Mīrābāī's Songs

The Bride of Giridhar

Mīrā was born into a Rājpūt house in the Merta region of Rajasthan, in the early sixteenth century. The tradition says that as a child she watched a wedding procession pass and asked her mother, who will be my bridegroom? Her mother, laughing, pointed at the family's Kṛṣṇa image. The child took the answer for life.

She was married young into the royal house of Mewar — to Bhoj Rāj, son of the great Rāṇā Sāṅgā. And early came widowhood; Bhoj Rāj fell in battle. The court reminded her of the rite of satī. Mīrā refused: my husband is Giridhar Gopāl — the name that became her most famous line, "mere to giridhar gopāl, dūsro na koī": mine is Giridhar Gopāl, I have no other. She began to go to the temples, to sing and dance with the devotees — everything a Rājpūt queen was not permitted to do.

The Poison Cup

The court of Mewar could not bear it. First they sent her a cup of poison. Mīrā offered it to Kṛṣṇa and drank, and the story says the poison turned to nectar. Then a snake was sent in a basket of flowers — when the basket opened it held a garland. The third test was a bed of nails, which became a bed of flowers. Each time the same turn: the harm sent against her came back as the next line of her songs.

It is said she wrote to Tulsīdās — my family is all obstacle; save me — and Tulsīdās answered that for one who has no world left, only Rāma and love, no bond of the world is a bond. Then Mīrā left Mewar on foot, a one-stringed ektārā in hand, on the road to Vrindāvan and Dvārakā, singing what is sung still.

The Road to Dwarka

Her bhajans have been alive for five centuries — in every bhajan group of north India, in every Kṛṣṇa temple. At Vrindāvan, the saint Jīva Gosvāmī at first refused to see her — I do not look upon women — and she answered: I thought there was only one man in Vrindāvan. Gosvāmī came barefoot to her darshan.

The tradition says that in her last years she reached Dvārakā, Kṛṣṇa's own city, and there, before the image of Raṇachoḍjī, she merged into the one she had called bridegroom since childhood. The story ends exactly where her songs begin: a princess who refused every claim of the court, and chose a love no court could frighten.