This month we travel from sunny Spain to northern India to take a look at a Brahmin princess who has been immortalized since the 15th century. Mirabai, who was born into a royal family in 1498, was a Hindi mystic, a poetess, a princess, and a Bhakti yogini saint. She is also known by various other names including Meera, Mira, Meera Bai, but whatever name by which she is known, her contribution to Indian culture has never been contested.
Mirabai is perhaps the most well remembered and most quoted women in Indian history. Versions of her songs and poetry are still sung across all of India today, and this Rajput princess is the subject of books, films, dances, plays and paintings.
Gandhi lifted Mirabai up as an example and symbol of a woman who has the right to choose her own path, forsake a life of luxury, and find liberation through nonviolent resistance. Her life was such that, even 500 years after her death, it still deeply resonates in the hearts of many in modern India.
Mirabai’s life is steeped in legend, and most of what we do know is more conjecture and guesswork than fact. The actual details of this lady’s life remain so heavily obscured by legend that there is ongoing argument over what is fact and what is fiction.
What is fascinating are the many parallels that can be drawn between Mirabai and some of the other mystical poets we have already visited in this series. One such parallel is the fact that Mirabai was born into turbulent times. The political and social climate at the time of her birth was uneasy at best and stormy at worst. There was tremendous unrest between the Muslim forces invading northern India during this period and the Hindu population which was in a continuing struggle to maintain their traditional livelihoods and culture.
Mira, like Saint Teresa, lived in a time and place where the sexual virtue and honor of women were fiercely guarded. This made the lifestyle and actions of this saint even more shocking to her family. Not only was she locked up within her own house, there are at least a couple of occasions where her husband’s family actually tried to kill her because of her public displays of worship and adoration of Krishna.
When Mirabai was eighteen she was given in marriage to Bhoj Raj, the crown prince of Mewar. The prince was killed in battle only five years later. Rather than sacrificing herself on his funeral pyre as was expected, Mira saw widowhood as the god-given opportunity to live as the totally devoted spouse to her divine lord Krishna.
For the rest of her life, her days were given over to worship and singing praises to Krishna. She also openly denied her caste and royal position by devoting time to caring for the religious poor and needy.
Because of her refusal to commit sati (the act of a widow throwing herself on her deceased husband’s funeral pyre and burning herself alive), and her public displays of religious ecstasy, both her late husband’s family and her own made life extremely difficult for Mira. She finally fled to Vrindaban, the birthplace of Krishna, where she joined a Bhakti community. Once there, she ignored the normal gender, class, caste and religious boundaries, and spent her time in worship, praise and caring for the poor.
Mirabai’s primary contribution to the Bhakti movement, however, was her music. She wrote hundreds of songs, and like the Sufi poet Hafiz, even initiated a new mode of singing known as a raga.
Most scholars agree that there are between 200-400 songs that were written by Mira, and another 800-1,000 that are attributed to her. Attributing authorship is doubly difficult because the songs were preserved orally and not written down, and also because Mirabai, selflessly, did not credit herself as the writer of the songs.
Mirabai’s poetry and songs express her love and devotion to Krishna. The songs speak of both the joy and the pain of love. In her poems, Mira perceives Krishna to be her husband, lover, lord and master. Her poems are filled with sensuous imagery and with intense longing.
A unique characteristic of Mirabai’s poetry is her complete surrender to her love for Krishna, and the expression of her already mentioned intense longing for complete union with the one she loves.
Mirabai’s poems are traditionally known as padas, a term coined in the 14th century to describe small spiritual songs. Mirabai also used the form of typical Indian love poetry as an instrument to express her deepest emotions for her beloved Krishna. In this she was again following a practice used by the Sufi saint and mystic, Hafiz.
Mirabai is not as well known as some of her contemporaries such as Kabir and Tulsi Das. But her poetry of love and devotion for the lord Krishna is significant in its own right and provides a unique contribution to the history and culture of northern India.
All I Was Doing Was Breathing
English version by
Robert Bly
Something has reached out and taken in the beams of my eyes.
There is a longing, it is for his body, for every hair of that dark body.
All I was doing was being, and the Dancing Energy came by my house.
His face looks curiously like the moon, I saw it from the side, smiling.
My family says: "Don't ever see him again!" And they imply things in a low voice.
But my eyes have their own life; they laugh at rules, and know whose they are.
I believe I can bear on my shoulders whatever you want to say of me.
Mira says: Without the energy that lifts mountains, how am I to live?
Dark Friend, what can I say?
English version by
Andrew Schelling |
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Dark Friend, what can I say?
This love I bring
from distant lifetimes is ancient,
do not revile it.
Seeing your elegant body
I am ravished.
Visit our courtyard, hear the women
singing old hymns
On the square I've laid
out a welcome of teardrops,
body and mind I surrendered ages ago,
taking refuge
wherever your feet pass.
Mira flees from lifetime to lifetime,
your virgin.
Friend, without that Dark raptor
English version by
Andrew Schelling |
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Friend, without that Dark raptor
I could not survive.
Mother-in-law shrills at me,
her daughter sneers,
the prince stumbles about in a permanent fury.
Now they've bolted my door
and mounted a guard.
But who could abandon a love
developed through uncounted lifetimes?
The Dark One is Mirabai's lord,
who else could
slake her desire?
I am pale with longing for my beloved;
English version by
Andrew Schelling
I am pale with longing for my beloved;
People believe I am ill.
