In the Dark of the Heart, Songs of Meera

by Mīrābāī, Shama Futehally

Meera, they said, was mad.
She is also the symbol Mahatma Gandhi chose to inspire his modern Indian renaissance, and the archetypal female saint, whose songs of love and devotion remain an integral part of Indian life and culture.
Meera was a sixteenth century Rajput princess who renounced her privileged life and royal family to live as a mendicantwandering, dancing, and singing the praises of God. A devotee of Krishna, she was part of an influential religious movement (bhakti) that rejected distinctions of caste and creed, shunned the stultifying rituals and inaccessible scripture of conservative religion, and believed that direct union with God was possible for all - men and women, highborn and lowborn.
Mystical, celebratory, and frankly feminine, the songs of Meera embrace and evoke all of life - the ordinary, lowly, and humble; the natural world and all its creatures; love and longing. They express a passionate faith that liberates and breaks down barriers, merging the human and the divine and challenging all notions of rank and hierarchy. Both poetry and prayer, these extraordinary songs reflect an all encompassing spirituality and ardent devotion that remains part of the living folk tradition of India.

Genres: Poetry, Religion

138 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 1994

About the author

Meera [(ca. 1498-1547)], also known as Mira Bai, was a 16th century Hindu mystic poetess and devotee of Krishna. She is celebrated as a poet and has been definitively claimed by the North Indian Hindu tradition of Bhakti saints.

Meera was born in a royal family of Rajasthan, and her education included music, religion, politics and government. She married Bhojraj the crown prince of Mewar in 1516, her husband was wounded in 1518 and died in 1521 after a Hindu-Muslim battle, her own father died in a war with Babur's army in 1527, and little else is known about her life with any certainty. She is mentioned in Bhaktamal, confirming that she was widely known and a cherished figure in the Indian bhakti movement culture by about 1600 CE. Most legends about Meera mention her fearless disregard for social and family conventions, her devotion to god Krishna, her treating Krishna as her lover and husband, and she being persecuted by her in-laws for her religious devotion. She has been the subject of numerous folk tales and hagiographic legends, which are inconsistent or widely different in details.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some beautiful moments, but the translation's format was distracting. If only I could read Sanskrit :(