Chapter 5: The similarities and importance of bhakti and
6.1: A short biography
Much of Mirabai‟s life is related in both oral and written stories of Hindu saints, together with devotional verses which have been preserved and collected over time.50 From these stories, and the oral traditions developed around them, it is possible to piece together the life of this remarkable woman.
Most accounts agree that Mirabai was born around 1498 in the village of Kurki near Merta, which is about 220 miles south west of Delhi. Her family was Rajput royalty, the Rathors, who ruled over Merta and the surrounding villages. Mirabai was the only daughter of the family and it seems that her mother died when she was very young.
Her family was Vaisnava.51 According to legends, as a small child Mira had given some food to a wandering sadhu,52 who, in response, pushed a tiny statue of Krishna into her small hands. Mira treasured this gift, and indeed fell in love with this image of Krishna. One day, after repeatedly asking her mother who her future husband would be, her mother frustratedly pointed to the statue, and exclaimed “There he is!” And so, as she grew, Mira came to believe that she would be married to Krishna.
50 Stories of the saints have been collected and preserved in hagiographic texts called
bhaktamals. Nabhadas (1600CE) is the primary author of the bhaktamal which refer to Mira.
However these are expanded in commentaries written by members of differing religious sects or sampradays. Priyadas (1712CE) and Anantadas offer more detailed accounts of her life.
For more information on the development of the biographical accounts of Mira, see Mukta Chapter 1 “Upholding the common life”
51 Worshippers of Vishnu, of which Krishna is an incarnation.
52 Ascetic holy men.
Although the Rathors were a wealthy and powerful family, the period into which Mira was born was one of political instability. As many clans fought over territorial boundaries, the Rathors were not exempt from the conflict.
Mira‟s father spent long periods away from home fighting. Consequently, Mira was sent to stay with her grandfather, Dudaji53 in Merta; it was to him that she owed her education in the arts of fighting, dancing, singing, and also in the Sanskrit of the Vedas, Puranas and Upanishads.
In addition to this territorial in-fighting, Muslim power was growing. The only hope of Rajput survival was unity among the feuding Rajput families.
To this end, Mira‟s family sought to establish a political alliance with one of the other royal clans by arranging her marriage into the politically stronger family of Sisodiya Rajputs of Mewar and Chittor. So it was in 1516 that Mira, aged 18, married Prince Bhoj Raj. However, legend has it that just before the wedding Mira performed the marriage rituals with her beloved statue of Krishna. Accordingly, Mira steadfastly refused to acknowledge her marriage to Bhoj Raj. Indeed, when the hands of the couple were to be joined, Mira joined her left hand with Bhoj Raj‟s right, causing great offence. When asked to explain her actions, she declared she had no other hand to give him, since she had already given her right hand to Krishna in marriage. The image portrayed in these legends is one of a defiant love for God, a love that leads her to reject the social expectations for women of royal households in her day.
After the marriage, upon arrival at the home of her in-laws, Mira was once again in conflict with traditional norms of behavior. She refused to bow down either to the family goddess or to her new husband. The Sisodiya families were worshippers of Shiva. By tradition, Mira would have been expected to assume their form of worship. Yet another legend tells the story of how Mira
53 Mira‟s great- grandfather, Jodhaji, had founded the city of Jodhpur, which is still one of Rajasthan‟s primary centres of handcraft and trade. Her grandfather Dudaji had later conquered Merta together with 360 surrounding villages, and gave to Mira‟s father, Ratnasingh, twelve of them, including Kudki, where Mira was born.
respectfully touched the feet of her mother in law, but walked past the image of the Goddess, stating that she would never bow to a lump of stone.
Moreover, she spoke continually of how she had already been pledged to Krishna, who alone was her true husband. Therefore, legend also tells that she refused to consummate the marriage or to sleep with her husband. This led to great suspicion and much jealousy, fueled by accounts of her husband heard her talking and laughing behind the closed and locked doors of her room.
