Meera Bai Bhajans

Meera bai

Meerabai (Rajasthani: मीराबाई) (c.1498-c.1547AD) (alternate orthographies: Meera; Mira; Meera Bai) was an aristocratic Hindu mystical singer and sahajiya (apasampradaya) devotee of lord Krishna from Rajasthan and one of the most significant figures of the Sant tradition of the Vaishnava bhakti movement. Some 12-1300 prayerful songs or bhajans attributed to her are popular throughout India and have been published in several translations worldwide. In the bhakti tradition, they are in passionate praise of lord Krishna.
Details of her life, which has been the subject of several films, are pieced together from her poetry and stories recounted by her community and are of debatable historical authenticity, particularly those that connect her with the later Tansen. On the other hand, the traditions that make her a disciple of Ravidas who disputed with Rupa Goswami are consonant with the usual account of her life.

Meera, a Rajput princesswas born in Kudki (Kurki), a little village near sewariya, which is presently in the pali district of Rajasthan in northwest India. Her father, Ratan Singh Rathore, was a warrior of the Rathore clan, the son of Rao Jodha of Mandore (1416-1489 AD), founder of the city of Jodhpur in 1459 AD.
As an infant Meera became deeply enamored of an iconic idol of Krishna owned by a visiting holy man; she was inconsolable until she possessed it and probably kept it all her life. Her mother was supportive of her religious tendencies but she died early.
Meera’s marriage was arranged at an early age, traditionally to Prince Bhoj Raj, the eldest son of Rana Sanga of Chittor. However her new family did not approve of her piety and devotion when she refused to worship their family deity and maintained that she was only truly married to Krishna.
The Rajputana had remained fiercely independent of the Delhi Sultanate, the Islamic regime that otherwise ruled Hindustan after the conquests of Timur. But in the early 16th century AD the central Asian concquerer Babur laid claim to the Sultanate and some Rajputs supported him while others ended their lives in battle with him. Her husband's death in battle (in 1527 AD?) was only one of a series of losses Meera experienced in her twenties, including the death of her mother. She appears to have despaired of loving anything temporal and turned to the eternal, transforming her grief into a passionate spiritual devotion that inspired in her countless songs drenched with separation and longing.
Meera's devotion to Krishna was at first a private thing but at some moment it overflowed into an ecstasy that led her to dance in the streets of the city. Her brother-in-law, the new ruler of Chittorgarh, was Vikramaditya, an ill-natured youth who strongly objected to Meera's fame, her mixing with commoners and carelessness of feminine modesty. There were several attempts to poison her. Her sister-in-law Udabai is said to have spread defamatory gossip.
At some time Meera declared herself a disciple of the guru Ravidas ("guru miliyaa raidasjee") and left for the centre of Krishnaism, Vrindavan. She considered herself to be a reborn gopi, Lalita, mad with love for Krishna. Folklore informs us of a particular incident where she expressed her desire to engage in a discussion about spiritual matters with Rupa Goswami, a direct disciple of Chaitanya and one of the foremost saint of Vrindavan that time who, being a renunciate celibate, refused to meet a woman. Meera replied that the only true man (purusha) in this universe is lord Krishna. She continued her pilgrimage, "danced from one village to another village, almost covering the whole north of India".^[4] One story has her appearing in the company of Kabir in Kashi, once again causing affront to social mores. She seems to have spent her last years as a pilgrim in Dwarka, Gujarat.It is said that Mirabai disappeared into the Dwarkashish Murti (Image of Lord Krishana) in front of a full audience of onlookers.

Poetry

Meera's songs are in a simple form called a pada (verse), a term used for a small spiritual song, usually composed in simple rhythms with a repeating refrain, collected in her Padavali. The extant versions are in a Rajasthani and Braj, a dialect of Hindi spoken in and around Vrindavan (the childhood home of Krishna), sometimes mixed with Rajasthani, and in Gujarati:

That dark dweller in Braj

Is my only refuge.

O my companion, worldly comfort is an illusion,

As soon you get it, it goes.

I have chosen the indestructible for my refuge,

Him whom the snake of death will not devour.

My beloved dwells in my heart all day,

I have actually seen that abode of joy.

Meera's lord is Hari, the indestructible.

My lord, I have taken refuge with you, your maidservant

Although Meera is often classed with the northern Sant bhaktis who spoke of a formless divinity,^[1] there is no doubt that she presents Krishna as the historical master of the Bhagavad Gita who is, even so, the perfect Avatar of the eternal, who is omnipresent but particularly focussed in his icon and his temple. She speaks of a personal relationship with Krishna as her lover, lord and master. The characteristic of her poetry is complete surrender. Her longing for union with Krishna is predominant in her poetry: she wants to be "coloured with the colour of dusk" (the symbolic colour of Krishna).

English versions

Alston and Subramanian have published selections with English translation in India. Schelling and Levi have offered anthologies in the USA. Snell^[8] has presented parallel translations in his collection The Hindi Classical Tradition.
Some bhajans of Meera have been rendered by Robert Bly in his Mirabai Versions (New York; Red Ozier Press, 1984). Bly has also collaborated with Jane Hirshfield on Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems.

<sup>Source : Wikipedia

E-Books:</sup>

1. Meera Sudha Sindhu in Hindi (1070 Pages)

^{2. Meera Brihad Pada Sangrah in Hindi}

^{3. Meera ki Bhakti in Hindi}

^{4. Meera bai ki Prema Sadhana in Hindi} 

^{5. Meera Madhuri in telugu by E. Panduranga Rao} 

^{6. Madhura Bhakti-Meera bai & Godadevi Jeeva Charitra in telugu by V T Seshacharyulu}

<sup>Web Links:


Meera Bhajans in Hindi Huge Compilation 

Meera Bhajans in Gujarati at Swargarohan site</sup>

Audio:

 

1. Meera Bhajans by Lata Mangeshkar 

2. Meera bhajans by Anuradha Paudwal