a person ". . . who stands up for what is right and suffers bitterly for holding fast to her convictions, as other men and women have, yet she does so with a language of love, with words painting the full range of emotions that mark love, whether between human beings or between human and divine."

Exploration 1: What do you think of Mirabai’s complete devotion to Krishna. In other parts of the world, she is still revered; however, in the West, we barely hear of her. Many may think of her as fanatically unbalanced; however, is she really much different from some of our Western saints?

Exploration 2: When a person leaves her/his culture, norms, and traditions to follow a divergent path, what are they likely to encounter today? Examples?

Exploration 3: Here are some of Mirabai’s teachings. In your opinion are any, some, or all of them relevant today?

1. She did not believe in the caste hierarchy and instead attacked higher caste standards.

2. She fled the kingdom because of her great devotion to Lord Krishna.

3. She was not a follower of kingly traditions.

4. She preached love while avoiding hatred.

5. Despite being from the royal family, she became a follower of Ravidas, who was considered untouchable.