When he broke the door down, he found her worshipping at her altar. These patterns of behaviour so outraged her mother in-law that the obstinacy of Mira was raised formally with the family elders. In an attempt to break her behaviour, her in-laws built a separate living area for Mira, thinking that a period of isolation might break her. However, this simply gave Mira the space she needed for her devotion to grow, and she soon began to entertain holy men, thereby further alienating her in-laws by her “scandalous”
behaviour. Eventually, the family resorted to sending poison for her to drink, but, as Mira drank the potent liquid, it was, through the grace and protection of Krishna, changed into sweet nectar. The nectar made her more beautiful and youthful than ever.
Mira and her husband never produced any children, and it appears that he died on the battlefield shortly after their marriage. In her poems54 Mira spoke of herself as being a virgin and the non-consummation of their marriage became an important part of the legends surrounding Mira. After Bhoj Raj‟s death, Mira refused either to burn herself or to mourn the loss of her husband.
Instead, she took to the streets, singing and dancing and dedicating her life to Krishna. Increasingly, Mira spent time with sadhus and low caste bhaktas in the local temples. It was even said that she accepted a leather worker, Rohidas, as her guru. Because of his occupation, Rohidas would have been considered unclean. However, we are told that Mira, despite the deepening
54 Poem 51 “Servant Mira takes refuge at Thy feet: For Thy sake has she remained a virgin from birth to birth.” And poem 77 “For Thy sake have I preserved virginity.”
wrath of her family, chose to maintain this relationship (Mukta 1999; 73). As her in-laws‟ rage became enflamed, there were increased attempts on her life were made by the family. Baskets of fruit would be placed in her room, with deadly cobras hidden in them. The family forced her to lie on a bed of razor sharp spikes; miraculously, however, the spikes were turned into flower petals. Each time, God intervened and saved Mira.
Mira knew that she could no longer live with her husband‟s family, and so she fled the Sisodiya region, and escaped by foot leaving all that had bound her:
her wealth, her status, her marriage, her life as she knew it. The rest of her life she spent wandering in the forests, villages and temples of north India.
Her songs of devotion and love for God inspired the hearts of many, and as she travelled so her fame and popularity grew. Her songs were unlike those of Surdas and Tulsidas,55for they did not carry theological arguments, but were songs of deep-felt emotions of ecstasy, desire, frustration, despair. And it was this that captured the hearts of ordinary men and women. She condemned injustice, pride, power, wealth and gender discrimination. She chose to mix freely with people from every caste and tribe, and mocked many forms of oppressive institutionalized religion. Mira spoke with a passion and intensity that was reckless, rebellious and wildly intense, driven by her untamed abandonment to the love of God.
In the latter part of her life, it appears Mira was staying in the coastal Gujurat city of Dwarka, worshipping at the Ranachor temple. During this period, in 1534, in her homeland, the Sisodiya family had suffered devastating military attacks at the hands of Muslim powers. Many men were killed and thirteen hundred women committed johar56 (Mukta 1999; 56). Rumours began to spread that this tragedy was divine retribution for the manner in which the Sisodiya family had treated Mira. As unrest and rumours grew amongst their
55 Both were well known bhaktas during this period.
56 Johar is mass suicide by burning in the flames of a communal altar.
own people, Mira‟s in-laws decided to bring her home, in order to stabilize their rule. Civic officials and priests were sent to Dwarka in about 1547 to fetch her. Although initially she refused, it appears that they vowed to fast until she changed her mind. She did not want to be held accountable for their starvation, but neither could Mira ever return to the life she had rejected, and so she requested to spend a final night alone in the temple of her God. In the morning, all that remained was Mira‟s robe and hair, draped across the feet of God. It was said that she had during the night melted into the image of Krishna.
Mukta writes that “it is significant that while the bhajans ring out the survival of Mira in the face of the Rana‟s attempts to kill her, there is not a single bhajan which mentions the ultimate destruction of the person of Mira. The bhajniks keep alive the life that was Mira‟s, not her death” (Mukta 1999; 225).