Seizing on every possible pretext,
I try to meet him "by accident."
They have sent for a country doctor;
He grabs my arm and prods it;
How can he diagnose my pain?
It's in my heart that I am afflicted.
Go home, country doctor,
Don't address me by my name;
It's the name of God that has wounded me,
Don't force your medicines on me.
The sweetness of his lips is a pot of nectar,
That's the only curd for which I crave;
Mira's Lord is Giridhar Naagar.
He will feed me nectar again and again.
I am true to my Lord
English version by
F. E. Keay |
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I am true to my Lord,
O my companions, there is nothing to be ashamed of now
Since I have been seen dancing openly.
In the day I have no hunger
At night I am restless and cannot sleep.
Leaving these troubles behind, I go to the other side;
A hidden knowledge has taken hold of me.
My relations surround me like bees.
But Mira is the servant of her beloved Giridhar,
And she cares nothing that people mock her.
It's True I Went to the Market
English version by
Robert Bly |
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My friend, I went to the market and bought the Dark One.
You claim by night, I claim by day.
Actually I was beating a drum all the time I was buying him.
You say I gave too much; I say too little.
Actually, I put him on a scale before I bought him.
What I paid was my social body, my town body, my family body, and all my inherited jewels.
Mirabai says: The Dark One is my husband now.
Be with me when I lie down; you promised me this in an earlier life.
No one knows my invisible life
English version by
Willis Barnstone |
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No one knows my invisible life.
Pain
and madness for Rama.
Our wedding bed is high up
in the gallows.
Meet him?
If the dark healer comes,
we'll negotiate the hurt.
I love the man who takes care
of cows. The cowherd.
Cowherd and dancer.
My eyes are drunk,
worn out from making love
with him. We are one.
I am now his dark color.
People notice me, point fingers at me.
They see my desire,
since I'm walking about like a lunatic.
I'm wiped out, gone.
Yet no one knows I live with my prince,
the cowherd.
The palace can't contain me.
I leave it behind.
I couldn't care less about gossip
or my royal name.
I'll be with him
in all his gardens.
The Dagger
English version by
Robert Bly |
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The Dark One threw me a glance like a dagger today.
Since that moment, I am insane; I can't find my body.
The pain has gone through my arms and legs, and I can't find my mind.
At least three of my friends are completely mad.
I know the thrower of daggers well; he enjoys roving the woods.
The partridge loves the moon; and the lamplight pulls in the moth.
You know, for the fish, water is precious; without it, the fish dies.
If he is gone, how shall I live? I can't live without him.
Go and speak to the dagger-thrower: Say, Mira belongs to you.
O my friends
English version by
Jane Hirshfield
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O my friends,
What can you tell me of Love,
Whose pathways are filled with strangeness?
When you offer the Great One your love,
At the first step your body is crushed.
Next be ready to offer your head as his seat.
Be ready to orbit his lamp like a moth giving in to the light,
To live in the deer as she runs toward the hunter's call,
In the partridge that swallows hot coals for love of the moon,
In the fish that, kept from the sea, happily dies.
Like a bee trapped for life in the closing of the sweet flower,
Mira has offered herself to her Lord.
She says, the single Lotus will swallow you whole.
The Heat of Midnight Tears
English version by
Robert Bly
Listen, my friend, this road is the heart opening,
Kissing his feet, resistance broken, tears all night.
If we could reach the Lord through immersion in water,
I would have asked to be born a fish in this life.
If we could reach Him through nothing but berries and wild nuts,
Then surely the saints would have been monkeys when they came from the womb!
If we could reach him by munching lettuce and dry leaves,
Then the goats would surely go to the Holy One before us!
If the worship of stone statues could bring us all the way,
I would have adored a granite mountain years ago.
Mirabai says: The heat of midnight tears will bring you to God.
The Music
English version by
Robert Bly |
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My friend, the stain of the Great Dancer has penetrated my body.
I drank the cup of music, and I am hopelessly drunk.
Moreover I stay drunk, no matter what I do to become sober.
Rana, who disapproves, gave me one basket with a snake in it.
Mira folded the snake around her neck, it was a lover's necklace, lovely!
Rana's next gift was poison: "This is something for you, Mira."
She repeated the Holy Name in her chest, and drank it, it was good!
Every name He has is praise; that's the cup I like to drink, and only that.
"The Great Dancer is my husband," Mira says, "rain washes off all the other colors."
Unbreakable, O Lord
English version by
Jane Hirshfield |
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Unbreakable, O Lord,
Is the love
That binds me to You:
Like a diamond,
It breaks the hammer that strikes it.
My heart goes into You
As the polish goes into the gold.
As the lotus lives in its water,
I live in You.
Like the bird
That gazes all night
At the passing moon,
I have lost myself dwelling in You.
O my Beloved --
Return.
Why Mira Can't Come Back to Her Old House
English version by
Robert Bly |
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The colors of the Dark One have penetrated Mira's body; all the other colors washed out.
Making love with the Dark One and eating little, those are my pearls and my carnelians.
Meditation beads and the forehead streak, those are my scarves and my rings.
That's enough feminine wiles for me. My teacher taught me this.
Approve me or disapprove me: I praise the Mountain Energy night and day.
I take the path that ecstatic human beings have taken for centuries.
I don't steal money, I don't hit anyone. What will you charge me with?
I have felt the swaying of the elephant's shoulders; and now you want me to climb on a jackass?
Try to be serious.