Mirabai

Mirabai, also known as Meera, was a 16th‑century Hindu mystic poet and devotee of Krishna. She is celebrated as a Bhakti saint, especially within the North Indian tradition, and her presence is noted in the Bhaktamal, indicating that she was a well‑known and cherished figure in the Bhakti movement by about 1600. Her poetry expresses the madhurya bhava, a sweet, loving devotion toward Krishna.

Legends about Mirabai emphasize her fearless disregard for social and family conventions. She devoted herself to music as a means of expressing her devotion, a practice that her in‑laws considered an insult to upper‑caste norms. While her husband is said to have been the only family member who loved and supported her Bhakti, some accounts claim he opposed it.

According to legend, her in‑laws attempted to murder her with poison. Mirabai tied a sacred thread on a murti of Krishna, trusting in His divine protection, and was saved by divine intervention. This story is sometimes cited as the origin of the ritual of tying a rakhi on Krishna’s murti.

Millions of devotional hymns praising Krishna are attributed to Mirabai, but scholars believe only a few hundred are authentic. The earliest written records suggest that, except for two hymns, most were first written down in the 18th century, and many later compositions were likely by admirers of her.

Some Hindu temples, such as one within Chittor Fort, are dedicated to Mirabai’s memory. The contested authenticity of her life stories has inspired movies, films, comic strips, and other popular literature in modern times.

Mirabai’s life is most vividly remembered through her poetry, which has survived in a handful of manuscripts and in the oral tradition. The earliest datable reference to her is a poem in Nabhadas’s Bhaktamal, a hagiographical anthology composed around 1600. This early mention establishes her as a celebrated figure in devotional literature and provides the first textual evidence of her work.

Her compositions are lyrical padas written in the Rajasthani language, often employing the mātric meter. The poems are set to ragas, allowing them to be sung as bhajans. They express her love for Krishna, her salutation, and her feelings of separation, while also conveying a philosophical depth. A popular example is “Payoji maine Ram Ratan dhan payo,” which celebrates the richness of God’s name.

Mirabai’s verses frequently invoke Krishna as Girdhar nagar, the “Mountain bearer,” and portray her total surrender to him as her sole true spouse. In her poems of separation, she sometimes depicts Krishna as a detached yogi who seduces lovers only to leave them in agony. Nature imagery—such as the arrival of monsoon, the cries of peacocks, and cuckoos—mirrors the shifting emotions of union and longing.

Her appeal crossed social boundaries. High‑caste audiences were drawn to her royal suffering, while low‑caste groups admired her renunciation of status and her choice of the untouchable leather‑worker Raidas as her guru. By identifying with the gopis of Braj, she manifested unconditional love that the hagiographer Nabhadas described as remarkable for a “degenerate age.”

Scholars remain divided over the exact number of verses she authored. Only two poems attributed to her have been found in manuscripts dating before the early eighteenth century, and a search of Rajasthan manuscript libraries revealed no examples earlier than the latter half of the eighteenth century, with only a handful predating 1800. The critical edition of Parasuram Caturvedi, which most modern assessments rely on, 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.

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.